Colonial Americans participated in a wide variety of recreational activities that included games, races, and indoor entertainments such as card games and board games. Most of these activities were simple and several, socially acceptable in that age, are illegal today. Recreation was influenced by long traditions in England although some French influences introduced new variations of older, continental games. Recreation was often characterized by social class although some activities bridged the class structures.
Popular Outdoor Activities and Games
Ninepins was an early variation of bowling. Former Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Dale Taylor states that the “nature of the references” to the game “indicate it was a popular game throughout the period.” In Washington Irving's short story Rip Van Winkle, Rip falls into a deep twenty-year sleep after witnessing a game of ninepins being played by Henry Hudson and his crew. The fact that Irving references the game for an early 19th-Century audience indicates the popularity of the game.
Bowls, a game similar to boccie ball, was also a popular outdoor game. According to legend, when told that the Spanish Armada was sighted off the coast of England, Sir Francis Drake insisted on finishing his game of bowls.
Dog fighting and cockfighting, illegal today, were very popular and, according to historian David Hawke, “flourished everywhere in early America” but were most popular in southern colonies like South Carolina. Cockfighting was a favorite entertainment for Andrew Jackson. Ed Crews, a writer for the Colonial Williamsburg Journal, writes that cockfighting “reached its zenith in British North America between 1750 and 1800.” Many rings for cockfighting were found outside taverns.
Gambling was an important part of outdoor recreation and this included wrestling, boxing, horse races, target shooting, cockfighting, and dog and rat fights. Dogs were also used in bull baiting, a spectator sport imported from England.
Hunting for sport was another outdoor activity among colonial peoples. “…hunting, fishing, and fowling…” according to late 17th Century observer Robert Beverley, were ways by which “…they entertain themselves an hundred ways.” In some colonies, the gentry, emulating the English landed classes, engaged in hare hunts.
Colonial Indoor Games
Indoor games included a variety of board games, some of which are still played today such as backgammon, chess, and dominoes. Old Sturbridge Village near Boston, Massachusetts displays dominoes as a popular colonial game; however, it did not become popular until after 1800. A game reflecting the animosity many colonial religious faith traditions had toward Catholicism was called “break the Pope’s neck.”
Upper class card games included whist and hazard while the lower classes played an early variant of poker called “put.” Other card games included Ace of Hearts, King and Queen, and basset. One popular board game dating back to the late 16th-Century was called “the most royal game of goose” that was frequently played with bets. Children played with tops and little girls had homemade dolls.
Seasonal Recreation for all Classes and Ages
In the northern colonies during the cold winter months, sledding and skating were popular. Skating was popularized by the Dutch in New Amsterdam (later New York). In the South, colonists played cards and engaged in dancing.
Puritan New England was the one colonial region that carefully monitored recreation. Card playing was not acceptable nor was gambling. Mirroring the Calvinist approach pioneered by John Calvin in Geneva a century earlier, Puritans and Pilgrims rejected the conviviality of Chesapeake society as sinful.
Overall, colonial recreation was a diversion from daily life. It can be argued that recreation took the place of the European carnival festivals and chiveries long part of pre-Reformation European societies. Over time, many of these activities became permanent parts of American culture and are still enjoyed today.
Sources:
- Ed Crews, “Cockfighting,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Autumn 2008)
- David Freeman Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988)
- Stephen Longstreet, Win or Lose: A Social History of Gambling in America (Bobbs-Merrill, 1977)
- Dale Taylor, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America from 1607-1783 (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997)
- Richard M. Lederer, Jr., Colonial American English (Essex, CT: Verbatim, 1985)
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