Colonial History of the United States

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Colonial history of the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"American colonists" redirects here. For other uses, see American colonists (dis
ambiguation).
"Colonial America" redirects here. For other uses, see Colonial America (disambi
guation).
"American Colonial Period" redirects here. It is not to be confused with America
n Colonial Period (Philippines).
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The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European settlem
ents from the start of colonization of America until their incorporation into th
e United States. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Nether
lands launched major colonization programs in eastern North America.[1] Small ea
rly attempts such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke often disappeared; everywher
e the death rate of the first arrivals was very high. Nevertheless successful co
lonies were established. European settlers came from a variety of social and rel
igious groups. No aristocrats settled permanently, but a number of adventurers,
soldiers, farmers, and tradesmen arrived. Diversity was an American characterist
ic as the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the Engli
sh Quakers of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the English set
tlers of Jamestown, and the "worthy poor" of Georgia, came to the new continent
and built colonies with distinctive social, religious, political and economic st
yles. Non-British colonies were taken over and the inhabitants were all assimila
ted, unlike in Nova Scotia, where the British expelled the French Acadian inhabi
tants. There were no major civil wars among the 13 colonies, and the two chief a
rmed rebellions (in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689 91) were short-lived
failures. Wars between the French and the British the French and Indian Wars and F
ather Rale's War were recurrent, and involved French support for Wabanaki Confeder
acy attacks on the frontiers. By 1760 France was defeated and the British seized
its colonies.
On the eastern seaboard of what would become the United States, the four distinc
t British regions were: New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Col
onies (Upper South) and the Lower South. Some historians add a fifth region, the
Frontier, which was never separately organized.[1] By the time European settler
s arrived around 1600 1650, the majority of the Native Americans living in the eas
tern United States had been ravaged by new diseases, introduced to them decades
before by explorers and sailors.[2]
See timeline of Colonial America for list of historical events.
Contents [hide]
1 Goals of colonization
1.1 Mercantilism
1.2 Religious persecution
2 Early colonial failures
3 Spanish colonies
3.1 Florida

3.2 New Mexico
3.3 California
3.4 Texas
4 New France
4.1 Pays d'en Haut
4.2 Illinois Country
4.3 Louisiana
5 New Netherland
6 New Sweden
7 Russian colonies
8 English colonies
8.1 Chesapeake Bay area
8.1.1 Virginia
8.2 New England
8.2.1 Puritans
8.2.2 Other New England
8.2.3 Dominion of New England
8.3 Middle Colonies
8.4 Lower South
8.4.1 Carolinas
8.4.2 Georgia
8.4.3 East and West Florida
9 British colonial government
9.1 Provincial colonies
9.2 Proprietary colonies
9.3 Charter colonies
9.4 Political culture
10 Unification of the British colonies
10.1 Colonial Wars: A common defense
10.1.1 French and Indian War
10.2 Ties to the British Empire
10.2.1 Republicanism
10.2.2 Consumption
10.3 Atlantic world
11 Tax protests lead to Revolution
12 Colonial life
12.1 Religion
12.2 Women's roles
12.3 New England
12.3.1 Farm life
12.3.2 Town life
12.3.3 Culture and education
12.3.4 Religion
12.4 Mid-Atlantic Region
12.4.1 Ways of life
12.4.2 Farming
12.4.3 Seaports
12.5 Southern Colonies
12.5.1 Women in the South
12.5.2 Slaves
13 See also
14 Footnotes
15 Bibliography
15.1 Reference books
15.2 Surveys
15.3 Special topics
15.4 Primary sources
15.5 Online sources
16 External links
Goals of colonization[edit]

Colonizers came from European kingdoms with highly developed military, naval, go
vernmental and entrepreneurial capabilities. The Spanish and Portuguese centurie
s-old experience of conquest and colonization during the Reconquista, coupled wi
th new oceanic ship navigation skills, provided the tools, ability, and desire t
o colonize the New World. England, France and the Netherlands started colonies i
n both the West Indies and North America. They had the ability to build ocean-wo
rthy ships, but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign land
s as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave their colonies
a base of merchant-based investment that needed much less government support.[3]
Mercantilism[edit]
Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies from the 16
60s. Mercantilism meant that the government and merchants based in England becam
e partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to th
e exclusion of other empires and even merchants based in its own colonies. The g
overnment protected its London-based merchants and kept others out by trade barriers
, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports
from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling,
especially by American merchants, some of whose activities (which included direc
t trade with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese) were classified as such
by the Navigation Acts. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so
that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share thro
ugh duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The gove
rnment spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protecte
d the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and som
etimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1
664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to
enrich the mother country.[4]
Religious persecution[edit]
The prospect of religious persecution by authorities of the crown and the Church
of England prompted a significant number of colonization efforts. People fleein
g persecution by King Charles I were responsible for settling most of New Englan
d, and the Province of Maryland was founded in part to be a haven for Roman Cath
olics.
Early colonial failures[edit]
Anonymous Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to map the future easter
n seaboard of the U.S. from New York to Florida, as documented in the Cantino pl
anisphere of 1502. However, they kept their discoveries a secret and did not att
empt to settle in North America, as the Inter caetera issued by Pope Alexander V
I in 1493 had granted these lands to Spain.
Other countries did attempt to found colonies in what later became the United St
ates over the following century, and most of these attempts ended in failure. Th
e colonists faced high rates of death due to many reasons, including disease, st
arvation, inefficient resupply, conflict with Native Americans, and attacks by r
ival European powers.
Spain had numerous failed attempts, including San Miguel de Gualdape in Georgia
(1526), Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition to Florida's Gulf coast (1528 36), Pensacola i
n West Florida (1559 61), Fort San Juan in North Carolina (1567 68), and the Ajacán Mi
ssion in Virginia (1570 71).[1]
The French failed at Parris Island, South Carolina (1562 63), Fort Caroline on Flo
rida's Atlantic coast (1564 65), Saint Croix Island, Maine (1604-05),[1] and Fort
Saint Louis, Texas (1685 89).
The most notable English failures were the "Lost Colony of Roanoke" (1587 90) in N
orth Carolina and Popham Colony in Maine (1607 08). It was at the Roanoke Colony t

hat Virginia Dare became the first English child born in the Americas; her fate
is unknown.
Spanish colonies[edit]
At one time, Spain claimed and controlled North America west of the Mississippi
and south of the Canadian border. Additionally, east of the Mississippi River, S
pain claimed what is now the state of Florida and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Lou
isiana and Mississippi.
Castillo de San Marcos, built beginning in 1672 to defend Spanish St. Augustine,
Florida
Florida[edit]
Main articles: History of Florida and Spanish Florida
Spain established several small outposts in Florida in the early 16th century. T
he most important of these, St. Augustine, was founded in 1565 as a garrison tow
n to help protect gold-laden galleons sailing north on the Gulf Stream from New
Spain (Spanish Mexico) back to Spain. The outpost was repeatedly attacked and bu
rned by pirates, privateers, and English forces, but it survived, and is the old
est permanent European settlement in what is now the continental United States.
The British and nearby British colonies attacked Spanish Florida on numerous occ
asions. The colony of South Carolina launched large scale raiding expeditions in
the early 18th century that effectively destroyed the Spanish mission system. J
ames Oglethorpe led a large invasion force of colonials and British regulars fro
m colonial Georgia and laid siege to St. Augustine in 1740, but the fort held, a
nd both St. Augustine and Pensacola remained under Spanish control. However, Eng
lish-allied Indians such as the Yamasee continuously conducted slave raids throu
ghout northern Florida, killing or enslaving most of the region's natives.[1]
In 1763, Spain traded Florida to Great Britain in exchange for control of Havana
, Cuba, which had been captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. Flor
ida was home to about 3,000 Spaniards at the time, and nearly all quickly left.
Britain occupied Florida, but did not send many settlers to the area, and contro
l was restored to Spain in 1783 by the Peace of Paris, which ended the American
Revolutionary War. Spain sent no more settlers or missionaries to Florida during
this second colonial period. The inhabitants of West Florida revolted against t
he Spanish in 1810 and formed the Republic of West Florida, which was quickly an
nexed by the United States. The United States took possession of the remainder,
East Florida, in 1821 according to the terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty.[5][6]
New Mexico[edit]
Main article: History of New Mexico
Throughout the 16th century, Spain explored the southwest from Mexico with the m
ost notable explorer being Francisco Coronado whose expedition rode throughout m
odern New Mexico and Arizona. The Spanish, moving north from Mexico, settled vil
lages in the upper valley of the Rio Grande, including much of the western half
of the present-day state of New Mexico. The capital was Santa Fe. Local Indians
expelled the Spanish for 12 years following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680; they retu
rned in 1692 in the "bloodless" reoccupation of Santa Fe.[7] Control was by Spai
n (223 years) and Mexico (25 years) until 1846, when the American Army of the We
st took over in the Mexican-American War. About of a third of the population in
the 21st century descends from the Spanish settlers.[1][8]
California[edit]
Main article: History of California through 1899
Further information: Spanish missions in California and Territorial evolution of
California
The ruins of the Spanish Mission San Juan Capistrano in California.
Spanish explorers sailed along the coast of present day California from the earl

