Urban Growth in the Colonies
Chapter Four - The Colonies Develop
There are four main points to Chapter Four:
I.
Financial Implications– How did money
impact the development of the colonies?
II. Development of Slave Industry– Why did the
slave industry develop differently in the
colonies?
III. Growth of Cities– What was the impact of
urban growth in the colonies?
IV. Immigration– How did the migration of the
various European people in the colonies
impact the culture?
What does Urban Growth mean?
 An urban area is characterized by a large population in a small area.
 The large harbors on the east coast became the primary places where people
first landed when they immigrated from Europe.
 What options did these people have and where could they go?
 The New England area had a strong Puritan community that had little
religious tolerance and demanded the community believe as they did.
 The South as made up of large plantations. There was not much land
available and it was very labor intensive to work.
 The choice that new immigrants had was to either stay in the cities or move
to the western frontier. Many people stayed in the cities and looked for work.
 This is where we can see tremendous urban growth in such cities as New
York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
 The people that made up these cities were an eclectic blend of intelligent and
skillful businessmen.
 Therefore it was in the cities that the business side of the colonies developed.
The Evolution of the Major Colonial Cities
 So, how did these cities become such a force in the
colonies?
 Keep in mind that the development of the early
colonies was impacted by what was going on in
England (Europe) at this time period.
 There was political turmoil with the various and
ongoing religious wars over authority.
 There was additional economic turmoil between the
class systems in England.
 As such, the Americas and all it offered provided
England with a means to maintain the wealth, to
maintain the power and to remain the dominant world
force.
 They controlled the money and they controlled the
power.
What was the mindset of the colonists
 The colonies provided a new and exciting era for England.
 They had this great opportunity to expand their kingdom
with the physical land in America.
 The America’s therefore, was seen as an extension of
England. They were the children (so to speak) sent out to
represent their family. They were provided support and
protection and the family was expecting them to make good
in the return investment.
 The colonist on the other hand did not believe the same as
their long lost relatives in the “Old Country”.
 Time had passed by and many of the people now living in
the Americas had been born in the colonies. They certainly
still had connections in England and understood themselves
as British citizens with full rights (protection).
The emergence of the middle class
 It was in the cities that a new brand of leadership began to emerge.
 As businesses began to develop in the cities, so did a new class of wealthy
educated men who were very opinionated about their new identity.
 These colonists understood themselves as a new type of English citizen.
 They were adventuresome, hardworking, outspoken and brash about their
accomplishments in the “New World”.
 They wanted to be heard and they wanted a say in their governing rules.
 They realized that communication and edicts from England were slow in
coming. By the time the ruling power in England (King and Parliament) reacted
to a situation and responded, many months had passed by and the situation was
irrelevant.
 With this new type of brash freedom instilled in the culture and daily lifestyle of
the colonist a new and different class of people began to evolve – a middle class!
The thirteen colonies
 The thirteen colonies had this unique connection with each other
through their English roots.
 However, keep in mind that these colonies still developed
differently through their own personal beliefs, their surrounding
environment and the opportunities where they lived.
 Each colonial region had its own distinct economy
 The South developed an economy based on the large plantations
and slavery. The north developed an economy on lumber, fishing
and the shipping industry.
 The Middle colonies was a blend of the North and the South,
economically, geographically and ethically.
 However, the middle colonies had these large urban areas that
developed called cities.
Colonial Cities
of the Middle Colonies
New York City
 An Italian, Giovanni da Verrazano discovered New York
Harbor in 1524. In 1609 an Englishman, Henry Hudson,
sailed up the Hudson River. Then in 1624 the Dutch founded
the first permanent trading post
 The Dutch built a little town on the southern tip of
Manhattan Island. It was called New Amsterdam and it
flourished by selling skins.
 In 1653 a wall was built across Manhattan Island to protect
the little town of New Amsterdam. The street next to it was
called Wall Street.
 In 1639 a Swede called Jonas Bronck settled in the Bronx,
which is named after him. A settlement was founded at
Flushing in 1645.
 In 1664 an English fleet arrived. Fearing the English would
sack the colony the Dutch surrendered. It was renamed New
York in honor of the Duke of York, brother of King Charles
II.
By 1700 New York had a population of
almost 5,000 and it continued to grow
rapidly. By 1776 the population was
about 25,000. In 1800 New York City
had about 60,000 inhabitants.
Philadelphia
 The Philadelphia region was first settled by Swedes in the first half of
the seventeenth century. It was not until 1682 that the Englishman
William Penn, having received a land grant from King Charles II,
founded his settlement between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers,
north of the existing Swedish settlement. Penn planned a town with
the promise of religious freedom.
 By the eighteenth century, thanks to its fine port and good agricultural
land, Philadelphia had become the foremost city in the 13 British
colonies.
 Philadelphians actively participated in the debate that preceded the
adoption of the Declaration of Independence and were heavily
involved in the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), during which their
city was occupied by British troops.
 The members of the Continental Congress fled to Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, taking the Liberty Bell with them. After the war,
Philadelphia was the site of the Constitutional Convention, at which
the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787, and the city served as the
capital of the new country in the 1790s before the completion of
Washington, D.C.
 In 1632, England's King Charles I gave George Calvert (Lord
Baltimore) a vast area in colonial America that became Baltimore
County in 1659. During the 1660s the Maryland General Assembly
appointed commissioners who granted land patents and
development privileges to enterprising colonists. Although the
Piscataway and Susquehannock tribes originally lived in
neighboring regions, tribal competition and the onslaught of
colonial diseases dissipated all but a few hundred of the Native
Americans in Maryland by 1700.
 The sandy plains bordering the Chesapeake Bay were ideal for
growing tobacco, and a tobacco-based economy quickly developed
in pre-Revolutionary Maryland. An area of 550 acres, formerly
known as "Cole's Harbor," was sold to Baltimore landowners
Daniel and Charles Carroll in 1696; they sold a parcel of this land
in one-acre lots for development. These lots became Baltimore
Town, which grew quickly in both size and trade. By 1742 regular
tobacco shipments were leaving Baltimore harbor for Europe.
Baltimore