Middle and Southern Colonies

Middle and Southern Colonies

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Overview

• The Puritans settled in New England while other English colonies took root in Virginia.
• The Middle Atlantic region and the South were settled next.
• Those regions posed the same challenges found in other areas.
• However, the environments shaped them in different ways.
• These new colonies developed their own unique regional cultures.

‘New York Was Once New Amsterdam’

• Henry Hudson claimed land in the New World for the Netherlands in 1609.
• New Amsterdam, an important trading center, was its main settlement.
• The colony boasted a central location and protected harbor.
• The colony was a safe place for dissenters fleeing Puritan persecution.
• King Charles II believed explorer John Cabot claimed that land for England.
• In a proprietary colony, a private individual held the charter.
• This person governed the colony on the king's behalf.
• Other proprietary colonies in this region were Pennsylvania, Delaware, Carolina, and New Jersey.

Settling Pennsylvania

• Quakers had a liberal belief system, believed in nonviolence, religious freedom, and charity.
• They were persecuted for their beliefs, even in New Netherland.
• In return, King Charles II granted Penn a charter for land in the New World in 1681.
• Penn named it Pennsylvania, meaning "Penn's woods." He named his capital Philadelphia, meaning "Brotherly love." Penn adopted a policy of social and political equality.
• They maintained good relations with American Indians.
• This document guaranteed individual freedoms and defined Pennsylvania's representative assembly.
• Penn's colony attracted a diverse population of Europeans.

• The plentiful and fertile farmland of the Middle Colonies attracted farmers.

• Pennsylvania's small farms produced enough wheat to supply all the American colonies.
• Land was so plentiful, cheap, and fertile that Pennsylvania was nicknamed the "Best poor man's country in the world." Philadelphia and New York City were two Middle Colony ports that became commercial centers in the colonies.

New Southern Colonies

• The Southern Colonies differed greatly from the other regions.
• New England attracted entire families, but most early settlers in Southern Colonies were single males.
• The climate was also different than the New England and Middle Colonies.
• Colonists in the Middle Colonies were more egalitarian, while the Southern Colonies were more aristocratic.
• George Calvert, a Catholic, had become a favorite of Charles I. In 1632, Charles granted Calvert a charter for seven million acres north of Virginia.
• The Calverts made Maryland a haven for England's privileged Catholics.

New Southern Colonies (continued)

• Protestant laborers outnumbered the Catholics in Maryland.
• Calvert's sons responded with the 1649 Maryland Toleration Act.
• England needed to guard Carolina's cash crops from the Spanish in Florida.
• He brought in people who had been released from English debtors' prisons to settle the new colony.
• Its first city, Savannah, would become an important port in the colony.
• Despite their differences, the colonies would work together for a great cause during the American Revolution.