The Three Colonial Regions of British North America

The Thirteen Colonies are traditionally grouped into three geographic/cultural regions:

1. New England Colonies

• Massachusetts Bay (1620)
• Plymouth (1620; merged 1691)
• Connecticut (1636)
• New Haven (1638; merged 1664)
• Rhode Island (1636)

Traits: Puritan roots, town meetings, subsistence farming, fishing, shipbuilding, commerce, education (Harvard 1636), cold winters.

2. Middle Colonies

• New York (1624 as New Netherland; English 1664)
• Pennsylvania (1681)
• Delaware (1638; Swedish/Dutch, then Penn)
• New Jersey (1664)

Traits: Religious/ethnic diversity (Quakers, Dutch, Germans, Scots-Irish), fertile soil → "breadbasket" (wheat, flour), ports (NYC, Philadelphia), religious tolerance, mixed economy.

3. Southern Colonies

• Maryland (1634)
• Virginia (1607 — first permanent English)
• North Carolina (1653)
• South Carolina (1670)
• Georgia (1732 — last, buffer/debtor colony)

Traits: Warm climate, long growing season, plantation economy (tobacco, rice, indigo, later cotton), enslaved African labor, Anglican establishment (mostly), rural, hierarchical.

These regional differences shaped the Revolution, Constitution, and Civil War.