Outline of US History by U.S. Department of State - HTML preview

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CHAPTER 2: THE COLONIAL PERIOD

“What then is the American,

this new man?”

American author and agriculturist

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, 1782

NEW PEOPLES

were even more so among the three

M

regional groupings of colonies .

ost settlers who came to Amer-

ica in the 17th century were English,

NEW ENGLAND

but there were also Dutch, Swedes,

and Germans in the middle region, The northeastern New England

a few French Huguenots in South colonies had generally thin, stony

Carolina and elsewhere, slaves from soil, relatively little level land, and

Africa, primarily in the South, and a long winters, making it difficult to

scattering of Spaniards, Italians, and make a living from farming . Turn-

Portuguese throughout the colonies . ing to other pursuits, the New Eng-

After 1680 England ceased to be the landers harnessed waterpower and

chief source of immigration, sup- established grain mills and saw-

planted by Scots and “Scots-Irish” mills . Good stands of timber en-

(Protestants from Northern Ire- couraged shipbuilding . Excellent

land) . In addition, tens of thousands harbors promoted trade, and the

of refugees fled northwestern Eu- sea became a source of great wealth .

rope to escape war, oppression, and In Massachusetts, the cod industry

absentee-landlordism . By 1690 the alone quickly furnished a basis for

American population had risen to prosperity .

a quarter of a million . From then

With the bulk of the early settlers

on, it doubled every 25 years until, living in villages and towns around

in 1775, it numbered more than 2 .5 the harbors, many New England-

million . Although families occa- ers carried on some kind of trade or

sionally moved from one colony to business . Common pastureland and

another, distinctions between indi- woodlots served the needs of towns-

vidual colonies were marked . They people, who worked small farms

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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

nearby . Compactness made possible Under William Penn, Pennsylvania

the village school, the village church, functioned smoothly and grew rap-

and the village or town hall, where idly . By 1685, its population was al-

citizens met to discuss matters of most 9,000 . The heart of the colony

common interest .

was Philadelphia, a city of broad,

The Massachusetts Bay Colony tree-shaded streets, substantial brick

continued to expand its commerce . and stone houses, and busy docks .

From the middle of the 17th century By the end of the colonial period,

onward it grew prosperous, so that nearly a century later, 30,000 people

Boston became one of America’s lived there, representing many lan-

greatest ports .

guages, creeds, and trades . Their tal-

Oak timber for ships’ hul s, tal ent for successful business enterprise

pines for spars and masts, and pitch made the city one of the thriving

for the seams of ships came from the centers of the British Empire .

Northeastern forests . Building their

Though the Quakers dominated

own vessels and sailing them to ports in Philadelphia, elsewhere in Penn-

all over the world, the shipmasters sylvania others were well represent-

of Massachusetts Bay laid the foun- ed . Germans became the colony’s

dation for a trade that was to grow most skillful farmers . Important,

steadily in importance . By the end too, were cottage industries such as

of the colonial period, one-third of weaving, shoemaking, cabinetmak-

all vessels under the British flag were ing, and other crafts . Pennsylvania

built in New England . Fish, ship’s was also the principal gateway into

stores, and woodenware swel ed the the New World for the Scots-Irish,

exports . New England merchants who moved into the colony in the

and shippers soon discovered that early 18th century . “Bold and indi-

rum and slaves were profitable com- gent strangers,” as one Pennsylvania

modities . One of their most enter- official called them, they hated the

prising — if unsavory — trading English and were suspicious of all

practices of the time was the “trian- government . The Scots-Irish tended

gular trade .” Traders would purchase to settle in the backcountry, where

slaves off the coast of Africa for New they cleared land and lived by hunt-

England rum, then sell the slaves in ing and subsistence farming .

the West Indies where they would

New York best il ustrated the

buy molasses to bring home for sale polyglot nature of America . By 1646

to the local rum producers .

the population along the Hudson

River included Dutch, French, Danes,

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

Norwegians, Swedes, English, Scots,

S

Irish, Germans, Poles, Bohemians,

ociety in the middle colonies Portuguese, and Italians . The Dutch

was far more varied, cosmopolitan, continued to exercise an important

and tolerant than in New England . social and economic influence on

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