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Relationship between england and american colonies
Relationship between england and american colonies
English colonization of America
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When the colonies were started, all anyone knew was European culture. The colonists took this culture, one that lacked structure and was very specific to where they had come from, and transformed it into something that, while not completely unlike that of Europe, was something completely molded to fit their lifestyle and needs. When the colonists arrived they were all from cultures that were similar in their foundation but were potentially wildly different in other ways. Their ability to change their varying cultures to fit the needs of the colonies as a whole was the primary reason that they all joined together into a single powerful and prosperous nation.
While the colonists came from places all across Europe, most of them were from London.
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There were still colonists from many other places, but this English majority is what caused the primary language to become English.
This is not all though, in the colonies, the language became very uniform. It became so uniform that it was almost identical across all of the colonies and all of the social classes. “The linguistic uniformity of America is geographic… and social.” (Boorstin 272) This happened both out of necessity, and as a result of the lifestyle of the colonists. In the colonies people moved around a lot, this meant that both they spread their particular dialect this caused a melding of all of the varying dialects of English from England. As they moved they also had to be able to communicate with people Wherever they went. This resulted in a very stable and uniform form of English that developed in the colonies, much more uniform than anything that could be found in England at the time. This form of English picked up a surprisingly small number of words from the …show more content…
numerous other languages that influenced it. Along with the influences of lifestyle and necessity, there were also people who had a desire to outdo England’s English, namely Noah Webster. He desired to add much-needed structure to the language and to purify it, removing as many foreign influences as he could from the language. Webster published the American Spelling Book in 1789 which both gave people a standard for spelling and a standard for pronunciation. This made English in the colonies much more standard, it made “’proper’ speech accessible to all,” (Boorstin 284). This resulted in almost no class distinction because of language because everyone spoke the same. Another aspect of life that the colonists molded to their needs was how they acquired books and used their printing presses.
In the colonies, books were plentiful and well liked. Because of this booksellers were numerous and often wealthy men. Religious books were most common with over half of the books imported being religious, which makes sense given the fact that many of the settlers left England to get away from the strict religious rules. Despite how much the colonists loved books, there were a surprisingly small number of books published, or even printed there. This is due to a couple of factors, first most of the paper in the colonies was of poor quality that was not fit for being made into books, and second the supply of type was very limited in the colonies and was almost exclusively well used, second-hand type that had been discarded by printers in England. These two factors caused an interesting dynamic in the colonies. If a book could be imported from England they would import it instead of making worse, more costly copies in the colonies. They saved the use of printing presses for things which could not be imported, for example, “Colonial printers did not produce a complete Bible in English until 1782 but by 1663 they had already issued over a thousand copies of John Eliot’s famous translation of the Bible 1’into the Indian tongue.’” (Boorstin 324) The printers also made lots of Government documents as those could in no way be imported, but the publications
that became most popular in the colonies were newspapers. The poor quality paper that they had was good enough for printing newspapers on, they were not very long, and they produced a quick profit. So they were a perfect publication for printing in the colonies. The colonists were able to take this completely diverse European culture and mold it into a completely American culture that fit their needs. They took European English, which had very little structure and made class distinctions apparent, and changed it into a very structured, very uniform, classless language. They took their poor hand of cards when it came to printing made the best of it. They still printed many different documents while still managing to be able to have high-quality books and have them in masse. So without the specific set of circumstances that caused this culture shift, it would be hard to say if the colonies would have been anywhere near as successful as they were
The seventeenth century was a time of great change in colonial America. Virginia, the first colony in the Chesapeake region, was established in 1624. Plymouth, the first colony in New England, was established in 1620. These two regions developed in distinct ways, but were intertwined because of their ties to England. The Chesapeake colonies were established for economic reasons, as the Virginia Company of London looked to mass-produce cash crops in the new world. The New England colonies, however, were created to be a religious haven for those who opposed the English church. Both regions developed economic and political systems that catered to the desires of the respective populations and the geographical conditions.
They made their money through shipbuilding, small-scale farming, and trading. These colonies also had big commercial centers, such as Philadelphia and New York City. The people that lived here were very tolerant to others’ religions. They had multiple different groups of different religions: Quakers, Huguenots, Jews, and Presbyterians. They had very flexible social viewpoints; they developed a middle class of farmers and business owners. Colonists came to settle in the Middle colonies for two reasons, to make money and to practice religion. Finally, the political life of the colonists reflected around the basic rights of Englishmen.
In the 17th century, the British colonies still identified themselves as European, but as the colonies expanded and grew more populous, they developed differing geographic, social, and economic systems. This difference between New England, and Chesapeake, is caused by the motivations for settlement between the two regions. While the New England colonies were mainly settled for religious motivations, most notably by the Puritans, the Chesapeake colonies were settled for economic prosperity. Also, while the Chesapeake colonies were mainly settled by individual young men seeking a profit, the New England colonies were settled by families hoping to settle and expand.
