The Development of the Thirteen Colonies

Map of territories in North America

Map of Thirteen Colonies

Population growth in colonies 1700-1763

250,000 to 2 million

Increase in percentage population England and Wales 1750-1770

15%

Increase in percentage colonies population 1750-1770

Nearly 100%

Reasons for population growth

• High birth rate - average American woman married young and had 7 children

• Low death rate - lived longer than most Europeans - better fed and less disease

• Large-scale immigration

Population distribution

• Most lived on farms

• Almost 1/2 lived in south

• 1/4 middle colonies, 1/4 New England

Largest colony and its population by 1770?

Virginia - 500,000

What were all major towns? Give the 5 major towns

• Seaports

• Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Newport, Charleston

Towns percentage of total population 1760

3.5%

How many people migrated from Europe and Africa to 13 colonies 1700-63?

400,000

What proportion of 18th century migrants to 13 colonies were English?

1/5

What fraction of population was of English stock?

1/2

European settlement - Scots-Irish Protestants from Ulster

• Largest group - 150,000

• Bad land system there, recurrent bad harvests, declining linen trade - economic reasons

European settlement - Germans

• 65,000

• Peasants from Rhineland

• Hoping to improve economic lot

• Religious tolerance colonies

• 1/3 Pennsylvania’s population 1760s

European settlement - other

Dutch and Swedish

Indentured servitude

• People free passage by entering into a contract - indenture - pledging labour for a specified time (usually 4 years)

• 1/2 - 2/3 of White immigrants

Undesirables

• Transported by Britain

• 30,000

• Vagrants and political prisoners e.g. Jacobites

African settlement

• First Black enslaved people Virginia 1619

• 1763 1 in 6 of population (350,000) due to increased demand of enslaved - Black population grew faster than White

• Most from West Africa

• 90% Black Americans in South, but less than 5% New England

Percentage of Scottish, Welsh or Scot-Irish in 1760

50%