Early Colonisations

Early Colonisation
The British colony of Roanoke was a disaster, but the colony of Jamestown was organised to seek gold and a passage to Asia in 1607. Jamestown ended up finding huge success in producing tobacco, which would be the main cash crop of the Southern states for many many years to come. However, labour shortages caused some of the people there to use indentured servants as a source offree labour. When Nathaniel Bacon incited a rebellion, planters saw the potential in slavery: helpless, cheap people without arms.
In 1620, the Pilgrims, who left England to seek religious freedom, landed their ship, the Mayflower, onto Plymouth Rock and set up the Mayflower Compact, in which they agreed to live by majority rule for the general good. A large portion of the settlers died in thefirst winter, but the survivors, or so legend has it, celebrated the first American Thanksgiving with neighbouring native people of the Wampanoag tribe.
In 1628, a larger group of puritans who wanted religious freedom established a settlement in Salem, Massachusetts, and quite a few other settlements, such as Boston.
Colonial Times
Ships travelled across the Atlantic at a regular rate, and thecolonies grew gradually. In 1630, a colonial assembly was created to share power with a governor who was appointed by Britain's king. All the grants England had issued accrued to become a significantly large area with a growing population. There were 13 colonies, stretching from Maine2 to Georgia. There were three distinct regions:
* New England included Massachusetts, New Hampshire, RhodeIsland and Connecticut, including the large population centres of Providence and Boston. Farmland wasn't great, so whaling and fishing were the main sources of income. Naturally, with the large amount of fishing and whaling, shipbuilding was an important part of the economy too.
* The Middle Colonies were New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Major cities included New York andPhiladelphia. The Middle Colonies had better farmland than New England, so wheat became an important product.
* The Southern Colonies were Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, including the ports of Baltimore, Charleston and Jamestown. In the South, plantation farming was the main industry. Tobacco was the most common export, closely followed by cotton and indigo.
In themiddle of the 18th century, the colonies were made up of about 1.5 million citizens. The people were generally situated along the Atlantic coast, and some states didn't even bother with establishing borders that were too far inland. People began to look back at the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Mayflower Compact, early forms of self-government. Each colony had a different type of government:some were controlled by the British King entirely, some mostly owned by individuals, and some were left to themselves. Basically, each state had a governor, a council and an assembly. For a law to pass, it had to be approved by the assembly, the governor and the British government.
In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, thegovernor was appointed by the King, and he in turn appointed his council; the assembly being democratically elected. In Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, the owner or owners of the colony appointed the governor, who selected his council, and the assembly was elected. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, the governor, the council and the assembly were all elected by the citizens. Of course, in each statethere were some restrictions on who could be elected.
As the south grew, slavery grew as well. One of the worst chapters in the history of America is the slave trade and the continuing demand for new slaves in the South. None of the colonies were entirely blameless in this - though the South received most of the slaves, the slave trade was helped in part by the New England sailors. Another...