8th Grade Study Guide—Chapter 2
Settling the Thirteen Colonies
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Section I: Coming to the Colonies
What we want to learn from this section:
*Reasons why the English came to America
*Difficulties in paying for colonization
*How joint-stock companies worked
*3 types of colonies
*Hardships colonists suffered
Reasons Why the English Came
1. Competition with the Spanish to make money
2. Desire to own land **Due to shortage of land and jobs in England
3. Political freedom: desire to be far away from strict kings
4. Religions freedom: did not want to answer to the Church of England/Anglican Church
5. Longing for adventure
Difficulties in Colonization
1. Difficult to finance, or pay for
*Investors formed joint-stock companies, which were like modern corporations.
Groups pooled (put together) their money and allowed others to buy “shares of stock”. This
would pay for the up-front costs of the colony and would allow it to continue for awhile until
the colonists could support themselves. If the colony failed, each investor lost only what he put
in. If the colony succeeded, the profits were split according to the number of stocks each
investor owned.
Types of colonies:
Charter Colonies: A document was given to joint-stock companies to tell them where the
colony would be located and how to run it.
Proprietary Colonies: Given to a person or group by the king; they could govern it as they
pleased.
Royal Colonies: Under direct control of the king
2. Physical Hardships
*Food and shelter—sometimes difficult to find
*Disease—scurvy, fever, exposure to weather
*Relations with Indians—some didn’t like the settlers
Section II: The New England Colonies
What we want to learn from this section:
*Difference between Separatists and Puritans
*The 2 colonies in Massachusetts & how they got started
*Which colonies were started due to religious persecution
*Other New England colonies
*Leaders of each colony
*Significance of the Mayflower Compact & the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (CT)
*How the Fundamental Orders of Ct made the CT Colony different than the Massachusetts
Bay Colony
CHURCH OF ENGLAND = ANGLICAN CHURCH
Puritans: Those who wanted to “purify” the Church of England…said it was too much like the
Catholic Church with its ceremonies.
Separatists: They didn’t believe the Anglican Church could be purified. They wanted to separate
from the church.
The Two Massachusetts Colonies
Plymouth Colony…”The Pilgrims”…left England for religious freedom in Holland, but thought
it was too worldly. They left for the New World where they could live as Englishmen but have
religious freedom. The trip was financed by businessmen. The Pilgrims planned to settle in the
Virginia Colony. The non-Separatists who went with them were called “Strangers”. They all had
to get along to survive. They had a difficult journey but eventually landed at Cape Cod in
modern-day Massachusetts.
Mayflower Compact: first document to call for self-government in the New World.
The Pilgrims settled in Plymouth Colony. After a rough winter, they were helped by 2 Indians—
Samoset and Squanto. They made a peace treaty with the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit.
Miles Standish, one of the Strangers, trained the men in military skills so they could defend
themselves against attacks by unfriendly Indians.
William Bradford, the new governor of Plymouth Colony, called for a day of Thanksgiving for
bringing them through a rough winter.
Why was Plymouth Colony more successful than Jamestown Colony?
*Whole families came, making it more civilized
*Pilgrims were hard workers
*They desired religious freedom
***Plymouth Colony later merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Massachusetts Bay Colony: founded by Puritans tired of persecution and government
corruption. Formed Massachusetts Bay Company and got a charter from the king. Named John
Winthrop as first governor.
They thought religious freedom meant an ideal community based on biblical principles.
Colonists arrived to join an earlier group who had formed the town of Salem. New town were
soon started, including Boston. During the 1630s over 15,000 new colonists arrived in
Massachusetts—called the Great Migration.
Many of the Puritan colonists were wealthier and better educated than the Pilgrims. The
stockholders, or “freemen”, were given complete control over the colony.
**Massachusetts Bay Colony was unique because the charter was taken with them to America.
England didn’t interfere with the early years of the colony.
Not everyone was a Puritan, but the Puritans controlled the government…set up the government,
built the churches and schools. They required everyone to attend church and follow their strict
moral code. They didn’t want to let the ungodly take control, so initially they only let Puritans
vote.
Because of the size of the colony, it became difficult for all voters to participate in every
decision. They established a representative body, the General Court, which was much like
Virginia’s House of Burgesses.
Rhode Island: founded by Roger Williams, a pastor in Salem, because of his disagreement
about religious freedom with the Puritans.
His differences with the Puritans:
*He believed in a separation of church and state…that government shouldn’t try to force a
certain religion on the people
*He thought all land in America belonged to the Indians, and that they should be paid for it.
*He thought the Puritans shouldn’t try to “purify” the Anglican Church, just leave it like the
Pilgrims did.
Williams spent the winter with the Narragansett Indians, bought land from them, and started the
town of Providence. He sought a charter for Rhode Island Colony and was granted it in 1644.
His colony had religious freedom, including separation of church and state.
**Rhode Island Constitution said the government would have authority only in non-religious
matters. Rhode Island was the first colony to guarantee religious freedom.
Connecticut: Founded by Thomas Hooker, a pastor in Massachusetts, because of overcrowding
in Massachusetts. Several villages in the new area merged to form the Connecticut Colony. Their
plan to form a union was called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut was the first written constitution (plan of government) drawn up in
America.
***Difference between Mayflower Compact and Fundamental Orders of Connecticut: The
Mayflower Compact simply provided for self-government in the New World…government
without the control of the king. It was an agreement that the Pilgrims and Strangers would agree
to get along, elect a leader, and obey the leader. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was
actually a plan of government (constitution), or in other words, an actual structure of how the
government would be operated.
