Early American History · Grades 6-8 · 1607–1732
The Thirteen Colonies
The thirteen colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast from New Hampshire to Georgia. Why did life in Boston feel so different from life in Charles Town?
Between 1607 and 1732, English colonists founded or took over thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast. Some came for land and money. Some came to worship in their own way. Many did not come by choice at all.
Historians group the colonies into three regions, areas that share climate, land and ways of life. On this page you'll explore the map, each region, daily life, and the people whose stories are often left out. Then test yourself with the quiz.
Timeline
- 1607 The Virginia Company of London founds Jamestown, Virginia.
- 1612 John Rolfe begins growing a sweeter tobacco in Virginia. It becomes the colony's money crop.
- 1619 Virginia's House of Burgesses meets, the first elected lawmaking assembly in English America. The same year, the first recorded Africans arrive in English Virginia.
- 1620 The Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact and found Plymouth Colony.
- 1630 John Winthrop leads Puritans to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Boston.
- 1636 Roger Williams founds Providence (Rhode Island). Thomas Hooker leads settlers to Hartford (Connecticut). Harvard College is founded.
- 1664 England takes New Netherland from the Dutch and renames it New York.
- 1675–1676 King Philip's War between New England colonists and Native nations led by the Wampanoag leader Metacom.
- 1681 William Penn receives the charter for Pennsylvania.
- 1732 Georgia, the thirteenth colony, receives its charter.
Map of the colonies
- New England colonies
- Middle colonies
- Southern colonies
- Town or settlement
Original map drawn for Jugami. Borders are simplified and drawn close to today's state lines. In colonial times, several colonies claimed land much farther west, and those lands belonged to Native nations.
The three regions
New England colonies
Colonies: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island.
Land and climate: Rocky soil, thick forests, long cold winters and short summers. Farms were small and mostly fed the family.
Economy: Fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, lumber and trade. Boston became a busy port.
Religion: Most founders were Puritans, Protestants who wanted to "purify" the Church of England. They expected everyone in town to follow their rules. People who disagreed, like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, were forced to leave.
Government: Towns held town meetings, where men who qualified could vote on local issues. Connecticut's Fundamental Orders of 1639 set out a written plan of government.
"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us."John Winthrop, sermon "A Model of Christian Charity," 1630 (spelling modernized)
Winthrop meant that the whole world would be watching to see if the Puritan colony succeeded.
Middle colonies
Colonies: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware.
Land and climate: Rich soil, wide rivers like the Hudson and Delaware, and milder winters than New England.
Economy: They grew so much wheat and other grain that people called them the "breadbasket" colonies. Ports like New York and Philadelphia shipped flour, furs and lumber.
Religion: The most mixed region. Dutch, Swedes, Germans, English, Scots-Irish, Africans and others lived here. Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Lutherans, Catholics and a small Jewish community all worshipped here. William Penn promised religious freedom in Pennsylvania.
Government: Each colony had an elected assembly. Pennsylvania's became one of the strongest.
Southern colonies
Colonies: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
Land and climate: Warm weather, a long growing season and flat, fertile land near the coast.
Economy: Cash crops, grown to sell rather than eat: tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo (a blue dye) in South Carolina and later Georgia. Large farms called plantations depended more and more on the forced labor of enslaved Africans.
Religion: The Church of England was the official church in most of the South. Maryland was founded as a refuge for English Catholics, and its 1649 Toleration Act protected Christians of different churches.
Government: Virginia's House of Burgesses (1619) was the first elected assembly. Only men who owned property could vote, and wealthy planters held most of the power.
Founding chart
| Colony | Region | Founded | Founders and leaders | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia | Southern | 1607 | Virginia Company of London | Profit, gold, land |
| Massachusetts | New England | 1620 (Plymouth), 1630 (Mass. Bay) | Pilgrims (William Bradford); Puritans (John Winthrop) | Religious freedom for their own faith |
| New Hampshire | New England | 1623 royal colony 1679 | David Thomson (first settlers); John Mason (land grant) | Fishing, trade |
| Maryland | Southern | 1634 | Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore | Refuge for Catholics, profit |
| Connecticut | New England | 1636 | Thomas Hooker | Farmland, more say in church and government |
| Rhode Island | New England | 1636 | Roger Williams | Freedom of religion |
| Delaware | Middle | 1638 (New Sweden) separate assembly 1704 | Peter Minuit and the New Sweden Company; later William Penn | Trade |
| North Carolina | Southern | 1663 (Carolina charter) | Eight Lords Proprietors; settlers from Virginia arrived by the 1650s | Farmland, profit |
| South Carolina | Southern | 1663 (charter), 1670 (Charles Town) | Eight Lords Proprietors | Profit, trade |
| New York | Middle | 1664 (English); 1620s as New Netherland | James, Duke of York | Trade, control of the coast |
| New Jersey | Middle | 1664 | Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret | Profit, land |
| Pennsylvania | Middle | 1681 | William Penn | Refuge for Quakers |
| Georgia | Southern | 1732 | James Oglethorpe | A buffer against Spanish Florida; a fresh start for poor English people |
Different books give slightly different years, because some count the first settlers and others count the official charter.
