1. The Southern Colonies
The first permanent English settlement in the Americas was Jamestown; Virginia. Jamestown was founded as a commercial town by a group of English investors who call themselves the Virginia Company.
After several years of struggle, the new Virginians ousted the area’s Indians and began to make money on tobacco. The tobacco plant was native to the Americas. Native Americans had smoked it for generations for pleasure and in important ceremonies.
Europeans immediately took to the strong herb and demand for it skyrocketed. Virginia colonists planted their first tobacco crop in the early 1600s. By mid-century, the colony exported 10 million pounds of dry tobacco leaves a year.
The south’s rich soil and long growing season set the stage for the development of plantation economy thought out the area. Wealthy individuals invested in large amounts of land and then imported workers, both slave and free to cultivate it.
Eventually tobacco cultivation spread north to Maryland and Delaware and south to Carolina. Southern plantations also produced rice and indigo (source of blue dye). The political and social life of the southern colonies was dominated by planters and by the merchants who exported their profitable crops.

3. The Northern Colonies
A few years after Jamestown’s first settlers set sail, a group of English families, who became known as the Pilgrims, left England in a ship called the Mayflower. Two months later, they landed in Massachusetts Bay, in a region what would later be called New England.
New England’s cold climate and then rocky soil held no prospects for agricultural riches. But the Pilgrims were not seeking wealth. They wanted to create a community centered on religion. They believed the Anglican Church had grown too wealthy and corrupt. The Pilgrims wanted to make a new start in a new land.
Soon after the Pilgrims arrived, a larger group of religious dissenters, known as the Puritans, formed the Massachusetts Bay Company and settled in an area they called Salem. Puritans began leaving England for New England in large Numbers. The city of Boston would become a major port city.
The Puritans created their own government, in which their churches played a prominent role. People who challenged a community’s official church doctrines were often forced to leave. New Englanders built their economy around a variety of pursuits that included small-scale farming, fishing, lumbering and shipbuilding.

5. The Middle Colonies
The middle colonies had a widely varied population from the start. The area that became known as New York was first settled by a group of Dutch colonists, and Swedes settled in part of what is now known as New Jersey.
The Swedish also started a colony called Delaware. It was an important place for fur trade. Pennsylvania was started by William Penn, a prominent member of the Society of Friends or Quakers
The Mid-Atlantic region also developed a varied economy. The Dutch interest in commerce made New York into a major trading port, populated by people from parts of the world.
New York maintained that position after the English took over the colony in the late 1660s, and the port at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became increasingly important as well. Planters in Delaware grew tobacco, while farmers in Pennsylvania focused on wheat, corn, and other crops.

8. Questions for Where Did Colonists Settle
In the Southern colonies what was the first permanent settlement? How did the new Virginians make their money? Other than tobacco what other two crops did southern plantations grow? Who dominated social life in the southern colonies?
In the Northern colonies, who sailed on the Mayflower to get to America? What was their society centered around? What was the other religious group? What was the major port in the Northern colonies? Name three major economic pursuits of the Northern colonies.
Who founded New York? What two colonies did the Swedes found? William Penn founded what colony? What society did William Penn belong to? What were the two major ports in the Middle colonies?