Colonies take root.
What started as 105 desperate settlers at Jamestown becomes, by 1754, a string of distinct colonial societies — Chesapeake, New England, Middle, and Southern — each shaped by who came, what they grew, who did the work, and how God was supposed to work in their lives.
The English were late to the Americas. By 1607 the Spanish had been there a century and the French were already pushing inland from the St. Lawrence. What made English colonization different: religious dissenters, joint-stock companies, indentured servitude that gradually shifted to chattel slavery, and a level of distance from London that bred a peculiar kind of self-government — colonial assemblies, town meetings, and a flexible, regionally-varied relationship with imperial authority. The Atlantic slave trade became the engine of the southern and Chesapeake economies. The Great Awakening (1730s–40s) gave the colonies their first shared experience. By 1754, when France and England started fighting over the Ohio Valley, “American” was just starting to mean something distinct from “English.”
The CED, topic by topic.
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2.1
European Colonization
Spanish missions, French fur trade, Dutch commerce, English settlement: four colonization models.
WOR · WXT -
2.2
The Regions of British North America
Why the Chesapeake grew tobacco and Massachusetts grew lawyers.
MIG · WXT · SOC -
2.3
Transatlantic Trade
Mercantilism, Navigation Acts, salutary neglect, the triangular trade.
WXT · WOR -
2.4
Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans
Trade, alliance, conversion, dispossession, rebellion.
MIG · SOC -
2.5
Slavery in the British Colonies
From indentured servitude to chattel slavery in a single generation.
WXT · SOC · NAT -
2.6
Colonial Society and Culture
Religious diversity, Enlightenment, the Great Awakening.
SOC · NAT -
2.7
Comparison in Period 2
Comparing colonial regions: same prompt, different evidence.
All
Connect to the bigger picture
Era page: The Early Modern World
APWH cross-links: Topic 4.4 Maritime Empires Established · Topic 4.7 Changing Social Hierarchies
Next: Period 3 — Revolution & Republic
Try this in 3 minutes.
B. Explain ONE way that distinction shaped the political development of the southern colonies.
C. Explain ONE similarity between the two regions despite their economic differences.
