1. The Middle Colonies 2

2. The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania
Established
1682
Founder
William Penn
Came from a wealthy English family
King Charles II was a personal friend
At age 22, shocked family and friends by becoming a Quaker
Quakers: One of the most despised religious groups in England

3. The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania
The Quakers
Also known as the Religious Society of Friends
Like Pilgrims and Puritans were Protestant reformers
Their reforms went further than other groups
Beliefs
Believed that all people – Men women, nobles, commoners, were equal in God’s sight
Allowed women to preach in public
Refused to remove hats or bow in presence of the nobility
Spoke out against war and refused to join the army

4. The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania
English Views of Quakers
Were wicked
They were arrested, fined, or even hanged for their ideas in England.

5. The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania
The colony grows:
Penn thought of his colony as a “holy experiment”
Any religion could settle
Penn sent pamphlets describing his colony all over Europe.
Soon settlers from England, Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, France, and Germany began to come.
Among the new arrivals, were large numbers of German speaking Protestants that became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch
Named because people could not pronounce the word Deutch which means German

6. The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania
Penn carefully planned a capital city along the Delaware River
He named it Philadelphia which is a Greek word meaning “Brotherly love”

7. The Middle Colonies: Delaware
For a time, Pennsylvania included some lands along the lower Delaware River.
The region was known as Pennsylvania’s Lower Counties
Settlers in the Lower Counties did not want to send delegates to a faraway assembly in Philadelphia.
In 1701, Penn allowed them to elect their assembly
Later the Lower Counties broke away to form the colony of Delaware

8. Life in the Middle Colonies
Farming
Found more favorable conditions in the Middle colonies compared to the New England colonies
Produced surpluses of wheat, barley, and rye
These were cash crops, or crops that are sold for money at a market
In fact, the Middle colonies produced so much grain, they became known as the Breadbasket colonies.
Also raised herds of cattle and pigs
Every year sent tons of beef, pork, & butter to the ports of New York and Philadelphia
From here they were exported

9. Life in the Middle Colonies
Craftspeople
Penn encouraged German craftspeople to set up shop in Pennsylvania
In time, the colony became a center of manufacturing and crafts.
Mining
Settlers in the Delaware River valley profited from the region’s rich deposits of iron ore.
Heating the ore, they hammered it into nails, tools, and parts for guns

10. Middle Colony Homes Farm homes
Generally larger here than in New England because houses tended to be far apart in the middle colonies
The different groups that settled the colonies had their own favorite ways to construct buildings.
Swedish settlers introduced log cabins
Dutch used red bricks to build narrow, high walled houses
Germans developed a wood-burning stove that heated a home better than fireplace

11. The Back Country
Area of hills and thick forests at the base of the Appalachians
Small farms
Lumbering
Hunting
Many settlers of this region learned directly from the Indians