Student Study Guide for the American Pageant CHAPTER 4 American Life in the Seventeenth Century, 1607?1692 seq NL1 \r 0 \h Chapter Summary ? Life was hard in the seventeenth-century southern colonies. Disease drastically shortened life spans in the Chesapeake region, even for the young single men who made up the majority of settlers. Families were few and fragile, with men greatly outnumbering women, who were much in demand and seldom remained single for long. The tobacco economy first thrived on the labor of white indentured servants, who hoped to work their way up to become landowners and perhaps even become wealthy. But by the late seventeenth century, this hope was increasingly frustrated, and the discontent of the poor whites exploded in Bacon?s Rebellion.