Comparing and Contrasting the Colonial Regions Established in British North America

British North America by the mid 1700’s consisted of three major regions. The New England region included the colonies of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The Middle Region included the colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The Southern Region, also known as the Chesapeake Colonies, included the Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Although all three regions consisted of British colonies, each region differed in terms of climate, geography, population, politics, economy, and religious attitudes. Daily life was very different for the people who lived in each of these …show more content…

Religion played a much more important role in the daily lives and the government of the New England colonies than in the Chesapeake region. (Taylor)

The New England colonies attracted a different class of emigrants than the southern colonies. Most of these colonists were middle class families who were able to afford to pay for their passage themselves as opposed to becoming indentured servants. These northern colonies with their cold winters and short summers offered no cash crop to export back to Europe, so these families mostly established farms that produced food to feed themselves. These farmers had to cut clearings in the forest and build houses, barns, and fences by hand in order to grow enough food and keep enough livestock to provide for their families. There was very little need for slave labor to work these family farms and only the very rich owned slaves who did mostly domestic duties. (Taylor)

The governmental institutions and the method by which land was distributed differed greatly between the New England and the southern colonies. In the New England colonies land was granted to families who joined together to form towns. In the southern colonies, land was allocated directly to individuals in large tracts, mostly to the wealthy and well-connected. This accounts for the large plantations that developed in the southern colonies. In fact, there were very few towns in the southern colonies and most