Chesapeake Middle Colonies Georgia and the Carolinas

British colonizers took a different approach as compared to Dutch and French settlers in America. The former actively pursued their apparent "God-given" power to carry out farming, fishing and hunting activities within Native Americans' lands and water resources.

The region lying between the Chesapeake (i.e., Virginia and Maryland) and the New England colonies encompassed New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware (i.e., "middle colonies") which were formerly Dutch colonies. By the year 1670, the largely-Protestant migrant group from the Netherlands boasted the world's biggest mercantile fleet as well as the loftiest living standards. They were in control of trade in the northern European region and grew into one among the most liberal and multicultural European communities, in addition to being the British's fiercest rival in international trade. They welcomed and supported religious and cultural diversity unlike a majority of America's other colonizers from the European continent.

The Quakers or individuals who held the belief that it was impossible to know Jesus without fear (trembling or 'quaking') emerged as the most radical and controversial religious community after England's Civil War. Their extremist beliefs included humanity's essentially goodness and their ability to attain deliverance via an emotional, personal spiritual union with God, which would make them His "candle". In the Pennsylvanian colony, the Quakers were on particularly good terms with the Indians; they were friendly and had established a policy of buying landrights from natives. For almost half a century, the Indians and migrant Europeans lived in harmony. The government of Pennsylvania established a procedure for assembly and state council member election by freemen or landowners. Their policies aimed at demonstrating the ability of colonial governments to work peacefully using Quaker principles and at demonstrating that religion is capable of thriving with total liberty of conscience, even in the absence of governmental support. However, with time, they began struggling with maintaining harmony and at one point, Pennsylvania saw 6 Governors (Tindall and Emory Shi 92).

Till end-1500s, Delaware belonged to the Pennsylvania colony. Even during the former half of the eighteenth century, when the formation of a new state occurred, the same individual governed over both.

The practice of slavery was rife in Maryland and Virginia (Chesapeake colonies). For instance, by the year 1750, 4 out of 5 Afro-American slaves here were born here as well. Native Americans in British colonies who took up arms for retaining control of their native land were either slayed or driven out. Virginian English settlers considered the natives to be demonic heathens (Tindall and Emory Shi 97). By the year 1650, a majority of slaves sold at the slave market in New Amsterdam (America's biggest slave market) hailed from Maryland and Virginia.

The last British settlement in America was that of Georgia. This settlement was unique in that:

1. It offered a military bulwark safeguarding the Carolinas from the Spain-controlled Floridian state, and

2. It was a societal experiment which gathered migrants belonging to different religious and ethnic backgrounds. A large number of residents of Georgia were defaulters, exiles, or 'depressed wretches' that constituted the worthy poor.

Georgia was intended to offer London's poor a haven. It served as an effective bulwark against the Floridian state, but was unsuccessful in its attempts to become a "commoner's utopia". At first, economic equity was upheld by restricting landholdings to five-hundred acres. There were bans on liquor sale and consumption, lawyers, and slave importation. However, these idealistic principles dissolved when the state began struggling for self-sufficiency. The law prohibiting slavery and liquor were commonly overlooked and ultimately totally abandoned.

Georgia attained royal colony status in the year 1754. It progressed gradually in the course of the next ten years; however, after the year 1763, it witnessed swift growth. Almost unconsciously, it became a slave-based community with a thriving economy.

The Carolinas -- this southern-most settlement in mainland America comprised of two extensively disjointed regions, the South and North. The latter area (called Albemarle) began to be colonized by about the 1650s. The chief occupation here was agriculture along the Albemarle Sound's shores. The landholders of this region concentrated on the favorable South Carolinian areas. In an attempt to accelerate their endeavors to glean profits, the Albemarle landowners hired expert planters from Barbados, the little Caribbean isle which was the foremost, wealthiest, and most densely populated British American settlement. The cruel landowners coerced their workers into toiling until they even lost their lives in the plantations. The death rate for whites as well as slaves in the Barbados colony was double the rate in the Virginian colony, resulting in the island's British planters purchasing an enormous number of extra slaves per annum to replace the ones who perished due to overwork (Tindall and Emory Shi 80).

But by the year 1670, all land available on the island was claimed, forcing the wealthy planters to seek estates elsewhere. Hence, South Carolina's occupation commenced. From the outset, this was a slave-centered settlement, with proprietors attempting to hire slaveholding planters issuing ads such as, "To the owner of every Negro man or slave brought thither to Carolina within first year, 20 acres, and for every women negro or slave, 10 acres; all men negroes or slaves after that time and within first five years, 10 acres; for every women negro or slave, 5 acres" (Tindall and Emory Shi 81).

The Carolinian government's formation was one of a kind. From the outset, all migrants who could afford the Atlantic passage were accorded head rights. With the major crops of the region being sugarcane, rice and other water-intensive plants, planters preferred slaves for work in their plantations. Developing commerce with natives was counted as one among the swiftest money-making endeavors in the Carolinas. Deer skin export to Britain was a key business. However, in the process, North Carolinas' natives were enslaved, an action which resulted in unparalleled colonial violence accompanied by attacks from British and German colonizers.

References

Tindall, Brown and David Emory Shi. America - A Narrative History. New York and London: WW Norton and Company, 2013.