2.3 - The Regions of British Colonies

Overview of Colonial Development

• Charter Types: The British colonies were authorized by charters that defined their relationship with the Crown:

  • Corporate colonies like Jamestown, initially managed by joint-stock companies.

  • Royal colonies like Virginia post-1624, directly ruled by the king.

  • Proprietary colonies like Maryland and Pennsylvania, controlled by individuals granted charters by the king.

New England Colonies

• Plymouth (1620):

• Founders: Known as the Pilgrims, these were Separatists from the Church of England who initially moved to Holland seeking religious freedom before sailing to America.

• Challenges and Development: Faced harsh conditions but survived with the help of local Native Americans (Pocahontas), leading to the celebrated Thanksgiving. The economy was based on fishing, fur, and lumber.

• Massachusetts Bay (1630):

  • Founders: Led by John Winthrop and primarily Puritans seeking to reform the Church of England from within.

  • Development: Notable for the "Great Migration," which brought about 15,000 settlers in the 1630s, establishing a region characterized by small towns and mixed economies of agriculture and commerce.

  • Government and Society: Known for a high degree of self-governance and a focus on communal values influenced by Puritan religious beliefs.

• Rhode Island (1636): Founded by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who were expelled from Massachusetts for religious disagreements. Known for religious tolerance and separation of church and state.

• Connecticut (1636): Established by Thomas Hooker, who left Massachusetts with followers to set up a more democratic system. Known for drafting the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, one of the first written constitutions.

Middle Colonies

• New York (1664): Originally settled by the Dutch as New Amsterdam but captured by the English and renamed. The Duke of York, later King James II, granted the land. Known for diverse population and significant trade.

• New Jersey (1664): Initially part of New York, split into East and West Jersey until unified into a single royal colony in 1702. Attracted settlers with generous land offers and religious freedom.

• Pennsylvania: "The Holy Experiment"

  • Origin: Founded by William Penn in payment for a debt owed by the crown to his family. Penn established Pennsylvania with the intent to implement Quaker ideals, which emphasized equality, religious tolerance, and non-violence.

  • Economy and Government: The colony was known for its liberal policies including a Frame of Government (1682-1683) and the Charter of Liberties (1701), which allowed for a representative assembly and freedom of worship. The colony's capital, Philadelphia, was planned with a grid pattern that influenced later city designs.

  • Settlement Patterns: Attracted by offers of religious freedom and generous land terms, the colony drew a diverse group of settlers, including Dutch and Swedish, who were already settled along the Delaware River.

• Delaware (1704): Originally part of Pennsylvania but became a separate colony with its assembly while sharing a governor with Pennsylvania.

Southern Colonies

• Maryland (1634): Founded by George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, as a haven for Catholics facing persecution in England. Known for the Act of Toleration, which granted religious freedom to all Christians but later was repealed during Protestant dominance.

• Virginia (1607):

  1. Establishment: Virginia was established as the first permanent English colony at Jamestown by the Virginia Company. Economic challenges later led to its transition into a royal colony.

  2. Economic Development: The colony's economy was profoundly shaped by tobacco farming, which became a significant and profitable crop due to the efforts of John Rolfe and his Indian wife, Pocahontas. Their development of a new variety of tobacco gained popularity in Europe and was a major economic driver.

  3. Labor Practices: Initially, Virginia relied heavily on indentured servants from Europe, who were provided with incentives such as the headright system, which granted 50 acres of land to anyone who paid for their own or another’s passage. This system primarily benefited larger landowners who could sponsor multiple servants, thus expanding their landholdings significantly.

  4. Survival and Growth: Under the leadership of figures like Captain John Smith and John Rolfe, Jamestown overcame early hardships, setting the stage for Virginia's growth into a dominant tobacco-producing colony, which played a big role in the transatlantic trade and the broader economy of the British colonies.

• The Carolinas (1663): Granted to eight proprietors by Charles II, eventually split into North and South Carolina in 1729 due to differing economic focuses—North with small farms, South with plantation-based economy.

• Georgia: The Last Mainland Colony

  • Origin: Chartered in 1732 by a group led by James Oglethorpe, intended as a buffer colony to protect South Carolina from Spanish Florida and as a social experiment for English debtors.

  • Development: Initially, Georgia banned slavery and alcohol but struggled due to the threat of Spanish attack and internal economic challenges. By 1752, it transitioned to a royal colony, lifting restrictions and slowly adopting the plantation system prevalent in neighboring colonies.

  • Economic Shifts: Transitioned from a struggling outpost to a slowly prospering colony that mirrored the plantation economies of other southern colonies by the time of the American Revolution.

Economic and Environmental Influences

• Agricultural Variability: The type of agriculture was heavily influenced by the soil quality, climate, and geography of each region.

• Labor Systems: Varied from indentured servitude in the early days to reliance on enslaved Africans, particularly in the plantation economies of the South.

Political Evolution

• Representative Government: Virginia’s House of Burgesses and New England’s town meetings laid foundations for democratic governance.

• Religious and Social Controls: Varied in religious freedom, with some areas offering more tolerance than others, influenced the political and social dynamics of the colonies.

Early Political Institutions in British North America

Development of Self-Governance

• Challenges to British Control: Geographic distance and slow communication combined with Britain's preoccupation with domestic and European affairs led to a degree of neglect regarding the colonies. This allowed for the early development of self-rule in the Americas.

• Virginia's House of Burgesses (1619): Established as the first representative assembly in America by the Virginia Company. This assembly, mainly composed of elite planters, was a significant step toward self-governance by providing colonists the same legislative rights as residents of England.

• Mayflower Compact (1620): Created by the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, this document was a pioneering form of self-government in Plymouth, acting as a rudimentary written constitution that pledged decision-making by majority rule.

Representative Government in New England

• Town Meetings: Local governance in New England colonies like Massachusetts was characterized by town meetings, where communities would gather to make decisions and elect representatives to the colonial legislatures.

• Voting Rights: While relatively broad for the period, voting rights were generally restricted to freemen—male members of the Puritan Church—who could vote for the governor and assembly members in places like the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Limits to Colonial Democracy

• Restrictive Practices: Despite the advances in self-governance, democratic practices were not universally applied. Women, landless men, indentured servants, and enslaved individuals were largely excluded from the political process.

• Autocratic Rule: Many colonial governors wielded significant power with little accountability, often only answering to the British monarchy or the financial backers of the colonies.