New Hampshire: Because of overcrowding, several towns in Massachusetts received a royal
charter from the king, making New Hampshire a separate colony.
Section III: The Middle Colonies
What we want to learn from this section:
*How New Netherland was founded
*How the English acquired New Netherland
*Basic beliefs of the Quakers
*Founder of Pennsylvania
*Early history of Delaware
**New England colonies were mostly settled by the English, but the Middle Colonies were more
diverse. The Dutch & the Swedes sent many settlers there.
The Netherlands = Holland = Dutch
New York and New Jersey: discovered by Henry Hudson, who was exploring for both England
and the Netherlands. At the time he found the Hudson River area, he was exploring for the
Netherlands…so control went to the Dutch, who called it New Netherlands.
The Dutch colonized the area for economic reasons, not religious ones. They were looking for
gold and furs. This is called “mercantilism”…an economic system that measured wealth by the
amount of gold and silver a nation possessed. Mercantilist countries saw their colonies as sources
of natural resources/raw materials to contribute to the nation’s wealth and as a market for goods
made in the mother country.
Thirty Dutch families came to America and settled in Manhattan and modern-day Albany. The
first governor, Peter Minuit, purchased Manhattan from the Indians. The village there was called
New Amsterdam.
The Dutch investors promised large land grants to anyone who would bring 50 settlers to the
New World…those receive the grants were called patroons. This was not as successful as the
investors hoped. The strict new governor, Peter Stuyvesant, also contributed to the lack of
success of the colony.
Because John Cabot had claimed the Atlantic coast of North America for England, England
claimed New Netherland as its rightful territory. The English king gave the Dutch territory to his
brother, the Duke of York. The Duke sent warships to capture the land from the Dutch. The
Dutch quickly surrendered when they saw the ships, and the property went to the English…who
called it New York.
New Jersey: Founded by friends of the Duke of York…Sir George Carteret and Lord John
Berkeley...southern part of New York. For awhile it was divided into East and West Jersey but
was eventually reunited into New Jersey, a royal colony. Carteret was the first governor. It
offered cheap land, full religious liberty, and some self-government.
Pennsylvania: Founded by religious group The Society of Friends, or “Quakers”.
*Religious beliefs of Quakers:
*All people are equal, regardless of gender, race, color, or social status
*All men have an “inner light” of goodness that told them God’s will apart
from the Bible
*Opposed war; refused to take oaths
Leader was William Penn, whose father was owed a large amount of money by King Charles II.
Penn inherited this when his father died, and the king paid him by giving him land in America.
“Sylvania” means “woodland”, so Pennsylvania actually means Penn’s Woods. It was a royal
colony, but Penn paid the Indians for the land to keep a good relationship with them.
Penn called the settlement a “holy experiment” where people would live together in “brotherly
love”…offered religious freedom to all, which drew a large group of Germans “Deutsche”, who
became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. By 1775 the capital city of Philadelphia (“City of
Brotherly Love”) was the second largest city in the British Empire, just after London.
Delaware: Had belonged to Pennsylvania, but became its own colony in 1776. It had been called
“New Sweden” because of the large number of Swedes that settled there…but The Duke of York
gave the land to William Penn.
Section IV: The Southern Colonies
What we want to learn from this section:
*The founding of each southern colony
*The unusual religious background of Maryland
*2 important cash crops in the southern colonies
*How the founding of Georgia different than the other southern colonies
The southern colonies developed differently than the other colonies because they had:
*warmer climates
*single-crop economies
*slave labor systems
Virginia: major cash crop was tobacco…so valuable that it sometimes served as money to pay
taxes and wages.
King James I didn’t like how the London Company was running the colony, so he revoked the
charter and made it a royal colony. He did allow the House of Burgesses to continue to meet.
No religious freedom…anyone who worshipped separately from the Anglicans were fined.
Virginia’s capital was moved to Williamsburg in 1698. Williamsburg became one of the leading
centers of government and culture in the colonies.
Maryland: King Charles I was sympathetic to Catholics who were being persecuted in England.
He gave land in America to his Catholic friend, George Calvert/Lord Baltimore. Calvert died
before coming to America, but his son Cecilius Calvert/Lord Baltimore settled in Maryland in
1634. This was a proprietary colony…a gift from the king to be run as the leader wished.
However, all land owners were allowed to help make the laws.
*Act of Toleration—guaranteed religious freedom in Maryland to all who believed in the Trinity.
This was the first written law of religious freedom in the colonies. (Although Rhode Island
unofficially allowed religious freedom)
The Carolinas: Started by 8 English noblemen given land by King Charles II. They named the
land “Carolus”, which is Latin for Charles. Eventually settlers came to Charles Towne
(Charleston, SC), which became an important commercial center because of its harbor.
Smaller group settled farther north, near Virginia. Northern settlements had little in common
with southern settlements. In 1712 the colony was divided into North Carolina and South
Carolina. Both grew a cash crop…NC grew tobacco, while SC grew rice and indigo—a plant
which blue dye was made from.
Georgia: England wanted to create a buffer zone between the Carolinas and Spanish-controlled
Florida. In the meantime, James Oglethorpe wanted to start a colony because he didn’t like the
way debtors were treated in England. He wanted a place where debtors could work off their debt
instead of being imprisoned. He also wanted a colony that did not allow slavery or hard liquor.
King George II gave Oglethorpe and a few others control of the new colony. City of Savannah
was the first city…on the coast. Oglethorpe built forts and tried to keep peace with the Indians.
Few debtors actually ever came, but other settlers did. However, they didn’t like the rules about
slavery and alcohol. Georgia became a royal colony and was much like the others, not unique
like Oglethorpe wanted.