Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Brief Summary of Colonies

A brief summary of the colonies:

Massachusetts Bay:

  • Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth. John Winthrop, one of the leading founders of the colony who served as its governor, claimed that it would be the "city upon a hill". 
  • Voting was limited to white, land-owning church members (women were not given many rights) 
  • Colony wasn't religiously tolerant (as evidenced by the persecution of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson). 
Pennsylvania: 
  • Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, who was a Quaker. 
  • Quakers were generally pacifists and allowed women more rights (perhaps the most of any colony), and were religiously tolerant. 
Rhode Island: 
  • Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams, who was a proponent of religious freedom and one of the first abolitionists. 
  • Roger Williams also advocated for the separation of church and state. 
VA (Jamestown) 
  • Founded by a joint stock company. 
  • Tobacco farming became the colony's focus, but it exhausted the land. 
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownMay 14, 2014 at 5:38 PM

    Also the Georgia Colony. I find it interesting that it was originally founded with the sole purpose of being a bugger zone between the British Colonies and Spanish Florida. It was the last of the 13 colonies to be founded. In the beginning there were many restrictions put into play by James Oglethorpe, to whom the colony's corporate charter had been originally granted. He did not allow liquor, and colonists were not allowed to own more than 50 acres of land for their farm.

    Sources: American Pageant Textbook
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Georgia

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  2. AnonymousMay 16, 2014 at 1:09 PM

    Thanks for posting this! The colonies were a period of history that I definitely needed to study again. I found your post really helpful and I think this will helped me on the test. The colonies were an important period of our history that shaped our nation

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  3. kenneth mMay 18, 2014 at 9:36 PM

    This is really useful. Knowing about the colonies has seemed to be important on practice tests, and I am sure that this translates over. It is quite interesting that the first colonists risked so much to come to America.

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