Download The Thirteen Colonies

The Thirteen Colonies
HW due Monday: 1. Fill in the Map of the 13 Colonies. In order to fill in correctly, search the internet or go to my website to find links. TIP: before you fill it out, take a picture of the map so that you can practice in Notability. 2. Read and annotate the New England Colonies: Settlement section and add 3 more specific reasons to your web from class on Friday. HW due Tuesday: 1. Read and annotate the Middle Colonies: Settlement and Southern Colonies: Settlement sections. 2. Use the readings to label the 3 regions of the colonies on your map: Color the New England colonies red, color the Middle Colonies blue, and color the Southern colonies green New England Colonies: Settlement In the 1600s and 1700s, a new religious group, the Puritans, was developing a large following in England. They called themselves Puritans because they wanted to purify the Church of England, which they thought was corrupted by the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. One group of Puritans was the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims believed they could not fix the problems within England. First, they moved to the Netherlands, but eventually, they looked for a new home on a new continent. In September 1620, they set sail for North America on a ship called the Mayflower, hoping to create a new society where they could practice their Puritan beliefs. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean and getting blown far off course, the Pilgrims sailed around Cape Cod and found a protected inlet. They settled in a place they named Plymouth and established the Plymouth Bay Colony. Many more Puritans followed. In 1630, English colonists established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The governor of the colony, John Winthrop, declared that the new colony would be a “city upon a hill” that would provide a model of devout Christian life for the rest of the world. Salem and Boston became two of the largest Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements. In the following years, religious leaders like Thomas Hooker and Roger Williams would find the religious policies of Massachusetts too strict and rigid. And so, they set up new company colonies in Connecticut (Thomas Hooker) and Rhode Island (Roger Williams) Middle Colonies: Settlement The colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware are considered the Middle Colonies. Henry Hudson claimed the territory of the Middle Colonies in 1602 on behalf of the Dutch. Although the Dutch soon began trading with Native Americans for beaver and otter pelts, they did not send colonial settlers until 1624. Starting in 1625, the Dutch brought enslaved Africans to work as household servants and in various trades. In 1626, the Dutch West India Company purchased Manhattan Island from local Native Americans and established the colony of New Amsterdam. The Dutch who colonized New Amsterdam were Protestants motivated by economic gain. They sympathized with other Protestants from Europe who faced persecution or discrimination in their home countries. The Dutch welcomed these dissenters to their colonies. During the period of Dutch colonization, people came to the Middle Colonies from Scandinavia, France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries. In 1638, Swedish settlers established the colony of New Sweden in an area along the Delaware River. New Sweden included parts of present-­‐day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. For many years, the Dutch, Swedish, and English competed to control trade in the area. In 1655, the Dutch gained control of New Sweden. In 1664, the English took over the Dutch colonies and claimed the entire region. The Middle Colonies were more diverse, or varied, than the other colonial regions, both in the number of nationalities and in the number of religious groups that lived there. Lutherans, German Baptists, French Protestants, Dutch Mennonites, and Portuguese Jews were some of the different groups that settled in the region. When England claimed the territory, King Charles II of England created several proprietary colonies. These were colonies owned by a single person, called the proprietor. • Charles gave part of the region to his brother, the Duke of York, who named his colony New York. • The duke sold part of his grant to two proprietors, John Berkeley and George Carteret. They named their colony New Jersey after Carteret’s homeland, the English island of Jersey. • Charles gave another large chunk of land to William Penn to pay off a debt that he owed to Penn’s father. Penn named his colony Pennsylvania, Latin for “Penn’s woods.” Because individuals controlled these colonies, the beliefs and goals of their proprietors strongly affected the lives of the people who settled there. For example, the proprietors of New York and New Jersey wanted to attract settlers to their colonies. They sold land rights at relatively low prices and allowed freedom of religion and some political freedom. William Penn was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian religious group more commonly known as the Quakers. The Quakers rejected priests and religious ceremony and believed that faith was a matter of the individual’s inner consciousness. Southern Colonies: Settlement During the 1600s, England set up a dozen colonies along the East Coast of North America. Georgia, the 13th colony, was established in 1732. These colonies were either corporate colonies or proprietary colonies. A corporate colony was owned by stockholders who were given authority by a charter signed by an English ruler. The charter was a document that outlined the purposes of the land and the specific privileges the stockholders could exercise over the colony. Of the five Southern Colonies, only Virginia was a corporate colony. The other four Southern Colonies—
Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia—were proprietary colonies. A proprietary colony formed when an English ruler gave ownership to an individual or a group of individuals, who became the proprietor or proprietors. The first English colony in North America was Virginia, sponsored by the Virginia Company of London. The Virginia Company was a group of stockholders who hoped to profit from a Virginia colony. They sponsored Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in 1607. Jamestown was located on the coast of Virginia. Before long, new settlements and farms developed in Virginia.