United States, Colonial Period

The Arrival of the Puritans

When Europeans arrived in the New World, their play was transported and became a mechanism for cultural exchanges. Medieval and Elizabethan sporting traditions, related to military training, influenced athletic play and amateur competition in the colonies. English settlers brought gifts, including dolls, for indigenous people when they arrived on North Carolina's Roanoke Islands in 1585. French missionaries were later exposed to Native Americans playing a team sport called lacrosse that was played on a turf field with two teams of 10 players. Lacrosse players used a long-handled racket to catch, carry, and throw the ball into the opponent's goal.

Puritans influenced play in the New World by fostering a literary culture. The nursery rhyme, “Rock-a-bye, baby, on the treetop,” was thought to have been the first English-language poem penned on American soil. It is said to be a song depicting a baby swaddled in a birch cradle upon a branch of a tree (a common Native American practice) so that the mother could watch her infant while she completed other tasks. This nursery rhyme first appeared in print in Mother Goose's Melody (c.1765) with the following caution: “This may serve as a Warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last.” The rhyme later evolved into a singing game for young children.

Permitted Games

Idleness was considered to be a sin in Puritan society, even in a child. Daughters of “quality” were restricted in their amusements, but country girls could join their brothers' games of Tag or Blind Man's Bluff. Girls usually remained in their fathers' homes, and their time and energy were expended for the welfare of the family until their wedding days. Girls were under the influence of home and home training until they had passed the period of adolescence.

Puritan William Bradford (1590–1657), the second governor of Massachusetts, took offence when some young ladies wagered on a game of stoolball during Easter. Stoolball was ball game, often played by young women, where a ball was bowled at a three-legged stool, defended by a batter. Affluent parents imported European dolls made with wooden bodies and bisque heads, but most girls enjoyed home-produced dolls made of rags or cornhusks. Cup and Ball was a game that required hand-eye coordination: a wooden ball with a hole in it was fastened with a string to a stick with a cup attached [Page 765]at one end, and the object of the game was to catch the ball in the cup or on the point at the end of the stick. Girls also played with toy drums, marbles, and hoops.

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