To get an idea of the colonial world in which the settlers found themselves, we must consider the way the world looked in 1620 when the Mayflower sailed.
Britain, France, and Spain were the preeminent European powers of the world. With their navies and exploratory forays, they were able to map the world in a high stakes, competitive race. This race was based on political and economic expansion. Each country would seek out new lands and claim them for their own. They would populate the new lands with their own people who would often brave unfamiliar conditions and tenuous relationships with the indigenous population of the area.
Ultimately, they used the raw materials they could find and harvested them for sale around the world or for their own use. Later, they made value added products by using the raw material to make something for sale (like the popular fur hats the beaver was trapped for in New France). We refer to this process and the battle between these nations as colonialism or imperialism .
The link below provides you with a very general overview of the history of European colonialism, which can be traced back to the 1400's. Over the years, the Spanish, British, French, and even the Dutch planted colonies in North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism
Here is a diagram that explains one aspect of how colonialism and the movement of goods worked.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=europeanhistory&cdn=education&tm=26&gps=180_259_1020_557&f=00&tt=14&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.africanculturalcenter.org/4_5slavery.html
By 1664, James II (at the time the Duke of York and Albany) had taken New Netherland by force and renamed it New York. By 1825, Spain had lost all of its colonies in North America as a result of independence movements. There was even a Swedish colony (New Sweden existed from 1638-1655 in parts of what today is Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), but it was quickly conquered by the Dutch.
Along the eastern coastline of North America, it was the British colonies - the Thirteen Colonies that made up what would become the United States.
These colonies were unique in that they were fiercely independent of each other and had their own laws and even different ways of governing themselves. But they shared a belief in democracy and individual freedom. This ultimately put them at odds with Britain and led to American Revolution in 1776.
The colonies were founded between 1607 (Jamestown -- Virginia) and 1732 (Georgia). They are generally divided into three groups:
The New England Colonies:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- New Hampshire
The Middle Colonies:
- New York
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Delaware
The Southern Colonies
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Georgia
- Virginia
- Maryland
Future posts will look more closely at each of the groups of colonies.
