SNIPPET: Recent studies of American origins have forced historians to revise the conventional picture of the colonists as English. Only 60.9% of colonial Americans came from England. Another 14.3% were Scots and Scotch-Irish from Northern Ireland, 8.7% were German, 5.8% were Dutch, 3.7% were southern Irish, and 6.6% miscellaneous. Apparently there were 540,000 blacks - most of them slaves. Religion was also varied. America boasted 749 Congregational churches, 485 Presbyterian, 457 Baptist, 406 Anglican, 328 Dutch or German Reformed, 240 Lutheran and 56 Catholic. There were also 200 Quaker meetinghouses and 5 synagogues. There was often hostility among the denominations. Catholics were tolerated only in MD and PA. Quakers were not welcomed in most of New England. Presbyterians regarded Anglicans as a threat to their religious freedom because they talked of bringing bishops to America to set up an established church as in England. Well-to-do colonial families spent a great deal of money on clothes and education for their children. Families were large - eight children was not unusual. There were few public schools outside New England, and tuition at private schools was high. Singing, dancing, the playing of musical instruments, concert-going and quilting were favorite recreations. Thomas JEFFERSON played the violin. Benjamin FRANKLIN the guitar, harp, and violin. Patrick HENRY played the violin, the lute, the flute and the piano! The impression, then, that Americans of the revolutionary era were poor is incorrect. Each of the 13 colonies, a highly stratified, class-conscious society already existed. In the northern colonies, the wealthiest 10% of the population owned about 45% of the property. In many parts of the South, 10% of the taxpayers possessed 75% of the wealth. This was not surprising, as the colonies had been in existence for 150 years when the Revolution began - more than enough time for the talented and ambitious to acquire money and land. In the 1770s George WASHINGTON was a typical member of the upper class, thanks in part to his marriage to wealthy Martha Dandridge CUSTIS. He owned 12,463 acres of VA farmland and 24,103 unimproved acres in the western wilderness along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. On his farms he kept 130 horses and maintained 135 slaves, and earned as much as 3,213 pounds a year from his various crops - a fortune compared with the landless laborer's income of 30 pounds. WASHINGTON paid a thousand dollars (the equivalent of $50,000 today) for a spinet for his granddaughter, Nelly CUSTIS. Wealth was also dispersed widely through the rest of the population. About 40% of the people were independent farmers who lived in considerable comfort. When artisans, shopkeepers were added to this group, they made up a thriving middle class whose members typically owned property worth about 400 pounds. One prosperous craftsman in Charleston, SC, spent 313 pounds a year to live in genteel fashion and educate his two sons at a private school. It took about 500 pounds a year for a family to feel well-to-do. Skilled workers such as carpenters earned from 45 to 90 pounds a year. Schoolteachers were wretchedly paid, as little as 30 pounds a year, unless, like Nathan HALE, they taught at an academy or private school. Harvard paid its professors 100 pounds a year, one-eighth the salary of a judge. Yale paid its president 150 pounds a year, considerably less than the owner of a prosperous tavern made. Ministers did somewhat better, as did doctors. Near the top of the economic pyramid were lawyers. Boston attorneys often made 2,000 to 3,000 pounds a year. At the very top were merchants, who spent money as freely as they made it. The ultimate sign of wealth was an "equipage" - a coach drawn by four matched horses, with servants in livery riding outside. There were no fewer than 84 of these elaborate vehicles in Philadelphia - 30 of them owned by supposedly "unworldly" Quakers! In the cities, indigents and men temporarily out of work were placed in almshouses. In New England, "going on the town" was considered a catastrophe among the poor. At the town meeting, the selectmen "bid off" the indigent to whoever would hire them - a procedure almost as humiliating as a slave auction. Newspapers were full of ads for slaves who had run away. Rewards were offered for their capture. Indentured servants also ran away regularly. Excerpts, "Liberty! The American Revolution," Thomas Fleming (1997)