- [Instructor] Over the course of the 1600s
the English continued to settle along
the eastern seaboard of North America.
Now we've already talked about the settlements at Virginia
and those of Massachusetts
and a little bit about the settlement of New York,
which was first founded by the Dutch
as New Amsterdam in 1624.
In this video I want to talk a little bit
more about the Middle Colonies.
These colonies that were here kind of on
the center of the eastern seaboard,
south of Massachusetts and north of
the Southern Colonies of Virginia,
particularly Pennsylvania,
New York,
New Jersey,
and this little, tiny purple colony right here, Delaware.
Now what's unique about the Middle Colonies
compared to the northern or southern colonies
is not just that they were kind of in
a central location,
but also that they were proprietary colonies,
which means that they were the property
of individual owners.
So unlike Jamestown, for example,
which was founded by a company, the Virginia Company,
the colony of Pennsylvania was founded by one man,
William Penn,
who was granted his land by the king of England
in exchange for a debt that the king
had owed his father.
So in the early years of these proprietary colonies,
they were kind of the playgrounds
of the people who owned them.
They could set their own rules for the most part.
And that freedom resulted in colonies
that were more ethnically diverse
and more religiously tolerant
than their neighbors to the north or south.
So let's look at the colony of Pennsylvania
as an example.
So Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn,
and Penn was a English aristocrat
from a very good family who'd converted
to the Quaker religion.
Although the real name for Quakers was
the Religious Society of Friends,
they got the nickname Quaker because
they seemed to quake when they were in religious ecstasy.
Like the Puritans, Quakers faced religious
persecution in England because they did not
follow the Church of England,
which was a form of rebellion against the king
who was the head of the Church of England.
But in addition to the Quakers' strange ideas
about religion, they also had some strange ideas
for the time period about social status.
Quakers believed that all people had
the light of God in them and therefore were
more or less equal in stature.
So for example, women could preach in church,
as you see in this image right here.
So when William Penn converted to the Quaker faith,
Penn had a really rough time of it.
So he came upon an idea that perhaps he
could make a haven for Quakers
and for religious dissenters more broadly
in the New World.
So he negotiated with the king
who owed his father a debt,
and in exchange for this debt,
the king granted Penn land in North America,
which was named Pennsylvania,
sylvania being Latin for forest.
So kind of Penn's forest, Penn's woods.
And Penn decided to extend his religious tolerance
not just to Quakers, but really to all people.
All Protestants, no matter what their
particular sect, could have citizenship,
run for office, vote,
and Catholics and even Jews
were welcome in Pennsylvania,
although they did not have the right
to vote or hold office.
This was incredibly radical for the time period
when it was common for nations to have
a state religion and to persecute those
who didn't follow that religion.
Penn advertised for his new colony
and particularly hoped that industrious people,
people with skills like carpentry
or blacksmithing, would come to Pennsylvania
and make it a prosperous colony.
And they did.
The ease of getting citizenship,
the religious tolerance,
and the plentiful and cheap land of Pennsylvania
drew many settlers to the colony
such that its principal city, Philadelphia,
was the largest city in North America
before the Revolution,
with about 40,000 inhabitants.
Because Quakers were pacifists,
that is they did not believe in violence or war,
they even lived peacefully with Native Americans
in the early years of Pennsylvania settlement.
But as more immigrants of different faiths
came to Pennsylvania and began pushing west,
that short era of peaceful co-habitation ended.
Likewise, because Quakers believed in
the innate equality of all human beings,
they were not fond of slavery.
The environment in the Middle Colonies
was not so cold as it was in the north,
not so hot as it was in the south,
it was kind of middling.
And so it was a very good place for farming,
particularly cereal crops like wheat.
You can see this print here
shows wheat growing in this field.
And just as the name suggests,
Pennsylvania had a lot of wood,
so it was also a good place for timber.
And the excellent ports at Philadelphia
and New York City made it an excellent
place for trade.
Because it was such a good place to grow food,
the Middle Colonies got the nickname
the Breadbasket Colonies.
And the patterns of land ownership reflect this.
Since the soil was good,
your average farmer owned more land
than a New England farmer,
but not as much as a Virginia farmer
who would've had many acres to grow tobacco.
So much like the environment,
the farms in the Middle Colonies were
middling in size.
In fact, if I had to put the Middle Colonies
on a spectrum,
in many places I'd put them right in the middle
when it came to an economy
that was more agrarian.
The Middle Colonies had a little bit of both,
unlike the Chesapeake and southern economies
which were strongly agrarian.
And unlike the New England colonies
who began manufacturing quite early.
Likewise, when it comes to the distribution
of wealth in the Middle Colonies,
once again I'd put the Middle Colonies
right here in the center.
There were plenty of middling farmers,
many indentured servants,
and a handful of people who became quite wealthy,
unlike the Chesapeake where there were
a handful of extremely wealthy landowners
while most people lived at the bottom
of the social scale,
and unlike New England where small farming
led to a fairly even middle class.
So the Middle Colonies had a mixed economy
of industry and farming,
and a fairly balanced class structure
with people at many different levels,
putting them smack dab in the middle.
But for all of the ways that the Middle Colonies
were middling, there were also a few ways
that they were quite extraordinary.
Well, we've already mentioned that
the Middle Colonies had a level of religious freedom
that was virtually unmatched anywhere
else in the world.
For example, Pennsylvania extended citizenship
to all Protestants
and tolerated Catholics and Jews.
In comparison, the Chesapeake and Southern Colonies
required citizens to belong to the Anglican faith,
the Church of England,
and religious tolerance for the Catholic Church
in Maryland and New Englanders were extremely strict.
For example, in Massachusetts Bay,
anyone who was not Puritan
was expelled or executed.
Although there is of course the exception
of Rhode Island, where religious dissenters
could find safe haven.
The other extraordinary aspect of these
middle colonies was just the sheer amount
of ethnic diversity there was.
By the time of the American Revolution,
less than half,
only about 49% of inhabitants
were from England
or had an English background.
The rest were German, French, Dutch,
Scotch-Irish.
And just a few Africans as there was
relatively little slavery.
In comparison, New England was perhaps
the least diverse of the colonies.
Most people were English,
with a handful of remaining Native Americans
and Africans.
And the Chesapeake and Southern Colonies
were largely African and English,
with again just a few Native Americans.
The people of the Middle Colonies spoke
many languages, practiced many faiths,
and had a strong possibility of upward mobility
economically since farms and businesses
prospered and the Middle Colonies
grew rapidly in population.