Between the settlement at Jamestown in 1607 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the most important change that occurred in the colonies was the emergence of a society quite different from that in England. Changes in religion, economics, politics and social structure illustrate this Americanization of the transplanted Europeans.
The New England colonies developed a close-knit homogeneous society and a thriving mixed economy of agriculture and commerce. They developed this by creating a group called the New England Confederation. This focused on the protection of the people in the colony in the event of enemies trying to attack them. On page 49, it says “The primary purpose of the confederation was defense against foes or potential foes, notably the Indians, the French, and the Dutch.” They created this as a safety net for the New England colonies. Every part of the New England colonies had two votes, it didn’t matter on the size of the colonies. The ran it as their own because the king of the time didn’t care much for the colonies.
The colonists had different reasons for settling in these two distinct regions. The New England region was a more religiously strict yet diverse area compared to that of the Chesapeake Bay. The development of religion in the two regions came from separate roots. After Henry VIII and the Roman Catholic Church broke away from each other, a new group of English reformers was created called the Puritans. The Puritans came from protestant backgrounds, after being influenced by Calvinistic ideas. When their reforms were thwarted by King James I of England, they fled to the New World in what is now known as the "Great Migration". The Puritans were then joined by Quakers, Protestants, and Catholics in the religiously diverse New England area. These diverse religious factions were allowed to live freely but under the laws of New England. It was due to this religious freedom that these people came to escape religious persecution back home. The New Englanders had a religion-based society and religion was based on family. As the Bible highly regarded family, it condemned adultery. Adultery was considered a punishable crime. Adulterers were marked as impure by a letter "A" stitched on their clothing, as in the book "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. As religion was a very high priority in New England, it was very much less severe in the Chesapeake Bay region. The one established church in the region, the Anglican Church of Jesus Christ, was only then established in 1692, more than 70 years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
American Colonies: Contrasting the New England and Southern Colonists The New England and Southern Colonies were both settled largely by the English. By 1700, the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. The southern colonies have characteristics that are the antithesis of the New England colonies attributes. New England was colonized for Freedom of Worship and freedom of political thought.
By accepting a single culture, the people of the United States were able to overcome their differences and form a new nation. This is what European countries hoped to accomplish someday.
Between 1607 and 1733, Great Britain established thirteen colonies in the New World along the land’s eastern coast. England’s colonies included Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Though the colonies were classified as New England, middle or southern colonies, the colonists developed a unifying culture. With this new American culture, the colonists throughout the colonies began to think differently than their English cousins. Because colonial America displayed characteristics of a democratic society and, therefore, deviated from England’s monarchic ways, it was established as a democratic society.
The pilgrims who settled in New England were in search of religious freedoms which was a major reason for them to leave England. These people believed that no one should be persecuted because of their religious beliefs. Some Protestants wanted to break away from the Anglican church while others wanted to be completely separate. Since there were many reasons for leaving England, there were many reason to go to America and set up the New England colonies. Another main reason for people such as farmers, craftsmen and traders to travel to America was to establish an all around better life. The colonies of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were settled by people in search of religious freedoms or a better overall way of life. They wanted a better
There were many reasons why the colonists came to North America. One reason was because they wanted to escape King Edward so they could fallow freely their own religion and to seek riches. Also the Puritans came to North America because they wanted a lace to practice their religion without fear of the government. Also that the religion they wanted to practice was considered more fundamentalist than what was being practiced from where they came. the English colonies were successful in North America was because the British tried so many times to get more money the colonists got mad and boycotted- refuse to use-the British goods. Then the British government kind of loosened their restraints and gave the American colonists some freedom.
By the turn of the seventeenth century twelve of the English colonies were well on their way to surviving in the New World. The only colony not begun before 1700 was Georgia. These twelve colonies though unique as individual colonies several began to form similarities. Although by the 18th century Eastern America had been colonized by Englishmen, motives, geography, and settlers themselves created two distinct societies, New England and Chesapeake.
What major problems did the young republic face after its victory over Great Britain? How did these problems motivate members of the elite to call for a federal constitution?
Religion was huge to the people of New England. One group based in a sector of the colony was Massachusetts Bay Colony-Boston, or MBC. These individuals were enormously strict about their religion, Puritan, which was created to “purify” the Anglican religion or remove the Catholic influence. Anglican was the official language of England at the time and this religion was a major reason why so many fled from the country.
In Britain the way the speak and the way they act has something to do with their culture. They like to have a cultural emphasis of language, meaning they like to emphasize words that are adaptively important in their culture. The culture itself shows how it is different and why it is different from any other in the world. American English is much more homogenous than British English, meaning it is often harder to tell where in the USA someone is from just by hearing their accent. Linguists have identified somewhere between six and twenty-five American dialects, although the major divisions are between Northern, Midland and Southern dialects, which are roughly grouped together. In the US and in Britain we have what is known as an open communication system meaning, we can communicate with new sounds or words by combining two or more existing sounds or