y 16th century to the mid-18th century, but no settlements were established over
those centuries.
Spain, from 1769 until the independence of Mexico in 1820, sent missionaries and
soldiers to Alta California who created a series of missions operated by Franci
scan priests. They also operated presidios (forts), pueblos (settlements)s, and
ranchos (land grant ranches), along the southern and central coast of California
. Father Junípero Serra, founded the first missions in Spanish upper Las Californi
as, starting with Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769. Through the Spanish and Mex
ican eras they eventually comprised a series of 21 missions to spread Christiani
ty among the local Native Americans, linked by El Camino Real ("The Royal Road")
. They were established to convert the indigenous peoples of California, while p
rotecting historic Spanish claims to the area. The missions introduced European
technology, livestock, and crops. The Indian Reductions converted the native peo
ples into groups of Mission Indians; they worked as laborers in the missions and
the ranchos. In the 1830s the missions were disbanded and the lands sold to Cal
ifornios. The indigenous Native American population was around 150,000; the Cali
fornios (Mexican era Californians) around 10,000; with the rest immigrant Americ
ans and other nationalities involved in trade and business in California.[9]
Texas[edit]
Further information: Spanish Texas, Mexican Texas and Spanish missions in Texas
New France[edit]
Main articles: New France and French colonization of the Americas
The 1750 possessions of Britain (pink), France (blue), and Spain (orange) in con
trast to the borders of contemporary Canada and the United States.
New France was the vast area explored and claimed by France. It was composed of
several colonies. They were Acadia, Canada, Newfoundland, Louisiana, Île-Royale (p
resent-day Cape Breton Island), and Île Saint Jean (present-day Prince Edward Isla
nd). Although all of these territories would come under British control in the 1
8th century, only portions of Canada, Acadia and Louisiana became parts of the U
nited States.
Pays d'en Haut[edit]
By 1660, French fur trappers based in Montreal pushed west along the Great Lakes
and founded Green Bay, Saint Ignace, Sault Sainte Marie, Vincennes, and Detroit
in 1701. By 1773, the population of Detroit was 1,400.[10] At the end of the Wa
r for Independence in 1783, the region south of the Great Lakes formally became
part of the United States.
Illinois Country[edit]
The Illinois country by 1752 had a population of 2,500; it was concentrated arou
nd Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Sainte Genevieve. According to one scholar, "The Illi
nois Habitant was a gay soul; he seemed shockingly carefree to later, self-right
eous Puritans from the American colonies."[11]
Louisiana[edit]
French Louisiana, first settled at Mobile in 1702, started its growth when 7,000
French immigrants arrived in New Orleans in 1718. There was little economic dev
elopment because the city lacked a large hinterland.[12] The areas around New Or
leans and west of the Mississippi were given to Spain in 1763. Louisiana was tak
en back by France and sold to the United States in 1803 in the Louisiana Purchas
e.[13]
New Netherland[edit]
Main articles: New Netherland and Dutch colonization of the Americas
[show]New Netherland series
A map of New Amsterdam in 1660

Nieuw-Nederland, or New Netherland, chartered in 1614, was a colonial province o
f the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in what became New York State and
parts of neighboring states.[14] The peak population was less than 10,000. The
Dutch established a patroon system with feudal-like rights given to a few powerf
ul landholders; they also established religious tolerance and free trade. The co
lony's capital, New Amsterdam, founded in 1625 and located at the southern tip o
f the island of Manhattan, would grow to become a major world city. The city was
captured by the English in 1664; they took complete control of the colony in 16
74 and renamed it New York. However the Dutch landholdings remained, and the Hud
son River Valley maintained a traditional Dutch character until the 1820s.[15][1
6] Traces of Dutch influence, such as homes, family surnames, and the names of r
oads and whole towns remain in present-day northern New Jersey and southeastern
New York State.
New Sweden[edit]
Main articles: New Sweden and Swedish colonization of the Americas
Map of New Sweden by Amandus Johnson
New Sweden (Swedish: Nya Sverige) was a Swedish colony along the Delaware River
Valley from 1638 to 1655. The several hundred settlers were centered around the
capital of Fort Christina, at the present day location of Wilmington, Delaware,
but the colony also had settlements near the present day location of Salem, New
Jersey (Fort Nya Elfsborg) and on Tinicum Island, Pennsylvania. The colony was c
aptured by the Dutch in 1655 and merged into New Netherland, with most of the co
lonists remaining. Years later, the colony was incorporated into England's colon
ial holdings. The colony of New Sweden introduced Lutheranism to America in the
form of some of the continent's oldest European churches. [17] The colonists als
o introduced the log cabin to America, and numerous rivers, towns, and families
in the region of Delaware, southern New Jersey, and southeastern Pennsylvania de
rive their names from the Swedes.
Russian colonies[edit]
Main articles: Russian America and Russian colonization of the Americas
Russia explored the area that became Alaska starting with the Second Kamchatka e
xpedition in the 1730s and early 1740s. Their first settlement was founded in 17
84 by Grigory Shelikhov.[18] The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799 wit
h the influence of Nikolay Rezanov for the purpose of buying sea otters for thei
r fur from native hunters. In 1867 the U.S. purchased Alaska and nearly all Russ
ians abandoned the area except a few missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church
working among the natives.[19]
English colonies[edit]
See also: English overseas possessions, British America and Thirteen Colonies
The 1606 grants by James I to the London and Plymouth companies. The overlapping
area (yellow) was granted to both companies on the stipulation that neither fou
nd a settlement within 100 miles (160 km) of each other. The location of the Jam
estown Settlement is shown by "J"
England made its first successful efforts at the start of the 17th century for s
everal reasons. During this era, English proto-nationalism and national assertiv
eness blossomed under the threat of Spanish invasion, assisted by a degree of Pr
otestant militarism and the energy of Queen Elizabeth. At this time, however, th
ere was no official attempt by the English government to create a colonial empir
e. Rather, the motivation behind the founding of colonies was piecemeal and vari
able. Practical considerations, such as commercial enterprise, overpopulation an
d the desire for freedom of religion, played their parts. The main waves of sett
lement came in the 17th century. After 1700 most immigrants to Colonial America
arrived as indentured servants young unmarried men and women seeking a new life in
a much richer environment.[20] Between the late 1610s and the American Revoluti
on, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to its American colonies.[2

1] The first convicts to arrive pre-dated the arrival of the Mayflower.
Chesapeake Bay area[edit]
Main articles: Jamestown, Virginia, Colony of Virginia and Province of Maryland
Virginia[edit]
The first successful English colony was Jamestown, established May 14, 1607 near
Chesapeake Bay. The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London
Virginia Company, a joint stock company looking for gold. Its first years were
extremely difficult, with very high death rates from disease and starvation, war
s with local Indians, and little gold. The colony survived and flourished by tur
ning to tobacco as a cash crop. By the late 17th century, Virginia's export econ
omy was largely based on tobacco, and new, richer settlers came in to take up la
rge portions of land, build large plantations and import indentured servants and
slaves. In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion occurred, but was suppressed by royal offici
als. After Bacon's Rebellion, African slaves rapidly replaced indentured servant
s as Virginia's main labor force.[22][23]
The colonial assembly shared power with a royally appointed governor. On a more
local level, governmental power was invested in county courts, which were self-p
erpetuating (the incumbents filled any vacancies and there never were popular el
ections). As cash crop producers, Chesapeake plantations were heavily dependent
on trade with England. With easy navigation by river, there were few towns and n
o cities; planters shipped directly to Britain. High death rates and a very youn
g population profile characterized the colony during its first years.[23]
New England[edit]
Main articles: History of New England, Connecticut Colony, Plymouth Colony, Mass
achusetts Bay Colony, Province of New Hampshire and Colony of Rhode Island
Puritans[edit]
Main article: Puritan
The Puritans, a much larger group than the Pilgrims, established the Massachuset
ts Bay Colony in 1629 with 400 settlers. They sought to reform the Church of Eng
land by creating a new, pure church in the New World. By 1640, 20,000 had arrive
d; many died soon after arrival, but the others found a healthy climate and an a
mple food supply. The Massachusetts settlement spawned other Puritan colonies in
New England, including the New Haven, Saybrook, and Connecticut colonies. Durin
g the 17th century the New Haven and Saybrook colonies were absorbed by Connecti
cut.
The Puritans created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit, and politically in
novative culture that still influences the modern United States.[24] They hoped
this new land would serve as a "redeemer nation". They fled England and in Ameri
ca attempted to create a "nation of saints" or a "City upon a Hill": an intensel
y religious, thoroughly righteous community designed to be an example for all of
Europe. Roger Williams, who preached religious toleration, separation of Church
and State, and a complete break with the Church of England, was banished and fo
unded Rhode Island Colony, which became a haven for other refugees from the Puri
tan community, such as Anne Hutchinson.[25]
Economically, Puritan New England fulfilled the expectations of its founders. Un
like the cash crop-oriented plantations of the Chesapeake region, the Puritan ec
onomy was based on the efforts of self-supporting farmsteads who traded only for
goods they could not produce themselves.[26] There was a generally higher econo
mic standing and standard of living in New England than in the Chesapeake. Along
with agriculture, fishing, and logging, New England became an important mercant
ile and shipbuilding center, serving as the hub for trading between the southern
colonies and Europe.[27]
Other New England[edit]
The Pilgrims were a small Protestant sect based in England and the Netherlands.

