How Long Did It Take to Travel to the New World
Colonial Travel
Whether by land or by sea, eighteenth century colonial travel was backbreaking, expensive, and many times dangerous. Considering of this, many few people traveled very far from their homes - a hitting departure from the earth of today, where a trip beyond the ocean takes only a few hours, compared to a voyage of several months in Colonial times.
18th Century Steamcoach, Remingon
Who Could Travel
In those days, it was adequately expensive to travel. Because of this, generally only government officials, merchants, and planters took the adventure. They had to make trips for business or for official duty - but they were amongst the select few who could beget it.
Also, it was the men who did the traveling. Women, for the most office, were expected to stay domicile and wait after the children and to tend to their married man's affairs in his absence.
African-American slaves were also not allowed to travel in many parts of the country without permission or the accessory of their masters. If any were caught without a written pass signed past their masters, they were assumed to be runaways.
How They Traveled
By State
Although there weren't motor vehicles, airplanes, or even steam engineering at the time, in that location were diverse modes of transportation bachelor to the Colonists. The most mutual mode, and the cheapest, was walking. People would travel by pes for extraordinary distances to get supplies or visit friends and family. The lower classes rarely, if e'er, travelled for pleasure.
Some other pop ways of travel, peculiarly in the southern colonies, was by horseback. Because of the ease of transport horses afforded, many colonists bought a equus caballus as presently equally they could beget its maintenance. The price of a equus caballus ranged from £5 - £1000, depending on breeding, speed, and power. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson oft would enjoy long rides in their Virginia state estates, and riding became as much as a source of leisure as it would exist an essential means of transport.
Conestoga Carriage, Newbold Hough-Trotter
Many people, who could afford it, had a wheeled vehicle at their disposal as well. Farmers, especially, used carts and wagons for work around the farm and to cart supplies into boondocks for auction or trade. The Conestoga Wagon (shown in a higher place) was used to transport large amounts of materials over long distances. The wagon was named after the Conestoga River nigh what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was the primeval American form of the Covered Railroad vehicle, which early pioneers would employ to settle the area w of the Appalachian Mountains.
By Sea
Although the colonists had made many technological advancements in transportation since the arrival of the Mayflower in the early seventeenth century, transcontinental journeys were still treacherous and time consuming. Ships traveling across the Atlantic took at least six to eight weeks, sometimes longer depending on weather conditions.
18th Century Dutch Fluyts
Some of the threats early seafarers faced, apart from cabin fever in cramped quarters, were disease, shipwreck, and piracy. If they managed to avoid these, many of the passengers dealt with chronic seasickness, and the perpetual rocking of the send kept them bedridden throughout their voyage.
Because the journeying took such a long time, visitors to dissimilar countries would stay for months, sometimes even years. It was a very dissimilar globe than the 1 that exists at present, but it's cheers to the extraordinary bravery of these men and women who made these hard journeys that America is the thriving nation information technology is today.
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Eatables under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License three.0
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