Table 2.1: Regional Comparison of the Colonies
Southern Colonies Virginia, Middle Colonies New England Colonies Maryland, South and North New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Carolina, and Georgia Pennsylvania, and Delaware New Hampshire, and Rhode Island Colonists initially settled in Dutch initially settled the ,. - Virginia under a royal charter region known as New c to the Virginia Company. Amsterdam, followed by the
Stock holders and settlers Swedes, and finally the ' ~trict rules expected profits from gold and English for adhering to a godly crops community led to dissenters leaving and establishing other colonies in the New England region Plantation economy based on Commercial economy Subsistence, family-operated single crops, mainly tobacco dependent upon small farm and business economy and rice farmers, craftsmen, and dependent upon small farmers merchants and merchants
Significant slave population Families and Indentured Families provided most labor provided most labor for the servants provided most labor on their farms and in thei'r large plantations on small businesses and small businesses farms Socially-stratified, bi-racial Heterogeneous society based Homogeneous society based society of free whites and upon diverse cultures, upon white ownership of enslaved Africans languages, and religions property
Wealthy elite plantation Small land and business Church members and owners provided colonial owners provided colonial landowners provided colonial governance governance, often through governance, often through colonial legislatures town rule and town meetings
People lived in widely- People lived in small, People lived in close-knit, dispersed settlements on large dispersed settlements clustered villages and towns and small plantations as well as small farms
Traditionally English Diverse Euro-American Strict religious adherence to viewpoints formed the cultural, economic, political, the idea of a perfect, godly foundation for colonial political, and social traditions formed community formed the economic, and religious the foundations for diverse foundation for political, policies political, social, and economic economic, and social policies policies Religious affiliation was Religious affiliation was Religion was Calvinist in origin Church of England/Anglican diverse and religion played a - although little uniformity and the church played a minor minor role in politics and the existed among practitioners - _, role in politics and the economy and dictated the political, economy social, and economic lives of the colonists Trait Chesapeake New England Motives for This was a commercial and profit- Commercial but, most important, Settlement seeking venture. religious-Puritans sought to establish a religious utopia, "a city on a hill." Settler Young, single men who spread out in Families with a variety of skills Demographics dispersed settlements. Few women settled in compact settlements. or families went to Virginia. Unlike Virginia, natural increase Indentured servants, and later, added to the population by 1650. African slaves. Economic Commercial farming and tobacco Small family "self-sufficient" farms System was the staple crop, and the economy would sell any surplus in the centered on its cultivation and the market; soil was good for livestock. plantation system. Small commercial ventures, lumber and fish. Social Many lower-class workers. Settled by the "middling sort," Patterns Small families that were complex there was not a great gap between because of early death. A plantation rich and poor. A religious hierarchy aristocracy held disproportionate exercised social and political power. social and political power to its numbers. Political The planter aristocracy held power, A religious hierarchy held power, Structures and a representative assembly, the and the General Court, the charter's House of Burgesses, was established governing board, became the in 1619. assembly. Town Meetings exercised power on the local level. Religion Anglican, but not significant. Its Puritan, it permeated every aspect absence led to instability and of life and all institutions were disorder. informed by its theology. Labor A combination of free labor, Free labor and indentured servitude System indentured servitude, and later abounded. Slavery existed, but slavery. played a very minor role. Indian There were good relations at the The Indians helped the settlers Relations very beginning, but they soon survive the first winters, but land soured. The English goal ultimately competition led to conflict. Once was to remove or exterminate the conversion was abandoned, Indians. Puritans wanted to remove or exterminate the Indians.