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A new map of Virginia, Maryland, and the improved parts of Pennsylvania & New Jersey, 1685 map of the Chesapeake region by Christopher Browne. The Chesapeake Colonies were the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, later the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Province of Maryland, later Maryland, both colonies located in British America and centered on the Chesapeake Bay.
The colonies exported naval stores, fur, lumber and tobacco to Britain, and food for the British sugar plantations in the Caribbean. The culture of the Southern and Chesapeake Colonies was different from that of the Northern and Middle Colonies and from that of their common origin in the Kingdom of Great Britain.
They were located south of the Middle Colonies, albeit Virginia and Maryland (located on the expansive Chesapeake Bay in the Upper South) were also called the Chesapeake Colonies. The Southern Colonies were overwhelmingly rural, with large agricultural operations, which made use of slavery and indentured servitude extensive.
The name Chesapeake is an anglicization of the Algonquian word, K'che-sepi-ack, which translates as "country on a great river." [1] In 1585, their name was recorded by English colonists as Ehesepiooc. [1] Their name is spelled many different ways and also listed as Chesapians. [1]
Very few women were present in the early Chesapeake colonies. In 1650, estimates put Maryland's total population near 600 with fewer than 200 women present. [175] Much of the population consisted of young, single, white indentured servants and, as such, the colonies lacked social cohesiveness, to a large degree. African women entered the colony ...
These colonies were part of British America, which also included territory in The Floridas, the Caribbean, and what is today Canada. [3] The Thirteen Colonies were separately administered under the Crown, but had similar political, constitutional, and legal systems, and each was dominated by Protestant English-speakers.
In the 17th century, immigration from Ireland to the Thirteen Colonies was minimal, confined mostly to male Irish indentured servants who were primarily Catholic and peaked with 8,000 prisoner-of-war penal transports to the Chesapeake Colonies from the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the 1650s. [49] [50]
Aboard the Hercules (of Rye), Blessinge (of Plymouth, England), and De La Warr [note 6] ships, they intercepted the weary colonists in Chesapeake Bay departing Virginia and compelled them to return to Jamestown with the new provisions and passengers. [47] [82] Captain Samuel Argall; Doctor Lawrence Bohun [23] Master Andrew Buckler [83]