The First English Settlements

Britain started colonizing America later than other European nations. In fact, Britain authorities tried to discover free land suitable for cultivation. In contrast, other European nations sought for gold, silver, spices, and maritime trade. North America became a great place for British plans because the local climate in North America was like that in Britain. After some time, new settlements emerged in the Northern, Southern and Middle regions of America. However, these settlements had different economic and social advancement variables. The goal of this essay is to compare and contrast the general distinctions and similarities of colonies.

In the XVI century, Western Europe had an urgent need of sources (Stoff, Heyrman, DeLay, Lytle, & Davidson, 2011). This situation became a reason of search for new maritime trade routes. In fact, the beginning of a mass colonization of the British colonies in the XVII century opened a new phase of colonization of North America (Stoff et al., 2011). The development of capitalism in Britain was linked to the success of foreign trade and the creation of colonial monopoly trading companies. The government has set up two trading companies for the colonization of North America (Stoff et al., 2011). They had a lot of money, and royal charters gave them large parts of the land. As per legal status, the settlements were isolated into three gatherings. The self-government charter was in New England colonies (Stoff et al., 2011). Along these lines, the general population in the region elected all authorities. In fact, British Crown ruled South colonies, and the middle provinces had private proprietors.

Plantation slavery was the general link of economic development in the Southern settlements. The landed nobility of the South provided most all of the products to England. Carolinas colonies were divided into South and North Carolina. They were isolated in light of political reasons as the pilgrims needed political force and seized control from proprietors (Stoff et al., 2011). In fact, similar to a great part of the South, the Carolinas was a rural region. Notwithstanding that, the transcendence of specific yields has affected the local economy similar to the Middle colonies. Furthermore, Carolina was settled to make benefit from exchange and by offering land (Fishkin, Bell, & Sandmann, 2008). The southern and Chesapeake Bay colonies were agricultural settlements and differed from the northern states. In contrast to Middle colonies, here, the most important products for export were tobacco, rice, and indigo. Thus, the economy system in the Chesapeake and southern colonies was similar to Puritans’ settlements. In fact, British families remained the highest social stratum like in the other colonies (Fishkin et al., 2008). These families controlled unlimited measures of laborers. The biggest social class in the South and Chesapeake area were traders, sellers, and little ranchers. The same classes were in the Puritans’ settlements. The New England states evolved smallholder land ownership, but there was no spread of slavery. Indeed, people in this province developed maritime trade and shipbuilding. The most numerous social layers were landowners, business visionaries, and laborers (Fishkin et al., 2008). In fact, farms in the Middle colonies played an important role in economic development and produced the great number of crops. Besides, ranchers and laborers were the general social layers as in the New England. The demeanor of the pilgrims in the neighborhood populace was diverse (Fishkin et al., 2008). In New England, there was a procedure of complete demolition as the Puritans looked upon the locals as individuals that they should destroy. On the contrary, other colonies had a friendlier ttitude towards the locals and built economic ties with them (Stoff et al., 2011). Besides, Catholics and Anglicans ruled the Southern and Middle English settlements, and Protestants of various headings overwhelmed New England. Moreover, African cults were spread among the populace in the southern states. However, religion was not the only and obligatory one for all people. In fact, agricultural development marked the success of the Middle and New England colonies (Stoff et al., 2011). The widespread export of tobacco, rise, and indigo became the reason of economic growth. However, the colonies in the South had huge benefits from ranches and exported the great number of products. Such policy made this region the most developed and successful (Stoff et al., 2011). Consequently, there were more differences than similarities in the colonies’ social and economic development.

Therefore, New England, Southern, Carolinas, and Middle group of colonies had differences in the economic, institutional, religious, and social spheres. They had different types of production, social stratification, religious convictions, and authorities. However, the agricultural direction and social stratification of Middle and Northern colonies were similar. Therefore, all the British colonies had distinct features in their social and economic development.

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