Was Colonial America a Democratic Society?

547 Words2 Pages

Between 1607 and 1733, Great Britain established thirteen colonies in the New World along the land’s eastern coast. England’s colonies included Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Though the colonies were classified as New England, middle or southern colonies, the colonists developed a unifying culture. With this new American culture, the colonists throughout the colonies began to think differently than their English cousins. Because colonial America displayed characteristics of a democratic society and, therefore, deviated from England’s monarchic ways, it was established as a democratic society. As more immigrants immigrated to the colonies and established lives in colonial America, the colonist began to incorporate their ideas of freedoms, rights and tolerance in legal documents. Some legal documents, such as Maryland’s Toleration Act, illustrate the colonists’ belief in freedom and rights often connected to democracy. Other official documents, for...

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