The American Colonies
Jamestown, VA
May 13, 1607: Arrival of 104 Male Settlers
WHY?
For what reasons did individuals come to America?
Colonizing America
• Wealth
Colonizing America
• Religious dissent
Types of Colonies
• Royal Colonies
–King
–Ruled by royal governor
Types of Colonies
•Proprietary
–Individuals or groups
–King gifted land
Types of Colonies
• Charter
–Established by charters
–King
–Colonies governed themselves
Regional Divisions
New England Colonies
Massachusetts (1620)
• Pilgrims (Plymouth)
– Separatists
• wanted to separate from the
Anglican Church
– 1st Thanksgiving
– Mayflower Compact
• 41 men drew up the
agreement to outline fair and
equal laws for the colony;
signed on the Mayflower
• 1620
Massachusetts (1630)
• Puritans
• Purify and reform Anglican Church
• Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Strict religious beliefs; radical
• John Winthrop
“for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty
upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us;
soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in
this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause
him to withdrawe his present help from us”
City Upon A Hill, 1630
– New Hampshire (1630)
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John Mason
English and Scots-Irish settlers
Economic freedom
Settled for religious freedom
Escape for those constricted by harsh religious and
economic rules of the Puritans
• Royal Colony
– Rhode Island (1636)
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Roger Williams
Exiled by Puritans in Mass. settled in Providence
Religious freedom
Trade
– Connecticut (1636)
• Thomas Hooker
• Dutch (economic freedom) and English (religious
freedom)
• Asked to leave by Mass.
• Agriculture and trade
Middle Colonies
– New York (1626)
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Peter Minuit
Dutch (Netherlands), taken over by English
Trade and profits
Anglican
Proprietary to royal colony
– New Jersey (1660)
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Lord Berkley
Established by Sweden became English
Agriculture, trade and profits
Proprietary to royal colony
– Delaware (1638)
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Peter Minuit
Dutch, Swedish and English
Farming, trade and profits
Proprietary
Pennsylvania (1682)
– William Penn
– Proprietary
– Home to many European
Immigrants: Swedish,
Dutch, English, Scots-Irish
and German
– Farming
• Quakers
– Equality and all possessed
“Inner Light”
– Pennsylvania
Southern Colonies
Virginia (1607)
• Jamestown
• 1st permanent settlement mostly males
(indentured servants and treasure hunters)
• 60/900 colonists survived
• Ruled by John Smith
• Founded by the Virginia Company
– Joint-stock company: organized to raise money by
selling stocks/shares to investors
– Becomes royal
House of Burgesses (1619)-22 representatives
called burgesses met to outline laws for the
colony
– Maryland (1634)
• George Calvert
• Religious freedom for
Catholics
• Established for trade,
finding precious metals
and to locate a water
passage across the
continent
• Farming
• Proprietary
Maryland Act of Toleration
• 1649
• Granted freedom of worship for all
Catholics
• Symbolic beginning of freedom of religion
– North Carolina (1653)
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Group of proprietors: business venture
Settlers from Virginia
Farming, trade and profit
Anglican
– South Carolina (1670)
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Group of proprietors
Settlers from France, English, Africans and Irish
Food crops
Anglican
Proprietary to royal
– Georgia (1733)
• General James Oglethorpe
• Spanish settlements taken by English
• Debtors and convicts protect colonies from Spanish and
French invasions
• Slow economic growth farmed, harvested lumber and traded
furs