Entertainment in 18th-Century Williamsburg

Music was produced and enjoyed by people of all ethnicities and classes in Williamsburg. One could hear music throughout the city: from private homes, the church, the theater, the Governor’s Palace, taverns, and the yards where enslaved people lived.

Enslaved and free African Americans brought their African musical traditions with them. They made and played drums, banjars (banjos), and other traditional instruments. Enslaved people also played European instruments like fiddles and French horns.

Keyboard instruments like the harpsichord were popular among colonists who could afford them. Fiddles, guitars, and flutes were also popular. Virginia planter Landon Carter wrote in 1771, “from every house a constant tuting [tooting] may be listened to upon one instrument or another."

Music floated through the doors of Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church. Resident Anne Blair wrote in 1769 that she could hear from the church the music of European composers Felton, Handel, and Vivaldi. The church organist was Peter Pelham, who also taught and composed music.

Indigenous people used music for enjoyment and for ritual. Their instruments included rattles, drums, and flutes. When Indigenous people came to the city for trade or diplomacy, they often brought their music.

Card games, a popular diversion for all ages, were usually played at home or in taverns. Cards could be bought at the city’s newspaper office. Undoubtedly, most players learned from one another, but official rules were published and available in the colonies.

Card and dice games were perfect vehicles for gambling, as losses in Virginians’ account books show. Some popular card games were whist (an ancestor of bridge), piquet, loo, and cribbage. This card table is attributed to cabinetmaker Anthony Hay’s shop in Williamsburg.

Hazard, a predecessor of the modern game craps, was a popular gambling game. One game of hazard played in Williamsburg’s Shields Tavern resulted in a lawsuit when the game’s loser claimed the winner had used loaded dice. The court found for the loser and awarded him almost £29, a considerable sum.

Indigenous people also gambled using reeds or straws. In one game, a player won by quickly grabbing either 7 or 11 straws from a set of 81. In another, players guessed the number of straws in their opponent's hand as the straws were being dexterously shuffled.

Billiards tables could be found in taverns like the Raleigh and in wealthier gentlemen’s homes. The table and rules were different from today’s game, but skill and competition drew spectators and players alike. Ladies sometimes played the game at home with family and friends.

People enjoyed reading, both to themselves and aloud to entertain and inform others. Fiction and nonfiction books on many topics were imported and available in local shops. Pamphlets and newspapers were imported and printed locally.

There was no law (yet) against teaching enslaved people to read. For tradesmen and domestics, reading was a useful skill encouraged by their enslavers. African Americans read for pleasure, as well as for gaining any useful information, particularly from newspapers.

Many children learned to read at the Williamsburg Bray School, a religious charity school for free and enslaved Black children that operated from 1760 to 1774. Indigenous boys learned to read at the Brafferton Indian School at the nearby College of William & Mary. Some people who knew how to read also taught their friends and family.

Colonial Virginians took pleasure in visiting one another, with each ethnic group having its own distinct etiquette. People gathered with friends and family for conversation, amusement, and support. Many urban homes had furnishings like tea tables for socializing.

Storytelling was common to all who lived in and near Williamsburg. Stories could be told for amusement or for conveying important social and cultural information. Telling stories was free and required no equipment, only life experience.

Indigenous people enjoyed ball games. They played shinny, a game resembling modern field hockey. The objective was to put a small ball through a goal using angled sticks. A similar game that was important to their culture used netted sticks and was the ancestor of lacrosse. Its Algonquian name was baggataway.

Cricket, trap ball, and fives were popular ball games among British colonists. Cricket was the predecessor of today’s game. Trap ball used a mechanical device to “pitch” the ball. Fives was an early form of handball, typically played against the outer walls of buildings.

Cities provided many opportunities to shop for fashionable goods. Anyone with money or good credit could purchase items at a store, so people of all ethnicities bought goods for their personal use. This broadside advertises “a very great variety" of goods available at Williamsburg's Tarpley Thompson & Company.

For Indigenous people, dance was an essential part of life. They danced for recreation, religion, and diplomacy. A Cherokee diplomatic delegation in 1777 performed a dance for Williamsburg’s populace on the Palace Green. Pictured here is a Cherokee warrior dance.

For enslaved and freed African Americans, dance was pleasure, emotional release, and an important part of their distinct African cultures. They often met to dance on Saturday nights or Sundays.

Dance was taught formally to British Virginians. They danced in homes, taverns, the Capitol, and the Governor’s Palace. Dance events included a variety of dances such as minuets, country dances, cotillions, reels, and a type of jig learned from enslaved people.

Children worked and played in colonial Virginia. Popular games included hopscotch, hide and seek, and jump-rope. Simple toys like marbles, tops, hoops, kites, and dolls could be made at home or purchased, while more elaborate toys were imported. Archaeologists have found marbles at many Colonial Williamsburg sites.

This popular 18th-century proverb called for balancing labor and leisure. The people who lived in and visited the multicultural city of Williamsburg found many ways to entertain themselves. We still enjoy many of the same pastimes as 18th-century Virginians, like shooting pool in a bar, going to a play, or reading a book.