Philosopher Thomas Hobbes describes the lives of the average, seventeenth-century inhabitant of the British Isles and Northern Europe as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." More specifically, these five main categories can reduce to three major categories. ("Nasty, brutish and short."") To maintain order, he thought the people needed a dictator, to get the people out of this state of chaos. His name for this was Leviathan. When the people agreed, he was given absolute power. Seventeenth-century English America was not fertile territory for Hobbesian "absolutism."" The lives of residents of The British Isles and Northern Europe was not as "brutish, nasty, or short- as Thomas Hobbes describes it as in the book, "Everyday Life In Early America; written by David Freeman Hawke. Instead, the seventeenth-century Americans were Independent, intrepid, and willing. .
The lives of seventeenth-century Americans were greatly affected by Independence. From the beginning, the settlers related with independence, one example would be that they came to America in the first place to gain independence from the English government. More specifically it was the absolute power of the king that the people didn't like. They didn't like this form of government, so they immigrated to America in search of a new way of life, of just something different than the absolute power-type of government that England possessed at this time in history. This shows a great sense of independence in the American settlers, because they found something wrong with the system, and they set off to find something new, on their own. With regard to independence in social classes, people were more independent in Early America, because it was a totally new way of life, sort of "restarting the game of life."" The society created was more or less pretty equal, unlike in England. Another example of Independence from this book is from a section entitled "A New Breed of Man.