Given that many immigrants came over to America around the same time and most from Europe why did they develop so differently? To get to the America, there is today, many people had to develop their own identities in the new world. There were three main sections that America was broken up into, these were the New England, southern, and middle colonies. All three sectors had different ways of developing and this was due to a numerous amount of factors. Some were formed because of geographical locations and others because of cultural differences.
The southern colonies included the Virginia Colony, Maryland Colony, the North Carolina Colony, the South Carolina Colony, and the Georgia Colony. The middle colonies included Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. The New England colonies also included four colonies which were New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island and Connecticut. This is what makes America so diverse because all of these different cultures from different areas of the world came together and forged their relationships. In order to understand the diversity of America, one needs to examine these three areas of colonial societies: economy , government, and religion.
In 1606 King James I had issued a request that one hundred and forty-four men sail to the Americas specifically Virginia part of the southern colony. Arriving at the American coast, only one hundred and four men survived where they continued to sail into a river they named James to honor their king’s legacy. They also founded their own colony which they gave the name to Jamestown. This colony was founded on a peninsula in the state of Virginia and was on the brink of catastrophe for nearly an entire decade. As they chose this place to reside due to the best place for comfort and security the settlers did not think of the others that resided nearby. The Indians at this time were far more superior to the new settlers and felt the settlers to be no threat at all. Because the settlers were extremely prideful sixty-six more of them died due to famine issues. Soon after realizing they needed to work with the Indians if they wanted to stay alive, they came upon tobacco, which they cultivated and made most of the their work off of these plantations. Virginia was also able to grow their economy from the abundance of cotton, rice, and indigo that were present in the region. Due to the high prices that would arise if farmers were to pay all of their workers, farmers chose to hire slaves as they were a cheap but reliable option.
Maryland was a colony right next to Virginia that was also part of the Southern colonies, but had a very different way of coming up than Virginia. Maryland knew they would have to allow religious tolerations due to Catholicism being a minority in the colony and Christianity rising. Like Virginia, Maryland also became a big producer of tobacco and planters would work with aid from indentured servants until the late seventeenth century when slaves were imported from Africa.
As Virginia was developing so was another colony which was run by Pilgrims. This colony known as Plymouth came to be in 1620 and before even reaching the land a compact was signed that established a government for everyone aboard the Mayflower. As Plymouth was not in a great area for farming like the southern colonies they had to make their profit selling fish and furs. They also majored in industrial production, focusing on shipbuilding and lumbering. The New England colonies soon spread and expanded as people searched for soil or because of religious oppressiveness.
New England colony paragraph…..
The last set of colonies is known as the middle colonies which differed greatly. Slavery was greatly impacted by its Dutch origins and in the 1640’s slaves were given half freedom. In the colony New York the diversity was extreme compared to the other starting colonies which usually came from one boat. There were Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch, French, and a number of Africans. The Duke of York made sure to not impose his religion on others which created even more diversity.
Included in these middle colonies was the Quakers who had no formal church government and disregarded distinctions of gender and class. They did not take part of any war until the mid-eighteenth century. They also did not entirely oppose slavery and a few owned some slaves. Feeling rejected in England they decided to migrate some went to New England, while others went to Carolina. But most of these Quakers wanted a colony of their own, though, and through that grew Pennsylvania.
The geographical position of the middle colonies contributed greatly to the economic development. Unlike the New England colonies the soil provided in this region was very fertile and with a good climate year round came great advances in agricultural practices. From this agriculture came vast amounts of wheat that was then cultivated and sold to markets and then sold overseas. This led to great growth and some of the busiest ports in the United States. Not only were the middle colonies good for agriculture, but they also were able to use some industrial growth to also help grow the economy. In these regions they were able to hunt whales, fish, and also trade furs around the region.
Even though these countries were very diverse in their ethics, religions, and economics, there were still few similarities between them. For example, each colony had the existence of democracy. But even though they were all democratic they all still had many differences in how they ran their democracy. In New England they used a theocracy based government, this means it was run by the church. The middle colonies made sure to keep their church and state separate whilst the southern colonies ran an Oligarchy type government. An Oligarchy meant that the wealthy ran the government since they were the only people who were able to provide at their expense of their own money.
Why Europe allowed this….
When looking back onto history it shows just how diverse life can become due to different factors. In this case it was due mostly to the new economy, government, regions, and religions. This was definitely a good system that was allowed because by allowing three different sectors, so much diversity and ideas came from it. Europe allowed this diversity to occur as they knew it would benefit them in the long run as so many new crops would be grown and the economy of Europe would increase. If it was just one system the Americas would not differ at all from Europe and all the fighting to start a new life would have been for nothing.
