Immigration and migration patterns in the early colonies were diverse,
and differed from one region to the next.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Summarize the demography of early 18th­century New England and Pennsylvania
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
New England was settled by a highly educated, agricultural demographic, and its population grew
thanks to favorable weather conditions that kept disease low.
The middle colonies were founded by many different ethnic and religious groups, due to policies
of tolerance.
Many of the frontier provinces saw influxes of immigrantsdue to the availability of cheap land.
TERMS [ edit ]
Philadelphia
Largest city in Pennsylvania, located in southeastern part of the state along the Delaware and
Schuylkill rivers. Site of the Independence Hall; former capital of United States. Nicknamed "City
of Brotherly Love".
frontier
A political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary.
New England
Collectively, the six states of the United States colonized by the English in the seventeenth
century, namely Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and
Vermont.
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The population of the American colonies through the eighteenth century was a mixture of
immigrants from different countries in Europe. Most used English Common Law, and most
spoke some dialect of English.
Nearly all colonies and, later, states in the United States were settled by migration from
another colony or state, as foreignimmigration usually only played a minor role after the first
initial settlements were started. Many new immigrants did end up on the frontiers as that
was where the land was usually the cheapest.
The New England colonists included more educated men as well as many skilled farmers,
tradesmen and craftsmen. They settled in small villages for common religious
activity.Shipbuilding, commerce, and fisheries were important in coastal towns. New
England's healthy climate (the cold winters killed the mosquitoes and other disease­bearing
insects), and abundant food supply resulted in the lowest death rate and highest birth rate of
any place in the world.
The eastern and northern frontier around the initial New England settlements was mainly
settled by the Yankee descendants of the original New Englanders.
Middle Colonies and the Western Frontier
The middle colonies' settlements were scattered west of New York City and Philadelphia. The
former Dutch colony of New York had the most eclectic collection of residents from many
different nations and prospered as a major trading and commercial center after about 1700.
The Pennsylvanian colonial center was dominated by theQuakers for decades after they
emigrated there, mainly from the North Midlands of England, from about 1680 to 1725. The
main commercial center of Philadelphia was run mostly by prosperous Quakers,
supplemented by many smallfarming and trading communities with
strong Germancontingents, located in the Delaware River Valley.
Many more settlers arrived in the middle colonies starting in about 1680,
when Pennsylvania was founded and many Protestant sects were encouraged to settle there
for freedom of religion and good, cheap land.
The colonial western frontier was mainly settled from about 1717 to 1775, mostly by
Presbyterian settlers from northern England border lands, Scotland, and the northern
portion of Ireland, fleeing bad times and persecution in those areas. Most initially landed in
family groups in Philadelphia or Baltimore but soon migrated to the western frontier where
land was cheaper and restrictions less onerous.
William Penn at Age 22, Possibly by Sir Peter Lely
William Penn advocated religious tolerance in the New World and strengthened the Quaker
movement in North America.