The Middle Colonies

Geography of the Middle Colonies Four states make up this region: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, the largest city in the region is New York City – it is also the largest in the nation Pennsylvania is the 2nd largest colony in the region and a mix of mountains and low lands, thick forests and some of the best farming soil in the nation New Jersey and Delaware are mostly lowland colonies that entirely border the Atlantic Ocean Middle colony farmers had a much easier time farming than New England settlers, the climate is much warmer with longer growing seasons, the soil also allows for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to be grown

New York and New Jersey NY began as a Dutch colony in 1660 and found extreme financial success, It was originally called New Amsterdam The Dutch allowed residents of NY to trade with the English colonies without using English markets, this outraged the British By 1664, England’s King Charles II sent warships to NYC and present day Long Island and forced the Dutch to surrender control of New Amsterdam, as an insult to the Dutch people, Charles II named it New York after York England New Jersey was established in 1665 when it split away from New York, it began as a proprietary colony but was soon given a royal charter and made a part of the English empire

Pennsylvania and Delaware In the 1640’s, the Quakers were another group that was forced to leave England over religious turmoil with Anglicans Quakers believe that all people had a direct link to God and did not need to pay taxes, swear allegiance or worship only inside a church, this put them also at odds with the Puritans and Pilgrims, the king of England owed a huge debt to William Penn (a Quaker), since he could not kill or imprison Penn he gave him a charter in the New World to allow all Quakers to leave England without punishment Delaware was originally a colony owned by Sweden, it was created as a shipping colony or return to Europe, because of the extremely furtile soil and successful ports it was invaded and taken over by Holland in the 1650’s, it was later taken by England in the peace deal signed over New York Penn’s land also included parts of Delaware, when Delaware was given to the British Penn decided to give up his portion of land on the coast only to foster more positive relations between Pennsylvania and England

Growth and Change By the early 1700’s, Pennsylvania – New Jersey – Delaware had become the bread basket of the New World, all three colonies were very prosperous and very tolerant to all peoples who wished to settle there With many natural resources in their soil and extremely well built naval ports, these colonies began to explode with manufacturing The western section of NY and PA were called the “Backcountry” or the “frontier”, many settlers there were not English, as the Germans arrive in large numbers they called themselves the Deutsch but due to their accents many Pennsylvanians thought they were saying Dutch, hence the name for the Amish in PA as the Pennsylvania Dutch Many times the settlers of the Backcountry clashed with native tribes forcing them to move further south into present day North Carolina, the path they traveled became known as “The Great Wagon Trail” and led to the creation of Charlotte NC