One group sailed on the Mayflower and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620
. After drawing up the Mayflower Compact by which they gave themselves broad pow
ers of self-governance, they established the small Plymouth Colony. William Brad
ford was their main leader. Providence Plantation was founded in 1636 by Rev. Ro
ger Williams on land provided by the Narragansett sachem, Canonicus. Williams, f
leeing from religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, agreed with h
is fellow settlers on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "i
n civil things" and "liberty of conscience".[22]
Other colonists who disagreed with Puritans in Massachusetts settled to the nort
h, mingling with adventurers and profit-oriented settlers to establish more reli
giously diverse colonies in New Hampshire and Maine. These small settlements wer
e absorbed by Massachusetts when it made significant land claims in the 1640s an
d 1650s, but New Hampshire was eventually given a separate charter in 1679. (Mai
ne remained a part of Massachusetts until achieving statehood in 1820.)
Dominion of New England[edit]
Under King James II of England, the New England colonies (as well as New York an
d the Jerseys) were briefly united as the Dominion of New England (1686 89). The a
dministration eventually led by Governor Sir Edmund Andros seized colonial chart
ers, revoked land titles, and ruled without local assemblies, causing anger amon
g the population. The 1689 Boston revolt, inspired by England's Glorious Revolut
ion against James II, caused Andros, Boston Anglicans, and senior dominion offic
ials to be arrested by the Massachusetts militia. Andros was jailed for several
months, then returned to England. The Dominion of New England was dissolved and
governments resumed under their earlier charters.[28] However, the Massachusetts
charter had been revoked in 1684, and a new one was issued in 1691 that combine
d Massachusetts and Plymouth into the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Although Ki
ng William III sought at least to unite the New England colonies militarily (for
example, by appointing the Earl of Bellomont to three simultaneous governorship
s, and military command over Connecticut and Rhode Island), these attempts at un
ified control failed.
Middle Colonies[edit]
Main article: Middle Colonies
The Middle Colonies, which consisted of the present-day states of New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of dive
rsity religious, political, economic, and ethnic. The Dutch colony of New Netherla
nd was taken over by the British and renamed New York but large numbers of Dutch
remained in the colony. New Jersey began as a division of New York, and was for
a time divided into the proprietary colonies of East and West Jersey. Many Germ
an and Irish immigrants settled in these areas, as well as in Connecticut. A lar
ge portion of the settlers who came to Pennsylvania were German.[27] Philadelphi
a became the center of the colonies; by the end of the colonial period 30,000 pe
ople lived there, having come from diverse nations and practicing numerous trade
s.
Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 as a proprietary colony of the Quaker William P
enn. It came to include the territory of Delaware, which had once been part of N
ew Netherland; Delaware had a government independent of that established in Phil
adelphia, but was never a separate colony.
Lower South[edit]
The colonial South included the plantation colonies of the Chesapeake region (Vi
rginia, Maryland, and, by some classifications, Delaware) and the lower South (C
arolina, which eventually split into North and South Carolina; and Georgia).[27]
Carolinas[edit]
Main articles: History of South Carolina, History of North Carolina, Province of
Carolina, Province of North Carolina and Province of South Carolina

The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Car
olina. It was a private venture, financed by a group of English Lords Proprietor
s, who obtained a Royal Charter to the Carolinas in 1663, hoping that a new colo
ny in the south would become profitable like Jamestown. Carolina was not settled
until 1670, and even then the first attempt failed because there was no incenti
ve for emigration to that area. Eventually, however, the Lords combined their re
maining capital and financed a settlement mission to the area, a mission led by
Sir John Colleton. The expedition located fertile and defensible ground at what
was to become Charleston (originally Charles Town for Charles II of England), th
us beginning the English colonization of the mainland. The original settlers in
South Carolina established a lucrative trade in provisions, deerskins and Indian
captives with the Caribbean islands. The settlers came mainly from the English
colony of Barbados and brought African slaves with them. Barbados, as a wealthy
sugarcane plantation island, was one of the early English colonies to use large
numbers of Africans in plantation style agriculture. The cultivation of rice was
introduced during the 1690s via Africans from the rice-growing regions of Afric
a. North Carolina remained a frontier throughout the early colonial period.[27]
At first, South Carolina was politically divided. Its ethnic makeup included the
original settlers, a group of rich, slave-owning English settlers from the isla
nd of Barbados; and Huguenots, a French-speaking community of Protestants. Nearl
y continuous frontier warfare during the era of King William's War and Queen Ann
e's War drove economic and political wedges between merchants and planters. The
disaster of the 1715 Yamasee War, which threatened the colony's viability, set o
ff a decade of political turmoil. By 1729, the proprietary government had collap
sed, and the Proprietors sold both colonies back to the British crown.[27]
Georgia[edit]
Main article: Province of Georgia
Savannah, Georgia Colony, early 18th century
James Oglethorpe, an 18th-century British Member of Parliament, established the
Georgia Colony in 1733 as a common solution to two problems. At that time, tensi
on between Spain and Great Britain was high, and the British feared that Spanish
Florida was threatening the British Carolinas. Oglethorpe decided to establish
a colony in the contested border region of Georgia and populate it with debtors
who would otherwise have been imprisoned according to standard British practice.
This plan would both rid Great Britain of its undesirable elements and provide
her with a base from which to attack Florida. The first colonists arrived in 173
3.[27]
Georgia was established on strict moralistic principles. Slavery was forbidden,
as were alcohol and other forms of supposed immorality. However, the reality of
the colony was far from ideal. The colonists were unhappy about the puritanical
lifestyle and complained that their colony could not compete economically with t
he Carolina rice plantations. Georgia initially failed to prosper, but eventuall
y the restrictions were lifted, slavery was allowed, and it became as prosperous
as the Carolinas. The colony of Georgia never had a specific religion. It consi
sted of people of various faiths.
East and West Florida[edit]
Main articles: East Florida and West Florida
In 1763, Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain, which established the colonies of
East and West Florida. The Floridas remained loyal to Great Britain during the
American Revolution. They were returned to Spain in 1783 (in exchange for the Ba
hamas), at which time most of the British left. The Spanish then neglected the F
loridas: few Spaniards lived there when the US bought the area in 1819.[1]
British colonial government[edit]
Each colony had a paid colonial agent in London to represent its interests.

The three forms of colonial government in 1776 were provincial (royal colony), p
roprietary, and charter. These governments were all subordinate to the monarch i
n London, with no explicit relationship with the British Parliament. Beginning l
ate in the 17th century, the administration of all British colonies was overseen
by the Board of Trade in London.
Provincial colonies[edit]
New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and
eventually Massachusetts, were provincial, also called royal colonies.
The provincial government was governed by commissions created at pleasure by the
monarch. A governor (and in some provinces his council) were appointed by the c
rown. The governor was invested with general executive powers, and authorized to
call a locally elected assembly. The governor's council would sit as an upper h
ouse when the assembly was in session in addition to its role in advising the go
vernor. Assemblies were made up of representatives elected by the freeholders an
d planters (landowners) of the province. The governor had the power of absolute
veto, and could prorogue (i.e., delay) and dissolve the assembly.
The assembly's role was to make all local laws and ordinances, ensuring that the
y were not inconsistent with the laws of England. In practice this did not alway
s occur, since many of the provincial assemblies sought to expand their powers a
nd limit those of the governor and crown. Laws could be examined by the British
Privy Council or Board of Trade, which also held veto power of legislation.
Proprietary colonies[edit]
Pennsylvania (which included Delaware), New Jersey, and Maryland were proprietar
y colonies. They were governed much as royal colonies except that lord proprieto
rs, rather than the king, appointed the governor. They were set up after the Res
toration of 1660 and typically enjoyed greater civil and religious liberty.[29]
Charter colonies[edit]
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, and Connecticut were char
ter colonies. The Massachusetts charter was revoked in 1684, and was replaced by
a provincial charter that was issued in 1691.
Charter governments were political corporations created by letters patent, givin
g the grantees control of the land and the powers of legislative government. The
charters provided a fundamental constitution and divided powers among legislati
ve, executive, and judicial functions, with those powers being vested in officia
ls.[30]
Political culture[edit]
As Bonomi (1971) shows, the most distinctive feature of colonial society was the
vibrant political culture, which attracted the most talented and ambitious youn
g men into politics.[31] First, suffrage was the most widespread in the world, w
ith every man who owned a certain amount of property allowed to vote.[32] While
fewer than 1% of British men could vote, a majority of white American men were e
ligible. The roots of democracy were present,[33] although deference was typical
ly shown to social elites in colonial elections.[34]
Second, in the colonies a very wide range of public and private business was dec
ided by elected bodies, especially the assemblies and county governments in each
colony.[35] They handled land grants, commercial subsidies, and taxation, as we
ll as oversight of roads, poor relief, taverns, and schools.[36] Americans sued
each other at a very high rate, with binding decisions made not by a great lord
but by local judges and juries. This promoted the rapid expansion of the legal p
rofession, so that the intense involvement of lawyers in politics became an Amer
ican characteristic by the 1770s.[37]

Thirdly, the American colonies were exceptional in the world because of the repr
esentation of many different interest groups in political decision-making. Unlik
e Europe, where aristocratic families and the established church were in control
, the American political culture was open to economic, social, religious, ethnic
and geographical interests, with merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans,
Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, and
many other identifiable groups taking part. Elected representatives learned to
listen to these interests because 90% of the men in the lower houses lived in th
eir districts, unlike England where it was common to have an absentee member of
Parliament.[38]
Finally, and most dramatically, the Americans were fascinated by and increasingl
y adopted the political values of Republicanism, which stressed equal rights, th
e need for virtuous citizens, and the evils of corruption, luxury, and aristocra
cy.[39][40] Republicanism provided the framework for colonial resistance to Brit
ish schemes of taxation after 1763, which escalated into the Revolution.
None of the colonies had stable political parties of the sort that formed in the
1790s, but each had shifting factions that vied for power, especially in the pe
rennial battles between the appointed governor and the elected assembly.[41] The
re were often "country" and "court" factions, representing those opposed to and
in favor of, respectively, of the governor's actions and agenda. Massachusetts,
which from its 1691 charter had particularly low requirements for voting eligibi
lity and strong rural representation in its assembly, also had a strong populist
faction that represented the province's lower classes.
Up and down the colonies non-English ethnic groups had clusters of settlements.
The most numerous were the Scotch Irish[42] and the Germans.[43] Each group assi
milated into the dominant English, Protestant commercial and political culture,
albeit with local variations. They tended to vote in blocs and politicians negot
iated with group leaders for votes. They generally retained their historic langu
ages and cultural traditions, even as they merged into the emerging American cul
ture.[44]
Ethnocultural factors were most visible in Pennsylvania. During 1756 76, the Quake
rs were the largest faction in the legislature, but they were losing their domin
ance to the emerging Presbyterian faction based on Scotch-Irish votes, supported
by Germans.[45]
Unification of the British colonies[edit]
Colonial Wars: A common defense[edit]
Main article: Colonial American military history
Efforts at common defense of the colonies (principally against shared threats fr
om Indians, the French, and the Dutch) began as early as the 1640s, when the Pur
itan colonies of New England formed a confederation to coordinate military and j
udicial matters. From the 1670s several royal governors, notably Sir Edmund Andr
os (who at various times governed New York, New England, and Virginia) and Franc
is Nicholson (governed Maryland, Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Carolina) proposed o
r attempted to implement means to coordinate defensive and offensive military ma
tters. After King Phillips War, Andros successfully negotiated the Covenant Chai
n, a series of Indian treaties that brought relative calm to the frontiers of th
e middle colonies for many years.
The northern colonies (particularly present-day Maine and New Hampshire) experie
nced numerous assaults from the Wabanaki Confederacy and the French from Acadia
during the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale's War and Father L
e Loutre's War.

Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy
One event that reminded colonists of their shared identity as British subjects w
as the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 1748) in Europe. This conflict spilled
over into the colonies, where it was known as "King George's War". The major ba
ttles took place in Europe, but American colonial troops fought the French and t
heir Indian allies in New York, New England, and Nova Scotia with the Siege of L
ouisbourg (1745).
At the Albany Congress of 1754, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the colonies be
united by a Grand Council overseeing a common policy for defense, expansion, and
Indian affairs. While the plan was thwarted by colonial legislatures and King G
eorge II, it was an early indication that the British colonies of North America
were headed towards unification.[46]
French and Indian War[edit]
Main article: French and Indian War
George Washington during the French and Indian War
Benjamin Franklin's political cartoon calling for colonial unity during the Fren
ch and Indian War; it would be used again during the American Revolution.
The French and Indian War (1754 1763) was the American extension of the general Eu
ropean conflict known as the Seven Years' War. Although previous colonial wars i
n North America had started in Europe and then spread to the colonies, the Frenc
h and Indian War is notable for having started in North America and then having
spread to Europe. Increasing competition between Britain and France, especially
in the Great Lakes and Ohio valley, was one of the primary origins of the war.[4
7]
The French and Indian War took on a new significance for the British North Ameri
can colonists when William Pitt the Elder decided that, in order to win the war
against France, major military resources needed to be devoted to North America.
For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could
be termed a "world war". During the war, the position of the British colonies as
part of the British Empire was made truly apparent, as British military and civ
ilian officials took on an increased presence in the lives of Americans. The war
also increased a sense of American unity in other ways. It caused men, who migh
t normally have never left their own colony, to travel across the continent, fig
hting alongside men from decidedly different, yet still "American", backgrounds.
Throughout the course of the war, British officers trained American ones (most
notably George Washington) for battle which would later benefit the American Revol
ution. Also, colonial legislatures and officials had to cooperate intensively, f
or the first time, in pursuit of the continent-wide military effort.[47] The rel
ations between the British military establishment and the colonists were not alw
ays positive, setting the stage for later distrust and dislike of British troops
.
Territorial changes following the French and Indian War: land held by the Britis
h before 1763 is shown in red, land gained by Britain in 1763 is shown in pink.
In the Treaty of Paris (1763), France formally ceded the eastern part of its vas
t North American empire to Britain (having secretly given the territory of Louis
iana west of the Mississippi River to Spain the previous year). Before the war,
Britain held the thirteen American colonies, most of present-day Nova Scotia, an
d most of the Hudson Bay watershed. Following the war, Britain gained all French
territory east of the Mississippi River, including Quebec, the Great Lakes, and
the Ohio River valley. Britain also gained Spanish Florida, from which it forme
d the colonies of East and West Florida. In removing a major foreign threat to t
he thirteen colonies, the war also largely removed the colonists' need of coloni
al protection.

The British and colonists triumphed jointly over a common foe. The colonists' lo
yalty to the mother country was stronger than ever before. However, disunity was
beginning to form. British Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder had decided to
wage the war in the colonies with the use of troops from the colonies and tax f
unds from Britain itself. This was a successful wartime strategy, but after the
war was over, each side believed that it had borne a greater burden than the oth
er. The British elite, the most heavily taxed of any in Europe, pointed out angr
ily that the colonists paid little to the royal coffers. The colonists replied t
hat their sons had fought and died in a war that served European interests more
than their own. This dispute was a link in the chain of events that soon brought
about the American Revolution.[47]
Ties to the British Empire[edit]
Although the colonies were very different from one another, they were still a pa
rt of the British Empire in more than just name.
Socially, the colonial elite of Boston, New York, Charleston, and Philadelphia s
aw their identity as British. Although many had never been to Britain, they imit
ated British styles of dress, dance, and etiquette. This social upper echelon bu
ilt its mansions in the Georgian style, copied the furniture designs of Thomas C
hippendale, and participated in the intellectual currents of Europe, such as the
Enlightenment. To many of their inhabitants, the seaport cities of colonial Ame
rica were truly British cities.[48]
Republicanism[edit]
Many of the political structures of the colonies drew upon the republicanism exp
ressed by opposition leaders in Britain, most notably the Commonwealth men and t
he Whig traditions. Many Americans at the time saw the colonies' systems of gove
rnance as modeled after the British constitution of the time, with the king corr
esponding to the governor, the House of Commons to the colonial assembly, and th
e House of Lords to the governor's council. The codes of law of the colonies wer
e often drawn directly from English law; indeed, English common law survives not
only in Canada, but also throughout the United States. Eventually, it was a dis
pute over the meaning of some of these political ideals, especially political re
presentation, and republicanism that led to the American Revolution.[49]
Consumption[edit]
Another point on which the colonies found themselves more similar than different
was the booming import of British goods. The British economy had begun to grow
rapidly at the end of the 17th century, and by the mid-18th century, small facto
ries in Britain were producing much more than the nation could consume. Finding
a market for their goods in the British colonies of North America, Britain incre
ased her exports to that region by 360% between 1740 and 1770. Because British m
erchants offered generous credit to their customers,[citation needed] Americans
began buying staggering amounts of British goods. From Nova Scotia to Georgia, a
ll British subjects bought similar products, creating and anglicizing a sort of
common identity.[48]
Atlantic world[edit]
In recent years historians have enlarged their perspective to cover the entire A
tlantic world in a subfield now known as Atlantic history.[50][51] Of special in
terest are such themes as international migration, trade, colonization, comparat
ive military and governmental institutions, the transmission of religions and mi
ssionary work, and the slave trade. It was the Age of the Enlightenment, and ide
as flowed back and forth across the Atlantic, with Philadelphian Benjamin Frankl
in playing a major role. Warfare was critical, for as Furstenberg, (2008) explai
ns, from 1754 to 1815, the major imperial players
Britain, the American colonies
, Spain, France, the First Nations (Indians) and the United States fought a seri
es of conflicts that can be called a "Long War for the West" over control of the

region.[52]
Women played a role in the emergence of the capitalist economy in the Atlantic w
orld. The types of local commercial exchange in which they participated independ
ently
especially markets in dairy and produce commodities
were well integrated w
ith the trade networks between colonial merchants throughout the Atlantic region
. For example, local women merchants were important suppliers of foodstuffs to t
ransatlantic shipping concerns.[53]
Tax protests lead to Revolution[edit]
Main article: American Revolution
In the colonial era, Americans insisted on their rights as Englishmen to have th
eir own legislature raise all taxes. Tax loads in practice were very light, and
far lower than in England. Beginning in 1765 the British Parliament asserted its
supreme authority to lay taxes, and a series of American protests began that le
d directly to the American Revolution. The first wave of protests attacked the S
tamp Act of 1765, and marked the first time Americans from each of the 13 coloni
es met together and planned a common front against illegal taxes. The Boston Tea
Party of 1773 dumped British tea into Boston Harbor because it contained a hidd
en tax Americans refused to pay. The British responded by trying to crush tradit
ional liberties in Massachusetts, leading to the American revolution starting in
1775.[54]
The idea of independence steadily became more widespread, after being first prop
osed and advocated by a number of public figures and commentators throughout the
Colonies. One of the most prominent voices on behalf of independence was Thomas
Paine, in his pamphlet Common Sense published in 1776. Another group which call
ed for independence was the Sons of Liberty, which had been founded in 1765 in B
oston by Samuel Adams and which was now becoming even more strident and numerous
.
The Parliament attempted a series of taxes and punishments which met more and mo
re resistance: First Quartering Act (1765); Declaratory Act (1766); Townshend Re
venue Act (1767); and Tea Act (1773). In response to the Boston Tea Party Parlia
ment passed the Intolerable Acts: Second Quartering Act (1774); Quebec Act (1774
); Massachusetts Government Act (1774); Administration of Justice Act (1774); Bo
ston Port Act (1774); Prohibitory Act (1775). By this point the 13 colonies had
organized themselves into the Continental Congress and began setting up shadow g
overnments and drilling their militia in preparation for war.[55]
Colonial life[edit]
Religion[edit]
The religious ties between the metropole and the colonies was especially strong.
The Puritans of New England seldom kept in touch with nonconformists in England
. Much closer were the transatlantic relationships maintained by the Quakers. (s
ee History of the Religious Society of Friends). Likewise the Methodists kept in
close touch.[56][57]
The Anglican Church was officially established in the Southern colonies, which m
eant that local taxes paid the salary of the minister, the parish had civic resp
onsibilities such as poor relief, and the local gentry controlled the parish. se
e Religion in early Virginia. The church was disestablished during the American
Revolution. The Anglicans in America were controlled by the Bishop of London, an
d there was a long debate over whether to establish an Anglican bishop in Americ
a. The other Protestants strongly opposed it.[58]
Women's roles[edit]
See also: Cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies
The experiences of women during the colonial era varied greatly from colony to c
olony. In New England, the Puritan settlers brought their strong religious value

