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The English Colonies in North America
Reading Notes
Directions: Read Chapter 3, sections 1 and 2 about the English Colonies. Read these questions
before you get into your reading—they will be answered in order.
Section 1: Introduction
1. What is an indentured servant?
2. What was the journey like for a person crossing the Atlantic?
3. What, in your opinion, would cause someone to want to experience that?
Section 2: The New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies
4. What are three reasons the colonies were established?
5. What economic policy did most Western European nations follow? Explain what that is.
6. What are the three regions of colonies? What helped form these regions?
The New England Colonies
7. What colonies formed the New England Colonies?
8. How did they build their economy?
The Middle Colonies
9. What colonies formed the Middle Colonies?
10. How did the settlement of these colonies differ from the New England Colonies?
The Southern Colonies
11. What colonies formed the Southern Colonies?
12. What crops were considered cash crops? Why did they grow well here?
13. Who worked the land in the Southern Colonies?
Government in the Colonies
14. What is a charter?
15. What was the government like in the colonies?
Map: Colonial America, 1770
16. What resource is abundant in the Southern Colonies?
17. In which colony is shipbuilding most prominent?
18. Which colonial region produced the most ironworks?