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The earliest colonies in New England were usually fishing villages or farming communities on the more fertile land along the rivers. The rocky soil in the New England Colonies was not as fertile as the Middle or Southern Colonies, but the land provided rich resources, including lumber that was highly valued.
The Thirteen Colonies in their traditional groupings were: the New England Colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut); the Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware); and the Southern Colonies (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia). [2]
Most large population centers in colonial America were located in New England or the Middle Colonies. In the Chesapeake Bay area cities included only Baltimore, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia. Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. served as major seaports for the Southern colonies in their trade with Europe, Africa, and the ...
The Middle Colonies tended to mix aspects of the New England and Southern Colonies. Landholdings were generally farms of 40 to 160 acres (16–65 hectares), owned by the family that worked it. In New York's Hudson Valley, however, the Dutch patroons operated very large landed estates and rented land to tenant farmers. [22]
Thus, by mid-century, most colonial farming was a commercial venture, although subsistence agriculture continued to exist in New England and the middle colonies. Some immigrants who just arrived purchased farms and shared in this export wealth, but many poor German and Irish immigrants were forced to work as agricultural wage laborers.
Map of the colonies with the proclamation line of 1763 shown in red. The Southern Colonies within British America consisted of the Province of Maryland, [1] the Colony of Virginia, the Province of Carolina (in 1712 split into North and South Carolina), and the Province of Georgia.
Plantations in southern New England also included farming of beans, squash, and pumpkins, which were planted with the corn. Additionally, though the tobacco industry thrived to a much greater extent in Southern colonies, tobacco was also grown to a relatively lesser extent in New England. Other crops included melons and strawberries. [4]
New England became an important mercantile and shipbuilding center, along with agriculture, fishing, and logging, serving as the hub for trading between the southern colonies and Europe. [ 13 ] The region's economy grew steadily over the entire colonial era, despite the lack of a staple crop that could be exported.