Differences between British Colonies in America

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One might think that all of the British colonies in the new world were all the same. This is not the case though. The colonies, although they were all British they had some similarities but mainly they had differences. The Southern, New England and Middle colonies clearly show theses similarities and differences, particularly in terms of land, labor, religion, and native relations.

The colonies of the south and the New England had one similarity; there relationship with the natives. Both of the colonies had very bad relations with the natives. The south needed the native land for tobacco plantations, which caused a lot of conflict between the two groups. The conflict escalated to the point where the southerners gave the natives blankets infected with the smallpox virus, (textbook pg46-47). This virus killed off almost the whole native because they weren’t very well suited to fight the disease. The New England colonies also had a bad relationship with the natives because in some parts of the colony like Massachusetts persecuted the natives because they wanted them to switch to their religion, they also needed more native land for their timber industry and also fur trade. . The people of Massachusetts told the natives that if they don’t change that they will them. Other areas of New England had better relations but all had conflict with the natives at one point.

There are also a lot of differences between the two colonies such as: land use, the Southern colonies grew cotton, sugarcane, and tobacco, while the New England colonies had a timber industry, and also a big fur trade. Religion, the southern states were mainly Christian, while the New England colonies were Puritan. Labor, the South needed lots of slaves and were a slave...

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...nce, had very harsh religious rules for people to obey. Punishments included killing or banishing people who disobeyed. In the middle colonies, on the other hand, there was religious freedom, and also they wanted a diverse population. This enabled people of many ethnicities to come to the Middle colonies including: Dutch, Germans, French, Scandinavians and other Europeans settled in the area.

This is very interesting that the British colonies are different in more ways than they are similar. These colonies also show us that even though they had the same mother country that not only the structure was different but also the people inhabiting the colony. It also shows how diverse of colonies they are because they are all geographically very close to one another but they all don’t share one thing in common with each other, not even the same climate or land quality.

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