s with them to the New World, which dictated that a woman be subordinate to her
husband and dedicate herself to rearing God-fearing children to the best of her
ability. Hispanic women were at the center of family life in New Mexico and Cali
fornia.
There were ethnic differences in the treatment of women. Among Puritan settlers
in New England, wives almost never worked in the fields with their husbands. In
German communities in Pennsylvania, however, many women worked in fields and sta
bles. German and Dutch immigrants granted women more control over property, whic
h was not permitted in the local English law. Unlike English colonial wives, Ger
man and Dutch wives owned their own clothes and other items and were also given
the ability to write wills disposing of the property brought into the marriage.
Much later on in the colonial experience, as the values of the American Enlighte
nment were imported from Britain, the philosophies of such thinkers as John Lock
e weakened the view that husbands were natural "rulers" over their wives and rep
lacing it with a (slightly) more liberal conception of marriage. Women also lost
most control of their property when marrying. Even single women could not sue a
nyone or be sued, or make contracts, and divorce was almost impossible until the
late eighteenth century.[59]
New England[edit]
In New England, the Puritans created self-governing communities of religious con
gregations of farmers, or yeomen, and their families. High-level politicians gav
e out plots of land to male settlers, or proprietors, who then divided the land
amongst themselves. Large portions were usually given to men of higher social st
anding, but every white man who wasn't indentured or criminally bonded had enough la
nd to support a family. Every male citizen had a voice in the town meeting. The
town meeting levied taxes, built roads, and elected officials who managed town a
ffairs. The towns did not have courts that was a function of a larger unit, the co
unty, whose officials were appointed by the state government.[60]
The Congregational Church, the church the Puritans founded, was not automaticall
y joined by all New England residents because of Puritan beliefs that God single
d out specific people for salvation. Instead, membership was limited to those wh
o could convincingly "test" before members of the church that they had been save
d. They were known as "the elect" or "Saints" and made up less than 40% of the p
opulation of New England.[61]
Farm life[edit]
A majority of New England residents were small farmers. Within these small farm
families, and English families as well, a man had complete power over the proper
ty and his wife. When married, an English woman lost her maiden name and persona
l identity, meaning she could not own property, file lawsuits, or participate in
political life, even when widowed. The role of wives was to raise and nurture h
ealthy children and support their husbands. Most women carried out these duties.
[62] During the 18th century, couples usually married between the ages of 20-24
and 6-8 children were typical of a family, with three on average surviving to ad
ulthood. Farm women provided most of the materials needed by the rest of the fam
ily by spinning yarn from wool and knitting sweaters and stockings, making candl
es and soap from ashes, and churning milk into butter.[63]
long-term economic growth
Most New England parents tried to help their sons establish farms of their own.
When sons married, fathers gave them gifts of land, livestock, or farming equipm
ent; daughters received household goods, farm animals, and/or cash. Arranged mar
riages were very unusual; normally, children chose their own spouses from within
a circle of suitable acquaintances who shared their race, religion, and social
standing. Parents retained veto power over their children's marriages.

New England farming families generally lived in wooden houses because of the abu
ndance of trees. A typical New England farmhouse was one-and-a-half stories tall
and had a strong frame (usually made of large square timbers) that was covered
by wooden clapboard siding. A large chimney stood in the middle of the house tha
t provided cooking facilities and warmth during the winter. One side of the grou
nd floor contained a hall, a general-purpose room where the family worked and at
e meals. Adjacent to the hall was the parlor, a room used to entertain guests th
at contained the family's best furnishings and the parent's bed. Children slept
in a loft above, while the kitchen was either part of the hall or was located in
a shed along the back of the house. Because colonial families were large, these
small dwellings had much activity and there was little privacy.
By the middle of the 18th century, New England's way of life was threatened by o
verpopulation, going from about 100,000 people in 1700 to 250,000 in 1725 and 37
5,000 in 1750 thanks to high birth rates and relatively high overall life expect
ancy (a 15 year old boy in 1700 could expect to live to about 63). As colonists
in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island continued to subdivide their lan
d between farmers, the farms became too small to support single families. This o
verpopulation threatened the New England ideal of a society of independent yeoma
n farmers.[64]
Some farmers obtained land grants to create farms in undeveloped land in Massach
usetts and Connecticut or bought plots of land from speculators in New Hampshire
and what later became Vermont. Other farmers became agricultural innovators. Th
ey planted nutritious English grass such as red clover and timothy-grass, which
provided more feed for livestock, and potatoes, which provided a high production
rate that was an advantage for small farms. Families increased their productivi
ty by exchanging goods and labor with each other. They loaned livestock and graz
ing land to one another and worked together to spin yarn, sew quilts, and shuck
corn. Migration, agricultural innovation, and economic cooperation were creative
measures that preserved New England's yeoman society until the 19th century.
Town life[edit]
Saltbox-style homes originated in New England after 1650
By the mid-18th century in New England, shipbuilding was a staple, particularly
as the North American wilderness offered a seemingly endless supply of timber (b
y comparison, Europe's forests had been depleted and most timber had to be purch
ased from Scandinavia) The British crown often turned to the cheap, yet strongly
built American ships. There was a shipyard at the mouth of almost every river i
n New England.
By 1750, a variety of artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants provided services to
the growing farming population. Blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and furniture makers
set up shops in rural villages. There they built and repaired goods needed by fa
rm families. Stores selling English manufactures such as cloth, iron utensils, a
nd window glass as well as West Indian products like sugar and molasses were set
up by traders. The storekeepers of these shops sold their imported goods in exc
hange for crops and other local products including roof shingles, potash, and ba
rrel staves. These local goods were shipped to towns and cities all along the At
lantic Coast. Enterprising men set up stables and taverns along wagon roads to s
ervice this transportation system.
After these products had been delivered to port towns such as Boston and Salem i
n Massachusetts, New Haven in Connecticut, and Newport and Providence in Rhode I
sland, merchants then exported them to the West Indies where they were traded fo
r molasses, sugar, gold coins, and bills of exchange (credit slips). They carrie
d the West Indian products to New England factories where the raw sugar was turn
ed into granulated sugar and the molasses distilled into rum. The gold and credi
t slips were sent to England where they were exchanged for manufactures, which w

ere shipped back to the colonies and sold along with the sugar and rum to farmer
s.
Other New England merchants took advantage of the rich fishing areas along the A
tlantic Coast and financed a large fishing fleet, transporting its catch of mack
erel and cod to the West Indies and Europe. Some merchants exploited the vast am
ounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England. They funded
sawmills that supplied cheap wood for houses and shipbuilding. Hundreds of New
England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and Ameri
can merchants.
Many merchants became very wealthy by providing their goods to the agricultural
population and ended up dominating the society of sea port cities. Unlike yeoman
farmhouses, these merchants resembled the lifestyle of that of the upper class
of England living in elegant 2 1/2-story houses designed the new Georgian style.
These Georgian houses had a symmetrical façade with equal numbers of windows on b
oth sides of the central door. The interior consisted of a passageway down the m
iddle of the house with specialized rooms such as a library, dining room, formal
parlor, and master bedroom off the sides. Unlike the multi-purpose space of the
yeoman houses, each of these rooms served a separate purpose. In a Georgian hou
se, men mainly used certain rooms, such as the library, while women mostly used
the kitchen. These houses contained bedrooms on the second floor that provided p
rivacy to parents and children.
Culture and education[edit]
Main articles: History of education in the United States § Colonial Era and Educat
ion in Colonial America
Education was primarily the responsibility of families, but numerous religious g
roups, especially the Puritans in New England, established tax-supported element
ary schools so their children could read the Bible. Nearly all the religious den
ominations set up their own schools and colleges to train ministers. Each city,
and most towns, had private academies for the children of affluent families.[65]
Massachusetts Hall, oldest surviving building at Harvard University, built 1718 17
20 as a dormitory
The practical sciences were of great interest to colonial Americans, who were en
gaged in the process of taming and settling a wild frontier country. While scien
ce could eventually be applied to political problems, the mainstream of intellec
tual activity in the colonies was on technological and engineering developments
rather than more abstract topics such as politics or metaphysics. American scien
tific activity was symbolized by David Rittenhouse, who constructed the first pl
anetarium in the Western Hemisphere, New York lieutenant governor Cadawaller Col
den, botanist and anthropologist, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, the celebrated physicia
n and social reformer and member of the American Philosophical Society founded b
y Benjamin Franklin, who had contributed important discoveries to physics such a
s electricity, but was more successful in his practical inventions such as stove
s and lightning rods.
The arts in colonial America were not as successful as the sciences. Literature
in the European sense was nearly nonexistent, with histories being far more note
worthy. These included The History and present State of Virginia (1705) by Rober
t Beverly and History of the Dividing Line (1728 29) by William Byrd, which howeve
r was not published until a century later. Instead, the newspaper was the princi
ple form of reading material in the colonies. Since printing was expensive, most
publications focused on purely practical matters such as major news, advertisem
ents, and business reports. Aside from newspapers, almanacs were very popular, B
enjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac being the most famous. Literary magazi
nes appeared at mid-century, but few were profitable and most went out of busine
ss after only a few years. While American publications never approached the inte

