It was not until the 1700s that the thirteen colonies finally started to flourish on their own. The east coast of North America was soon booming with success. But the Northern and Southern colonies’ did not take exactly the same routes in order to reach success. The Southern and Northern colonies began to show similarities in immigration and social structure and began to show differences in their economy.
The Northern and Southern colonies both had an influx of immigration. The Northern colonies’ economic success and religious freedom attracted many immigrants. People like the Germans immigrated to the Northern colonies in hopes of gaining a better economic standing through trade and commerce. “Most were fleeing economic distress, but some, such as the Mennonites, came to Pennsylvania because of William Penn’s policy of religious freedom …”(81). The influx of immigration to the North made the New England and Middle colonies extremely
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diverse. Although the Northern colonies are now known to be more diverse than the Southern colonies, the Southern colonies also had an influx of immigration. Germans, Scots, and Scots-Irish all immigrated to the South. The thirteen original colonies also showed similarities in their social structure. The Northern and Southern societies had similar social structures.
In the North, women, especially colonial wives, had basically no legal rights. They could not vote, sell or buy property, or run their own business. Women in the North also had extensive work responsibilities when it came to housework. Northern society considered slaves less than human beings, and, consequently, did not give slaves any rights that would protect them from cruel treatment. The Southern colonies’ were no different. “Women in Southern society - and Northern society as well - shared a common trait: second-class citizenship”(74). In the South, women could not vote or preach and had very little education. They were instead taught to perfect the skills that could be used around the house such as sewing or gardening. In the South, slaves were branded as savages and inferior and did not possess any rights. Southern slaves possessed even less legal rights than Northern Slaves. Although the colonies had similar social structures, they had different
economies. Both societies had very different economies. The Northern colonies’ economy revolved around trade and commerce. The difference in climate forced New Englanders to have small farms that produced several crops, unlike the Southern plantations. Because of this, they had a surplus of food which they were able to sell to the West Indies. “Colonists also manufactured impressive numbers of ships and quantities of iron”(80). Because of the expansion of trade, the Northern colonies had three port cities: New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. Instead of trade and commerce, the Southern colonies’ economy revolved around agriculture. Most of the South was made up of plantations, which were estates that were used to plant and harvest crops. The cash crops that were grown on these plantations were later shipped to the Northern colonies and England. Since the long and deep rivers of the South eliminated the need for city docks and warehouses, Charles Town was the South’s only port city. The Northern and Southern colonies showed a similarity in their influx of immigration. America’s promises of new beginnings and religious freedom lured in many Europeans to all of the colonies. They also showed a similarity in their social structure. Both societies did not grant many rights to women and mistreated enslaved persons. However, the colonies showed a difference in their respective economies. The North focused more on trade and commerce while the South focused more on agriculture. In the end, the thirteen colonies were more alike than they were different. Do the states in the United States of America still have similarities and differences with each other to this day?
The New England and Southern colonies, although they had their differences, did share a similar government system. However, the differences on a economic, religious, and social level overrode the similarity shared, making the two regions different nonetheless. The New England’ colonies focus on a business economy made them a central area of trade and commerce, but in the long run created society open to innovation and brought in new inventions. Whereas the Southern colonies’ focus on agriculture economy brought a sensation of profits for the mother country, but later attributed to the introduction of slave codes. Then, in the New England colonies, the religious restrictions increased tensions between the Separatists and Puritans, which later
While both the people of the New England region and of the Chesapeake region descended from the same English origin, by 1700 both regions had traveled in two diverse directions. Since both of these groups were beset with issues that were unique to their regions and due to their exposure to different circumstances, each was forced to rethink and reconstruct their societies. As a result, the differences in the motivation, geography, and government in the New England and Chesapeake regions caused great divergence in the development of each.
During the late 16th century and into the 17th century, European nations rapidly colonized the newly discovered Americas. England in particular sent out numerous groups to the eastern coast of North America to two regions. These two regions were known as the Chesapeake and the New England areas. Later, in the late 1700's, these two areas would bond to become one nation. Yet from the very beginnings, both had very separate and unique identities. These differences, though very numerous, spurred from one major factor: the very reason the settlers came to the New World. This affected the colonies in literally every way, including economically, socially, and politically.
