Economic Difference: New World Colonies
The economic system of the New England colonies depended mainly on the cultivation of tobacco, a market that was successful, until the land it was occupied was drained from overuse, requiring the spread of more colonial developments. Though the primary reason for why New England colonies were developed streamed from the objective of escaping religious persecution, the colonists of these communities were typically stern Puritans, who rejected other forms of religious worship. The New England colonies were also “ethnically homogenous,” limiting interaction with Native American tribes and establishing only servant-like relations with African Americans. The Puritan New England colonies were probably some the most tightly knit communities in America, along with some of the strict with its harsh anti-tolerance policy. The Middle Colonies, in contrast to New England’s ethnic homogeneousness, the Middle Colonies was known as America’s “cultural salad bowl/ melting pot,” predominantly exemplified in New York.
New York City was open to a variety of ethnicities: the Dutch, the Huguenots, the Flemish, the Scots of Perth Amboy, etc. Due to the Middle Colonies’ leniency toward religious devotion, New York also contained several forms of religious worship: Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews. In the urban parts of these colonies, rich landowners rented, rather than sold, property to immigrants, which downcast the appeal. Pennsylvania also became known as the “farmers’ haven,” where Quakers in Pennsylvania who sold land to anyone who could pay the modest fares. Due to this the Middle Colonies become the most diverse and agriculturally abundant colonies in America.
The Back Country came to be developed through southwest expansion of settlers, primarily from Pennsylvania to Virginia, in the mid-17th century. Though the original economic scheme was commercial farming, the colonists came to depend on planting Indian corn and hunting for meat and furs; these strategies derived from the influences of New Farm farming and woodland hunting. The prosaic lifestyle of the Backcountry was mundane and humble, rejecting rank and simple means of economic support. The South consisted of inter-racial communities, a combined population of white settlers, African slaves, and Indians, who lived on the borders of these societies. South colonies were predominantly rural, concentrating on commercial crops, such as tobacco and rice. Furthermore, the social institution of the South was dominantly plantations, which were obviously supported by back slaves, since most of the population consisted of African Americans.
As a result, this led to a deepened racial tension, in which response to the percent of African slaves white colonists developed a white solidarity.