llectual quality of European writers, they were much more widespread and achieve
d a greater readership than anything produced by Voltaire, Locke, or Rousseau.
New Englanders wrote journals, pamphlets, books and especially sermons more than a
ll of the other colonies combined. Cotton Mather, a Boston minister published Ma
gnalia Christi Americana (The Great Works of Christ in America, 1702), while rev
ivalist Jonathan Edwards wrote his philosophical work, A Careful and Strict Enqu
iry Into...Notions of...Freedom of Will... (1754). Most music had a religious th
eme as well and was mainly the singing of Psalms. Because of New England's deep
religious beliefs, artistic works that were insufficiently religious or too "wor
ldly" were banned, especially the theater. The leading theologian and philosophe
r of the colonial era was Jonathan Edwards of Massachusetts, an interpreter of C
alvinism, and the leader of the First Great Awakening.
Art and drama were somewhat more successful than literature. Benjamin West was a
noteworthy painter of historical subjects and two first-rate portrait painters
emerged in John Copley and Gilbert Stuart, yet all three men spent much of their
lives in London. Theater was more developed in the Southern colonies, especiall
y South Carolina, but nowhere did stage works attain the level of Europe. Purita
ns in New England and Quakers in Pennsylvania opposed theatrical performances as
immoral and ungodly.
Elementary education was widespread in New England. Early Puritan settlers belie
ved it was necessary to study the Bible, so children were taught to read at an e
arly age. It was also required that each town pay for a primary school. About 10
percent enjoyed secondary schooling and funded grammar schools in larger towns.
Most boys learned skills from their fathers on the farm or as apprentices to ar
tisans. Few girls attended formal schools, but most were able to get some educat
ion at home or at so-called "Dame schools" where women taught basic reading and
writing skills in their own houses. By 1750, nearly 90% of New England's women a
nd almost all of its men could read and write. Puritans founded Harvard College
in 1636 and Yale College in 1701. Later, Baptists founded Rhode Island College (
now Brown University) in 1764 and Congregationalists established Dartmouth Colle
ge in 1769. Virginia founded schools the College of William and Mary in 1693; it
was primarily Anglican. The colleges were designed for aspiring ministers, lawy
ers or doctors. There were no departments or majors, as every student shared the
same curriculum, which focused on Latin and Greek, mathematics, and history, ph
ilosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, oratory, and a little basic science. There we
re no sports or fraternities and few extracurricular activities apart from liter
ary societies. There were no separate seminaries, law schools, or divinity schoo
ls. The first medical schools were founded late in the colonial era in Philadelp
hia and New York.[66]
Religion[edit]
Some migrants who came to Colonial America were in search of religious freedom.
London did not make the Church of England official in the colonies it never sent a
bishop so religious practice became diverse.[67]
The Great Awakening was a major religious revival movement that took place in mo
st colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.[68] The movement began with Jonathan Edwards
, a Massachusetts preacher who sought to return to the Pilgrims' strict Calvinis
t roots and to reawaken the "Fear of God." English preacher George Whitefield an
d other itinerant preachers continued the movement, traveling across the colonie
s and preaching in a dramatic and emotional style. Followers of Edwards and othe
r preachers of similar religiosity called themselves the "New Lights", as contra
sted with the "Old Lights", who disapproved of their movement. To promote their
viewpoints, the two sides established academies and colleges, including Princeto
n and Williams College. The Great Awakening has been called the first truly Amer
ican event.[69]

A similar pietistic revival movement took place among some German and Dutch sett
lers, leading to more divisions. By the 1770s, the Baptists were growing rapidly
both in the north (where they founded Brown University), and in the South (wher
e they challenged the previously unquestioned moral authority of the Anglican es
tablishment).
Mid-Atlantic Region[edit]
Unlike New England, the Mid-Atlantic Region gained much of its population from n
ew immigration, and by 1750, the combined populations of New York, New Jersey, a
nd Pennsylvania had reached nearly 300,000 people. By 1750, about 60,000 Irish a
nd 50,000 Germans came to live in British North America, many of them settling i
n the Mid-Atlantic Region. William Penn, the man who founded the colony of Penns
ylvania in 1682, attracted an influx of British Quakers with his policies of rel
igious liberty and freehold ownership. ("Freehold" meant owning land free and cl
ear, with the right to resell it to anyone.) The first major influx of settlers
were the Scotch Irish, who headed to the frontier. Many Germans came to escape t
he religious conflicts and declining economic opportunities in Germany and Switz
erland.
Ways of life[edit]
Much of the architecture of the Middle Colonies reflects the diversity of its pe
oples. In Albany and New York City, a majority of the buildings were Dutch style
with brick exteriors and high gables at each end while many Dutch churches were
shaped liked an octagon. Using cut stone to build their houses, German and Wels
h settlers in Pennsylvania followed the way of their homeland and completely ign
ored the plethora of timber in the area. An example of this would be Germantown,
Pennsylvania where 80 percent of the buildings in the town were made entirely o
f stone. On the other hand, settlers from Ireland took advantage of America's am
ple supply of timber and constructed sturdy log cabins.
Ethnic cultures also affected the styles of furniture. Rural Quakers preferred s
imple designs in furnishings such as tables, chairs, chests and shunned elaborat
e decorations. However, some urban Quakers had much more elaborate furniture. Th
e city of Philadelphia became a major center of furniture-making because of its
massive wealth from Quaker and British merchants. Philadelphian cabinet makers b
uilt elegant desks and highboys. German artisans created intricate carved design
s on their chests and other furniture with painted scenes of flowers and birds.
German potters also crafted a large array of jugs, pots, and plates, of both ele
gant and traditional design.
There were ethnic differences in the treatment of women. Among Puritan settlers
in New England, wives almost never worked in the fields with their husbands. In
German communities in Pennsylvania, however, many women worked in fields and sta
bles. German and Dutch immigrants granted women more control over property, whic
h was not permitted in the local English law. Unlike English colonial wives, Ger
man and Dutch wives owned their own clothes and other items and were also given
the ability to write wills disposing of the property brought into the marriage.
By the time of the Revolutionary War, approximately 85 percent of white American
s were of English, Irish, Welsh, or Scottish descent. Approximately 8.8 percent
of whites were of German ancestry, and 3.5 percent were of Dutch origin.
Farming[edit]
Ethnicity made a difference in agricultural practice. As an example, German farm
ers generally preferred oxen rather than horses to pull their plows and Scots-Ir
ish made a farming economy based on hogs and corn. In Ireland, people farmed int
ensively, working small pieces of land trying to get the largest possible produc
tion-rate from their crops. In the American colonies, settlers from northern Ire
land focused on mixed-farming. Using this technique, they grew corn for human co
nsumption and as feed for hogs and other livestock. Many improvement-minded farm

ers of all different backgrounds began using new agricultural practices to raise
their output. During the 1750s, these agricultural innovators replaced the hand
sickles and scythes used to harvest hay, wheat, and barley with the cradle scyt
he, a tool with wooden fingers that arranged the stalks of grain for easy collec
tion. This tool was able to triple the amount of work done by farmers in one day
. Farmers also began fertilizing their fields with dung and lime and rotating th
eir crops to keep the soil fertile. By 1700, Philadelphia was exporting 350,000
bushels of wheat and 18,000 tons of flour annually. The Southern colonies in par
ticular relied on cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. South Carolina produced
rice and indigo. North Carolina was somewhat less involved in the plantation ec
onomy, but because a major producer of naval stores. Virginia and Maryland came
to be almost totally dependent on tobacco, which would ultimately prove fatal at
the end of the 18th century thanks to exhausted soil and collapsing prices, but
for most of the century, the soil remained good and a single-crop economy profi
table.
Before 1720, most colonists in the mid-Atlantic region worked with small-scale f
arming and paid for imported manufactures by supplying the West Indies with corn
and flour. In New York, a fur-pelt export trade to Europe flourished adding add
itional wealth to the region. After 1720, mid-Atlantic farming stimulated with t
he international demand for wheat. A massive population explosion in Europe brou
ght wheat prices up. By 1770, a bushel of wheat cost twice as much as it did in
1720. Farmers also expanded their production of flax seed and corn since flax wa
s a high demand in the Irish linen industry and a demand for corn existed in the
West Indies. Thus, by mid-century, most colonial farming was a commercial ventu
re, although subsistence agriculture continued to exist in New England and the m
iddle colonies.
Some immigrants who just arrived purchased farms and shared in this export wealt
h, but many poor German and Irish immigrants were forced to work as agricultural
wage laborers. Merchants and artisans also hired these homeless workers for a d
omestic system for the manufacture of cloth and other goods. Merchants often bou
ght wool and flax from farmers and employed newly arrived immigrants, who had be
en textile workers in Ireland and Germany, to work in their homes spinning the m
aterials into yarn and cloth. Large farmers and merchants became wealthy, while
farmers with smaller farms and artisans only made enough for subsistence. The Mi
d-Atlantic region, by 1750, was divided by both ethnic background and wealth.
Seaports[edit]
Seaports, which expanded from wheat trade, had more social classes than anywhere
else in the Middle Colonies. By 1750, the population of Philadelphia had reache
d 25,000, New York 15,000, and the port of Baltimore 7,000. Merchants dominated
seaport society and about 40 merchants controlled half of Philadelphia's trade.
Wealthy merchants in Philadelphia and New York, like their counterparts in New E
ngland, built elegant Georgian-style mansions.
Shopkeepers, artisans, shipwrights, butchers, coopers, seamstresses, cobblers, b
akers, carpenters, masons, and many other specialized professions, made up the m
iddle class of seaport society. Wives and husbands often worked as a team and ta
ught their children their crafts to pass it on through the family. Many of these
artisans and traders made enough money to create a modest life.
Laborers stood at the bottom of seaport society. These poor people worked on the
docks unloading inbound vessels and loading outbound vessels with wheat, corn,
and flaxseed. Many of these were African American; some were free while others w
ere enslaved. In 1750, blacks made up about 10 percent of the population of New
York and Philadelphia. Hundreds of seamen, some who were African American, worke
d as sailors on merchant ships.
Southern Colonies[edit]

