1. Europeans Establish Colonies
Origins of a New Nation
Europeans Establish Colonies

2. The Middle Colonies
Between the Chesapeake colonies to the south and New England colonies to the north, the Dutch and Swedes established colonies in the mid-Atlantic coast.
Growing English power threatened the Dutch and the Swedes.
Eventually, the English would control most of the Atlantic seaboard.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

3. The Dutch Establish New Netherland
The Dutch begin to trade with the Indians in 1609, and by 1614 the founded a permanent settlement at Fort Nassau on the Hudson River.
To guard the mouth of the river, the Dutch built New Amsterdam at the tip of Manhattan Island in 1625.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

4. The Dutch Establish New Netherlands
With the finest harbor on the Atlantic coast, New Amsterdam served as the colony’s largest town, major seaport, and government headquarters.
Coming to trade or to farm, the Dutch—in contrast to the French, Spanish, and Puritan English—made virtually no missionary effort to convert the Indians.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

5. The Dutch Establish New Netherlands
The Dutch West India Company appointed the governor and an advisory council of leading colonists, but they did not permit and elected assembly.
New Netherlands tolerated various religious groups, including Jews.
That toleration drew an especially diverse groups of colonists.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

6. Push-and-Pull Factors
Despite an appealing location and religious toleration, the Dutch colony attracted few immigrants.
In 1660, New Netherlands had only 5,000 colonists—better than the 3,000 in New France, but far behind the 25,000 in the Chesapeake and the 33,000 in New England.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

7. Push-and-Pull Factors
In mobilizing migration to the colonies, push factors were stronger than pull factors.
Push factors motivate people to leave their home countries. For example, religious persecution pushed the Puritans out of England.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

8. Push-and-Pull Factors
Pull factors attract people to a new location. For example, the promise of a better life and fertile soil may pull people to a new land.
During the seventeenth century, push factors were stronger in England than in the Netherlands. The Dutch economy was booming while the English economy was stagnant.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

9. Push-an-Pull Factors
The Dutch did not have the masses of roaming poor who became servants in the Southern Colonies.
And the tolerant Dutch lacked a disaffected religious minority, such as the Puritans who founded New England.
The English succeeded as colonizers largely because their troubled society failed to satisfy their people at home.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

10. New Sweden Is Founded
In 1638, traders founded New Sweden on the lower Delaware River, within the present state of Delaware.
Like the Dutch colony, New Sweden had a dual economy: the fur trade with the Indians and grain farming by colonists.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

11. New Sweden is Founded
The colonists from Scandinavia introduced many frontier techniques that eventually became adopted in America, including the construction of log cabins.
In 1655, the Dutch took over all of New Sweden.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

12. The English Conquest
New Netherlands suffered when the Dutch and English empires came to blows.
The Dutch and English became violent rivals in global commerce during the 1650s and 1660s.
The English leaders resented that the more efficient Dutch shippers captured most of the trade exporting Chesapeake tobacco and West Indian sugar.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

13. The English Conquest In 1664, the Dutch surrendered their colony.
The English renamed it New York, after the Duke of York, who received it as a proprietary colony.
Victory secured the mid-Atlantic coast for the English, closing the gap between the Chesapeake Colonies to the south and the New England Colonies to the north.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

14. The English Conquest
In 1664, the Duke of York granted the lands between the Hudson and the Delaware rivers as a distinct new colony called New Jersey.
Puritans and Scots settled the eastern half, while the western half attracted English Quakers.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

15. William Penn Founds Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania began as a debt paid to William Penn by King Charles II of England.
Penn had embraced the Quaker faith, a radical form of Protestantism.
Most Quakers were tradespeople, shopkeepers, and small farmers who distrusted rich and powerful men.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

16. Quaker Beliefs
In contrast to the Puritan emphasis on sacred scriptures and sermons by ministers, the Quakers sought an “Inner Light” to understand the Bible.
The Quakers did not have clergy, and considering women spiritually equal to men, Quakers established both men’s and women’s leadership for their meetings.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

17. Quaker Beliefs Pacifists, the Quakers refused to bear arms.
They also tolerated other faiths.
Unlike Puritan Massachusetts, Pennsylvania would have no privileged church with tax support.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

18. Pennsylvania Prospers
In 1682, Penn arrived with 23 ships bearing 2,000 colonists.
For his capital, Penn established a city named Philadelphia, which means “City of Brotherly Love.”
Thanks to a temperate climate, fertile soil, and a navigable river, the colonists prospered and multiplied, reaching 18,000 inhabitants by 1700.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

19. Pennsylvania Prospers
As with the New England Puritans—but unlike the Chesapeake colonists—most early Pennsylvanians came in freedom as families of middle-class means.
Most were Quakers, but the colony also attracted Anglicans as well as German Baptists and Lutherans.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

20. Pennsylvania Prospers
Cultivating peace with local Indians, the Pennsylvanians avoided the sort of native rebellions that devastated Virginia, New England, and Spanish New Mexico.
Called Delaware’s by the English, the local Indians were Algonquian speakers.
Unlike most other colonial leaders, Penn treated Native Americans with respect and paid fair prices for their land.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

21. Diversity in the Middle Colonies
The Middle Colonies developed an ethnic and religious diversity greater than either the Chesapeake area or New England, where almost all of the white colonists came from England.
The Middle Colonies included Dutch, Swedes, Finns, French Protestants, Germans, Norwegians, and Scots—as well as English.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?

22. Diversity in the Middle Colonies
By faith, they were Quakers, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, and Jews.
No single ethnic group or specific religious denomination possessed a majority in any Middle Colony.
What were the characteristics of the Middle Colonies?