United States History Student Edition

English Colonies in North America, 1689 By 1689, England had established colonies up and down the Atlantic coast of North America, but they had not stretched far inland.

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GEOGRAPHY CONNECTION 1. Human-Environment Interaction What do you notice about the relationship between English settlements and territory and bodies of water? 2. Spatial Thinking What might explain the areas of land that appear unsettled within a larger area, as in New Jersey or Connecticut?

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Charles Town

English settlements, 1689 English territory claimed but not settled

providing the colonies with food and oil. Further inland, colonists raised cattle and corn. The area's dense forests provided wood for furniture manufacturing and shipbuilding. Farther north, the fur trade thrived. The Middle Colonies had similar resources, and wheat, corn, and livestock were major products in the area. Other resources in the Middle Colonies led to businesses such as lumber mills and ironworks. In the warmer Southern Colonies, other crops were important to the local economies. In Virginia and North Carolina, colonists farmed corn and used enslaved Africans to grow tobacco. Along the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, plantation owners used enslaved labor to grow rice and indigo. Trade also played an important part in the colonial economies. Besides trading amongst themselves, the colonies traded products with England, other English colonies in the Americas, and

other European countries. Control over trade would become a major issue for the American colonists. Local Government and the Roots of Democracy Being so far from England, several of the early colonies developed their own governments. With the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims promised to abide by the laws they drew up themselves in the Plymouth colony. In Jamestown, the Virginia Company established a legislature called the General Assembly. The body was made up of a governor, a group of advisors called a council, and a group of elected representatives called the House of Burgesses. These steps toward self-government led the colonists to resent English attempts at governmental control. They also led to events that would forever change beliefs about freedoms and government.

109 The American Revolution