The Southern Colonies were mainly dominated by the wealthy planters in Maryland,
Virginia, and South Carolina. They owned increasingly large plantations that we
re worked by African slaves. Of the 650,000 inhabitants of the South in 1750, ab
out 250,000 or 40 percent, were slaves. The plantations grew tobacco, indigo and
rice for export, and raised most of their own food supplies.[70] In addition, m
any small subsistence farms were family owned and operated by yeoman. Most white
men owned some land, and therefore could vote.[71]
Women in the South[edit]
Since the social history revolution in the 1970s historians have paid special at
tention to the role of women, family and gender in the colonial South.[72][73][7
4] In the early Chesapeake colonies, very few women were present. In 1650, estim
ates put Maryland's total population near six hundred with fewer than two hundre
d women present.[75] Much of the population consisted of young, single, white in
dentured servants, and as such the colonies, to a large degree, lacked any socia
l cohesiveness. African women entered the colony as early as 1619, although thei
r status: free, slave or indentured servant remains a historical debate. In the
17th century high mortality rates for newcomers and a very high ratio of men to
women made family life either impossible or unstable for most colonists. These f
actors, along with dispersed settlements and a reluctance to live in villages, t
ogether with a growing immigration of white indentured servants and black slaves
made families and communities in the Virginia-Maryland region before 1700 funda
mentally different from their counterparts in Europe and New England. These extr
eme conditions both demeaned and empowered women. Lacking male protectors, women
, especially teenage girls who were indentured servants, often were vulnerable t
o exploitation and abuse. On the other hand, without parental oversight, young w
omen had much more freedom in choosing spouses, and the shortage of eligible wom
en enabled them to use marriage as an avenue to upward mobility. The high death
rates meant that Chesapeake wives generally became widows who inherited property
; many widows increased their property by remarrying as soon as possible. The po
pulation began to stabilize around 1700, with a 1704 census listing 30,437 white
people present with 7,163 of those being women.[75] Women married younger, rema
ined wed longer, bore more children, and lost influence within the family polity
.[76]
Slaves[edit]
Main article: Slavery in Colonial America
Slaves imported to American colonies[77]
1620-1700.....21,000
1701-1760....189,000
1761-1770.....63,000
1771-1790.....56,000
1791-1800.....79,000
1801-1810....124,000[78]
1810-1865.....51,000
Total ..........597,000
About 600,000 slaves were imported into the U.S., or 5% of the 12 million slaves
brought across from Africa. The great majority went to sugar colonies in the Ca
ribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be
continually replenished. Life expectancy was much higher in the U.S. (because o
f better food, less disease, lighter work loads, and better medical care) so the
numbers grew rapidly by excesses of births over deaths, reaching 4 million by t
he 1860 Census. From 1770 until 1860, the rate of natural growth of North Americ
an slaves was much greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, and
was nearly twice as rapid as that of England.[79]
The enslaved African (known as African slaves, although they were not considered
slaves until they were officially purchased by a planter or plantation owner) w
ho worked on the indigo, tobacco, and rice fields in the South came from mainly

western and central Africa. Slavery in Colonial America was very oppressive as i
t passed on from generation to generation, and slaves had no legal rights. The c
olonies that had the most specialization in production of goods, such as sugar a
nd coffee, relied most on slaves and consequently, had the highest per capita (i
ncluding slaves) income in the New World. However, the slaves did not accrue wag
es or receive rights and provided free labor to those who purchased them and rec
eived just enough to live. They were considered in Chattel slavery. Between 1500
and 1700, over 60% of the 6 million people who were brought or traveled to the
New World were involuntary slaves. In 1700, there were about 9,600 slaves in the
Chesapeake region and a few hundred in the Carolinas. About 170,000 more Africa
ns were forcibly brought over the next five decades. By 1750, there were more th
an 250,000 slaves in British America; and, in the Carolinas, they made up about
60 percent of the total population. The first post-colonial Census found 697,681
slaves and 59,527 free blacks, who together made up about 20% of the country's
population. Most slaves in South Carolina were born in Africa, while half the sl
aves in Virginia and Maryland were born in the colonies.[citation needed]
See also[edit]
British North America
Chronology of the colonization of North America
Colonial American military history
Disease in colonial America
European colonization of the Americas
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
List of incidents of civil unrest in Colonial North America
List of place names in the United States of Native American origin
New France
New Spain
Slavery in the colonial United States
Thirteen Colonies
Footnotes[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Cooke, ed. North America in Colonial Times (1998)
Jump up ^ Richard Middleton and Anne Lombard, Colonial America: A History to 176
3 (4th ed. 2011) p. 23
Jump up ^ Wallace Notestein, English People on Eve of Colonization, 1603 30 (1954)
Jump up ^ William R. Nester, The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Im
perial Struggle for North America, 1607 1755 (Praeger, 2000) p, 54.
Jump up ^ Tebeau, Charlton W. (1971). A History of Florida. Coral Gables, Florid
a: University of Miami Press. pp. 114 118.
Jump up ^ Michael Gannon, The New History of Florida (1996)
Jump up ^ David Grant Noble, Santa Fe: History of an Ancient City (2nd ed. 2008)
ch 3-5
Jump up ^ David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (2002), ch 5
Jump up ^ Charles E. Chapman, A History of California: The Spanish Period (1991)
ch 27-31 online
Jump up ^ Jacqueline Peterson, Jennifer S. H. Brown, Many roads to Red River (20
01), p69
Jump up ^ Natalia Maree Belting; Carl J. Ekberg (2003). Kaskaskia Under the Fren
ch Regime. SIU Press. p. 153.
Jump up ^ John Garretson Clark (1970). New Orleans, 1718-1812: An Economic Histo
ry. Pelican Publishing. p. 23.
Jump up ^ Junius P. Rodriguez, The Louisiana Purchase: A Historical and Geograph
ical Encyclopedia (2002)
Jump up ^ Jaap Jacobs, The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seven
teenth-Century America (2009)
Jump up ^ Michael G. Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (1996)
Jump up ^ John Andrew Doyle, English Colonies in America: Volume IV The Middle C
olonies (1907) ch. 1 online
Jump up ^ Amandus Johnson The Swedes on the Delaware (1927)
Jump up ^ "Meeting of Frontiers: Alaska
The Russian Colonization of Alaska". Lcw

eb2.loc.gov. Retrieved 2012-03-09.
Jump up ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft vol. 33: Histo
ry of Alaska, 1730 1885 (1886) online
Jump up ^ Herbert Moller, "Sex Composition and Correlated Culture Patterns of Co
lonial America," William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 113 15
3 in JSTOR
Jump up ^ James Davie Butler, "British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies," A
merican Historical Review 2 (October 1896): 12 33
^ Jump up to: a b Alan Taylor, American Colonies,, 2001.
^ Jump up to: a b Ronald L. Heinemann, Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History
of Virginia, 1607 2007, 2008.
Jump up ^ Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer nation: the idea of America's millennial
role (University of Chicago Press, 1980)
Jump up ^ Benjamin Woods Labaree, Colonial Massachusetts: a history (1979)
Jump up ^ Anne Mackin, Americans and their land: the house built on abundance (U
niversity of Michigan Press, 2006) p 29
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f James Ciment, ed. Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of
Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, 2005.
Jump up ^ James Truslow Adams, The founding of New England (1921) pp 398 431 onlin
e
Jump up ^ John Andrew Doyle, English Colonies in America: Volume IV The Middle C
olonies (1907) online
Jump up ^ Louise Phelps Kellogg, The American colonial charter (1904) online
Jump up ^ Patricia U. Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonia
l New York (Columbia U.P., 1971) p 281
Jump up ^ Robert J. Dinkin, Voting in Provincial America: A Study of Elections i
n the Thirteen Colonies, 1689 1776 (1977)
Jump up ^ Pole, J. R. (1962). "Historians and the Problem of Early American Demo
cracy". American Historical Review 67 (3): 626 46. doi:10.2307/1844105.
Jump up ^ Richard R. Beeman, "The Varieties of Deference in Eighteenth-Century A
merica," Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 3#2 Fall 2
005, pp. 311 340
Jump up ^ Patricia U. Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonia
l New York (Columbia U.P., 1971) pp 281 2
Jump up ^ Cooke, Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies (1993) vol 1 pp 341 6
2, 391 402; 435 39
Jump up ^ Anton-Hermann Chroust, The Rise of the Legal Profession in America: Vo
lume 1, The Colonial Experience (1965)
Jump up ^ Bonomi, A Factious People, p. 282
Jump up ^ Bonomi, A Factious People, pp 281 286
Jump up ^ On the historiography, see Alan Tully, "Colonial Politics," in Daniel
Vickers ed. A Companion to Colonial America (Blackwell, 2006) pp 288 310
Jump up ^ Jack P. Greene, Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in
the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607 1788 (2008
)
Jump up ^ James Graham Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish: A Social History (1989)
Jump up ^ Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settleme
nt and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717 1775 (1996).
Jump up ^ Jack P. Greene, "'Pluribus' or 'Unum?' White Ethnicity in the Formatio
n of Colonial American Culture," History Now, 1998, Vol. 4 Issue 1, pp 1 12
Jump up ^ Wayne L. Bockelman, and Owen S. Ireland, "The Internal Revolution in P
ennsylvania: An Ethnic-Religious Interpretation," Pennsylvania History, March 19
74, Vol. 41 Issue 2, pp 125 159
Jump up ^ H. W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Frank
lin (2002)
^ Jump up to: a b c Fred Anderson, The War That Made America: A Short History of
the French and Indian War (2006)
^ Jump up to: a b Daniel Vickers, ed. A Companion to Colonial America (2006), ch
13 16
Jump up ^ Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (19

67); Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, eds. A Companion to the American Revolution
(2003)
Jump up ^ David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick, eds., The British Atlantic Wor
ld, 1500 1800 (2002);
Jump up ^ Alison. Games, "Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportu
nities," American Historical Review, June 2006, Vol. 111 Issue 3, pp 741 757
Jump up ^ François Furstenberg, "The Significance of the Trans-Appalachian Frontie
r in Atlantic History," American Historical Review, June 2008, Vol. 113 Issue 3,
pp 647 677,
Jump up ^ James E.. McWilliams, "Butter, Milk, and a 'Spare Ribb': Women's Work
and the Transatlantic Economic Transition in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts,"
New England Quarterly, March 2009, Vol. 82 Issue 1, pp 5 24
Jump up ^ Thomas P. Slaughter, "The Tax Man Cometh: Ideological Opposition to In
ternal Taxes, 1760 1790," William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 41, No. 4 (October 1984)
, pp. 566 591 in JSTOR
Jump up ^ Francis D. Cogliano, Revolutionary America, 1763 1815; A Political Histo
ry (2nd ed. 2008) pp 49 76
Jump up ^ Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and P
olitics in Colonial America (1986) excerpt and text search
Jump up ^ Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (1972)
pp 121-384 excerpt and text search
Jump up ^ John Nelson, A Blessed Company: Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in
Anglican Virginia, 1690 1776 (2001)
Jump up ^ Carol Berkin, First Generations: Women in Colonial America (1997)
Jump up ^ Kenneth A. Lockridge, A New England Town, The First Hundred Years: Ded
ham, Massachusetts, 1636 1736 (1969)
Jump up ^ Joseph A. Conforti, Saints and Strangers: New England in British North
America (2005)
Jump up ^ Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations
in Seventeenth-Century New England (1966) excerpt and text search
Jump up ^ Brian Donahue, The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Conc
ord (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) (2007)
Jump up ^ Percy Wells Bidwell, Rural economy in New England at the beginning of
the nineteenth century (1916) full text online
Jump up ^ Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607 17
83 (Harper, 1972)
Jump up ^ Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607 1783 (1972)
Jump up ^ Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (2nd ed
. 2004) ch 17 22
Jump up ^ Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (2nd ed
. 2004) ch 18, 20
Jump up ^ Historian Jon Butler has questioned the concept of a Great Awakening,
but most historians use it. John M. Murrin (June 1983). "No Awakening, No Revolu
tion? More Counterfactual Speculations". Reviews in American History (The Johns
Hopkins University Press) 11 (2): 161 171. doi:10.2307/2702135. ISSN 0048-7511. JS
TOR 2702135.
Jump up ^ Robert W. Twyman and David C. Roller, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern H
istory (1979). ISBN 0-8071-0575-9.
Jump up ^ Robert E. Brown and B. Katherine Brown, Virginia, 1705 1786: Democracy o
r Aristocracy? (1964)
Jump up ^ Cynthia A. Kierner, "Gender, Families, and Households in the Southern
Colonies," Journal of Southern History, Aug 2007, Vol. 73 Issue 3, pp 643 658
Jump up ^ On Virginia see Kathleen M. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxi
ous Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996) 512pp excerp
t and text search
Jump up ^ Ben Marsh, Georgia's Frontier Women: Female Fortunes in a Southern Col
ony (2007)
^ Jump up to: a b Carr and Walso, Lois Green and Lorena (Oct 1977). "The Planter
's Wife: The Experience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland". The Wil
liam and Mary Quarterly 34 (4): 543.

Jump up ^ Lois Green Carr and Lorena S. Walsh, "The Planter's Wife: The Experien
ce of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland," William and Mary Quarterly,
34 (October 1977), 542 71 in JSTOR
Jump up ^ Source: Miller and Smith, eds. Dictionary of American Slavery (1988) p
. 678
Jump up ^ Includes 10,000 to Louisiana before 1803.
Jump up ^ Michael Tadman, "The Demographic Cost of Sugar: Debates on Slave Socie
ties and Natural Increase in the Americas," The American Historical Review Dec.
2000 105:5 online
Bibliography[edit]
Reference books[edit]
American National Biography (20 vol 2000; also online); scholarly biographies of
every major figure
Ciment, James, ed. Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultu
ral, and Economic History (2005)
Cooke, Jacob Ernest, ed. Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies (3 vol 1993
)
Cooke, Jacob, ed. North America in Colonial Times: An Encyclopedia for Students
(1998)
Faragher, John Mack. The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America (199
6)
Gallay, Alan, ed. Colonial Wars of North America, 1512 1763: An Encyclopedia (1996
) excerpt and text search
Gipson, Lawrence. The British Empire Before the American Revolution (15 volumes)
(1936 1970), Pulitzer Prize; highly detailed discussion of every British colony i
n the New World
Pencak, William. Historical Dictionary of Colonial America (2011) excerpt and te
xt search; 400 entries; 492pp
Taylor, Dale. The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America, 1607-1783
(2002) excerpt and text search
Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America (2006), long topics essays
by scholars
Surveys[edit]
Adams, James Truslow. The Founding of New England (1921). online
Andrews, Charles M. (1934 38). The Colonial Period of American History. (the stand
ard overview in four volumes)
Bonomi, Patricia U. (1988). Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Pol
itics in Colonial America. (online at ACLS History e-book project)
Butler, Jon. Religion in Colonial America (Oxford University Press, 2000) online
Conforti, Joseph A. Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America (
2006). 236pp; the latest scholarly history of New England
Greene, Evarts Boutelle. Provincial America, 1690 1740 (1905) old, comprehensive o
verview by scholar online
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, ed. Major Problems In American Colonial History: Docume
nts and Essays (1999) short excerpts from scholars and primary sources
McNeese, Tim. Colonial America 1543 1763 (2010), short survey
Middleton, Richard and Anne Lombard. Colonial America: A History, 1565 1776 (4th e
d 2011), 624pp excerpt and text search
Savelle, Max. Seeds of Liberty: The Genesis of the American Mind (1965) comprehe
nsive survey of intellectual history online edition
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies, (2001) survey by leading scholar excerpt and te
xt search
Taylor, Alan. Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction (2012 168pp excerpt an
d text search
Special topics[edit]
Andrews, Charles M. (October 1914). "Colonial Commerce". American Historical Rev
iew (American Historical Association) 20 (1): 43 63. JSTOR 1836116. Also online at
JSTOR
Andrews, Charles M. (1904). Colonial Self-Government, 1652 1689. online
Beeman, Richard R. The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century A

merica (2006) excerpt and text search
Beer, George Louis. "British Colonial Policy, 1754 1765," Political Science Quarte
rly, vol 22 (March 1907) pp 1 48;
Berkin, Carol. First Generations: Women in Colonial America (1997) 276pp excerpt
and text search
Bonomi, Patricia U. (1971). A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial
New York.
Breen, T. H (1980). Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early Am
erica.
Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Ra
ce, and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996) 512pp excerpt and text search
Bruce, Philip A. Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inq
uiry into the Material Condition of the People, Based on Original and Contempora
neous Records. (1896), very old fashioned history
Carr, Lois Green and Philip D. Morgan. Colonial Chesapeake Society (1991), 524pp
excerpt and text search
Crane, Verner W. (1920). The Southern Frontier, 1670 1732.
Crane, Verner W. (April 1919). "The Southern Frontier in Queen Anne's War". Amer
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Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989),
comprehensive look at major ethnic groups excerpt and text search
Fogleman, Aaron. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political
Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996)
online
Hatfield, April Lee. Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial Relations in the Seventeen
th Century (2007) excerpt and text search
Illick, Joseph E. Colonial Pennsylvania: A History, (1976) online edition
Kammen, Michael. Colonial New York: A History, (2003)
Katz, Stanley, et al. eds. Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Devel
opment (6th ed. 2010), 606pp; essays by 28 leading scholars table of contents
Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Co
lonial America (2009)
Kulikoff, Allan (2000). From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers.
Labaree, Benjamin Woods. Colonial Massachusetts: A History, (1979)
Mancall, Peter C. "Pigs for Historians: Changes in the Land and Beyond William a
nd Mary Quarterly (2010) 67#2 pp. 347-375 in JSTOR, covers historiography of env
ironmental history
Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Vir
ginia (1975) Pulitzer Prize online edition
Tate, Thad W. Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century (1980) excerpt and text sear
ch
Wood, Betty. Slavery in Colonial America, 1619 1776 (2005)
Primary sources[edit]
Kavenagh, W. Keith, ed. Foundations of Colonial America: A Documentary History (
1973) 4 vol.
Rushforth, Brett, Paul Mapp, and Alan Taylor, eds. North America and the Atlanti
c World: A History in Documents (2008)
Sarson, Steven, and Jack P. Greene, eds. The American Colonies and the British E
mpire, 1607 1783 (8 vol, 2010); primary sources
Online sources[edit]
Archiving Early America
Colonial History of the United States at Thayer's American History site
Colonial America 1600 1775, K12 Resources at the Wayback Machine (archived October
23, 2007)
External links[edit]
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: US History
Media related to Colonial America at Wikimedia Commons
Colonial American Culture
The short film Americans: 1776 (1975) is available for free download at the Inte
rnet Archive [more]

The short film Force of Citizens is available for free download at the Internet
Archive [more]
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