Daily life
Families and work
Most colonists lived on farms. Families were large, and everyone worked: fathers and sons cleared fields and cared for animals, while mothers and daughters cooked, spun thread, sewed, made soap and candles, and tended gardens. Children often began real chores by age six or seven.
Food
Colonists learned to grow Native crops like corn (maize), beans and squash. They ate stews, cornbread, salted meat and fish, and preserved food by salting, smoking and drying it for winter.
School
Schooling depended on where you lived. New England had the most schools, because Puritans wanted everyone to read the Bible. Young children learned letters from a hornbook, a paddle with a printed page under a thin, clear sheet of horn.
"…every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read…"Massachusetts school law of 1647, often called the "Old Deluder Satan" law (original spelling modernized)
In the South, farms were far apart. Wealthy planters hired tutors or sent sons to England, while most poor children got little schooling.
Indentured servants
The trip across the Atlantic cost more than most poor Europeans could pay. Many signed an indenture, a contract to work for a master for a set time, usually about four to seven years, in exchange for passage, food and shelter. When the time was up, they were free. Work was hard and many died before their contracts ended.
Slavery's beginnings
In 1619, about twenty Africans who had been captured from a Portuguese slave ship were brought to Point Comfort, Virginia. Over the next decades, colonial laws turned slavery into a lifelong condition passed from mother to child, based on race.
Enslaved people could not leave, were not paid, and could be sold away from their families. By the 1700s, slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies, though it was most widespread in the South. Georgia banned slavery at first, in 1735, but allowed it in 1751.
Enslaved Africans still built families, kept alive music, foods and beliefs from Africa, and resisted slavery. Some ran away. In 1739, in the Stono Rebellion, dozens of enslaved people in South Carolina rose up and marched south toward Spanish Florida, where they hoped to be free. It was the largest uprising of enslaved people in the British mainland colonies before the Revolution. Colonial militia crushed it within a day, and South Carolina passed harsher laws in 1740. Their skill at growing rice helped make South Carolina rich.
Native nations
The colonies were built on land that belonged to Native nations, including the Powhatan in Virginia, the Wampanoag and Narragansett in New England, the Lenape (Delaware) in the Middle colonies, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in New York, and the Cherokee, Catawba and Creek (Muscogee) in the South.
Relations went back and forth between trade, alliance and war. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit made an alliance with Plymouth in 1621, and Tisquantum (Squanto) helped the Pilgrims plant corn. Native people traded furs for metal tools, cloth and guns.
But as more colonists arrived and took land, conflict grew. Diseases brought from Europe, such as smallpox, killed huge numbers of Native people. Wars like King Philip's War (1675–1676) were among the deadliest in colonial history for the number of people living there.
Key people
John Smith
Leader at Jamestown in 1608–1609. His rule, "he that will not work shall not eat" (except the sick), pushed colonists to farm.
Pocahontas
Daughter of the Powhatan leader Wahunsenaca. She married colonist John Rolfe in 1614 and died in England in 1617.
William Bradford
Longtime governor of Plymouth Colony. His book Of Plymouth Plantation tells the Pilgrims' story.
Anne Hutchinson
A Puritan woman who led religious discussions in Boston. She was banished in 1638 and moved to Rhode Island.
Metacom (King Philip)
Wampanoag leader, son of Massasoit. He led Native nations against New England colonists in 1675–1676.
William Penn
A Quaker who founded Pennsylvania and planned the city of Philadelphia.
James Oglethorpe
Founded Georgia and the city of Savannah in 1733.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney
As a young woman in the 1740s, she experimented with indigo in South Carolina until it became a major cash crop.
About the John Smith quote: Smith's original words, in his Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), Book 3, read: "he that will not worke shall not eate (except by sicknesse he be disabled)." The idea goes back to the Bible (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
Quiz: test yourself
Talk about it
- If you were moving to the colonies in 1700, which region would you pick, and why? Would your answer change if you were poor, a Quaker, or a woman?
- Many colonists came looking for freedom, yet colonies also allowed slavery and took Native land. How can both be true at once?
- Puritans left England to worship freely, then banished people who disagreed with them. Why do you think they did that?
- Which voices are missing from the records colonists left behind? How can historians learn about them?
Sources
- National Park Service, Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown Rediscovery (Jamestown 1607, 1619 arrivals, House of Burgesses).
- Library of Congress, Colonial Settlement, 1600s–1763.
- Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, The Old Deluder Satan Law, 1647; full text from The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts (1648 edition), mass.gov PDF.
- New Georgia Encyclopedia, Slavery in Colonial Georgia (1735 ban, 1751 repeal).
- Library of Congress, Today in History: September 9 (the Stono Rebellion); New Hampshire Almanac, History (David Thomson, 1623).
- PBS, Africans in America: From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery.
- John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630), text via Gilder Lehrman Institute.
- William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation; Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation," 1898 edition, Project Gutenberg #24950.
Credits: all illustrations and the map on this page are original SVG drawings made for Jugami.