Nonetheless, southern women were often pulled out from their family, constrain to live a miserable life at the husband house and unable to leave their house without an escort, whether is to visit family member often hundreds of miles away. Her husband could often leave the plantation for weeks for business purpose elsewhere in the country, trusting her to run the plantation alone. In the Old South marriage was not standardized, women were forced into arrange marriage often to others family member in other to keep their wealth. The Old South was very much an undemocratic society, built on old-fashioned notions of honor and fortune, and women were captive to this far more than men were. Although they had all the luxury a person could want in the world, despite laws that forbid a woman from owning slaves and the lack of sufficient education, responsibility for managing the entire plantation often fell on her in the absence of her husband. She was responsible for taking care of her home, raise and teach her children. Beyond the fact that she took care of her children’s, she was also required to looks at needs of any slaves her husband may own, stitching their clothes, keeping a lawn to
The American colonies new England ,middle and southern colonies were very similar but different.The New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies grew differently over the period on 1619-1760. The three sets of colonies will prove that they were all different. There is hugely different between each other and style to lived. Such as, economics and agriculture.In this essay,
The New England, Middle and Southern colonies were all English ruled, but yet very different. Among their distinctions, was the geography which played an important role in shaping these colonies. New England attracted Puritan farmers who wanted to separate from the Catholic Church. But because of the bone dry soil in the North, these colonists found they couldn't continue with their traditional ways of farming. However, with the immense amounts of water that surrounded them, they found that they could fish and trade. The Middle colonies on the other, hand had a moderate amount of everything. The fertile soil and the major seaports such as Philadelphia and New York, allowed these Middle colonists to make a living any way they saw fit. This led to the brisk development of the Middle Seaboard . Unlike the Middle and Northern colonies, the Southern colonies had large amounts of fertile land allowing for the development of large plantations. Because farming the plantations was the economic thrust for the South, towns and cities developed slowly. Thusly Geography greatly affected the lifestyles of these regions in the New World.
Slaves during the mid-1800s were considered chattel and did not have rights to anything that opposed their masters’ wishes. “Although the slaves’ rights could never be completely denied, it had to be minimized for the institution of slavery to function” (McLaurin, 118). Female slaves, however, usually played a different role for the family they were serving than male slaves. Housework and helping with the children were often duties that slaveholders designated to their female slaves. Condoned by society, many male slaveholders used their female property as concubines, although the act was usually kept covert. These issues, aided by their lack of power, made the lives of female slaves
The thirteen colonies are extremely important to America’s history. Many of the colonists came for similar reasons such as new opportunities, wealth, and religious freedom. Despite these similarities, there are a few distinct differences between each colony. These differences are the factors that make it or break it when deciding which colony I would have chosen to live in back then.
Exploration and establishment of colonies in the New World were seen as a symbol of power and potential wealth among European nations. Portugal, Spain, and France made their claims early. Beginning in the early 1600s, groups of people unhappy with their treatment in England sought after a new home. There were two types of English colonies that settled in the New World: those searching for religious freedom, and those searching for profit. Massachusetts and Virginia are examples of each. Although settled for different reasons, both colonies were similar in their initial struggles, eventual trade routes, and growing populations. Religious persecution was a main deterrent from remaining in England. Puritans, a religious group aside from the
When women first arrived to the new colonies, many did not have the money to pay in order to get off the boat. This forced them into 4-5 years of servitude. Women would then be free to search for a husband. In Colonial America, the social status of citizens was based on financial standings, ethnicity, and religious beliefs. Social class was a determining factor of opportunities available to women. They had considerably greater rights than their counterparts in England, however women faced the strict rules and discrimination of a predominantly Puritan society.
In the 17th Century, over 700,000 people traversed the Atlantic to reach the English colonies located in North America as well as the Caribbean. England in particular sent out various groups to the eastern coast of North America to two regions of Chesapeake and New England. Even though the two would, later on, be bonded into one nation in the 1700s, it was apparent that the two had separate and unique identities from the start. These differences can be explained by one major factor - the motivation or reason why the settlers traversed into the New World.
Immigrants who went to the middle colonies such as Pennsyslvania hoped for opportunities that they could not get in their native land. At the end of the 17th century, “about 85,000 Germans had arrived in the colonies” (page 129). They were known as the” Pensylvania Dutch”. Many of them were from southwestern Germany. The damage caused by the French invasion during Queen Anne’s War caused a massive immigration to the middle colonies. Most of them were labourers and farmers, a few were merchants, and several were artisans. They hoped that they could change their horrible life into something happy and productive in the middle colonies. The same reason motivated the Scots - Irish, who came in larger numbers compared to the Germans immigrants. The majority of them came from “northern Ireland, Scotland, and northern England”(page 130). Many of the
In colonial America there were three different regions. These regions were the North, the Middle, and the South. Three distinct colonies in each of these regions were Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina which all developed in unique ways. In the 1600’s the development of the British colonies were influenced by geography, in addition to geography they were also developed by leadership and religion.
It is true that founders of most Northern colonies were Puritans, many of them fled England to escape religious persecutions. They believed that together with preachers, worshipping and Bible ministries they would get God’s blessing to survive. A good example of how people bound their life with religion can be John Winthrop’s speech aboard the ship to New England, “The eyes of all people are upon us, so if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by word through the world”. Quakers came after Puritans and they were treated badly by the other communities although they were able to populate some states in the North. They believed that only worshipping and internal human union with Christ will lead to salvation. Religion in the southern colonies was practiced significantly less willingly. Landowners could only rely on plantations and their workers. Other people followed Catholicism and Protestantism, which were the major ones. Catholics held the power and influence they got at first upon arrival. Protestants became more spread with the growth of population and soon outnumbered
Women that did own slaves were often apart of a wealthy family that was in the upper class; this meant that she did not have to do many maintenance tasks around the household and she could focus on serving her family and the community. (“Colonial Women”) Often a woman’s social status depended on what family she was born into or who she was arranged a marriage with.