Religion and Slavery in Colonial Establishment

Rachael Milligan

Professor Haas

History 101-701

15 February 2016

Week 3 Writings

1.  How did the three colonial regions embrace different economic systems in their early years of settlement? These regions are the Southern (Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas), New England (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, Rhode Island), and the Middle colonies (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey).  Describe each and explain their differences.

The southern regions were built on and survived off of their reliance on agriculture, especially the tobacco plantations. After the first successful tobacco crop was harvested in Virginia in the year 1612, it became clear that the exportation of the highly sought-after crop was the way to their economic advancement. Aside from being extremely popular, tobacco was also very laborious and needed a large work-force in order to tend to and harvest the crop–this is where slavery came in. The south was able to embrace their agricultural economy by investment of slaves as low-cost employment.

New England didn’t need to, and really couldn’t, rely on any one source of income, and instead their society contained a healthy mix of agriculture, fishing, timber, and fur trade. This Northernmost region didn’t have the fertile soil or long growing season that the south did, so when they did farm it was usually corn or wheat on a relatively small scale when compared to the south. Because of their wide skill-set, New England was the most self-sufficient of the regions and had the least need for slaves and servants.

The first English-established middle colony, Pennsylvania, was considered the most democratic and free of the new world of its time. William Penn bought all of the land his people inhabited from the natives and therefore produced the most “honest” settlement. Like the south, the middle region had a good amount of fertile soil (after the clearing of forests) and a decent growing season, which aided to their prosperous beginnings. The...