Restoration Colonies and Middle Colonies?

During the 1600s and early 1700s, a range of separate colonies were created in British North America. These colonies were home to diverse groups of settlers and embodied a wide variety of purposes. In 1634, the colony of Maryland (north of Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay) was chartered to provide a refuge for Catholics, who endured discrimination in England.

In 1660, the British monarchy was restored after twenty years of upheaval known as the English Revolution or English Civil War. King Charles II, eager to extend Britain's control over North America, created several Restoration colonies. In 1663, the British government created the new colony of Carolina (Carolus is Latin for Charles). In 1670 the colony was divided into North and South Carolina. Charles also used the power of the Royal Navy to force the Dutch to surrender their colony, New Amsterdam (founded in 1624), which became New York in 1664. Shortly after New Amsterdam became New York, the colony of New Jersey was created in 1665.

The colonies between New England and the Chesapeake (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) were known as the middle colonies. They were remarkably diverse, and were often considered the best place for settlers of modest means to try to make their homes. While New England's closely-knit towns and the Chesapeake's planter aristocracy both stood in the way of small farmers' success, the middle colonies offered a climate and an economic and social structure more equal and more conducive to the interests of ordinary colonists.

Pennsylvania, founded in 1681 by William Penn, became a haven of religious toleration. A Quaker, Penn believed that all religions ought to be tolerated. In 1704, Penn allowed the easternmost portion of the colony, which had been settled primarily by Dutch and Scandinavians, to become a separate colony, Delaware.

Georgia, founded by William Oglethorpe in 1732, was created to be a colony hospitable to small farmers. The colony originally limited landholding to 500 acres and banned slavery in an effort to prevent the growth of large plantations. Soon, of course, slavery was transplanted to the colony.

Both the Virginia and New England colonies experienced difficult relations with neighboring Indians and sometimes had difficulty controlling colonists. Coincidentally, during the years 1675 and 1676, both Virginia and New England were engulfed in conflict. In Virginia, Nathaniel Bacon, a 29-year old who had only recently settled in Virginia led a militia of settlers on a rampage in which they attacked both Indians along the frontier and the colony's government. Bacon and his followers accused the colony of not making an effort to capture Indians' lands so that white colonists could gain farms. During the course of his rebellion, Bacon attacked Indians and sacked the colonial capital in Williamsburg.

Bacon's Rebellion warned Virginia's leaders that many poorer colonists were angry about their lack of opportunity in the colony. The colony's elite drew the lesson that acquiring Indian lands and relying more heavily on slaves, instead of servants, could improve the condition of poorer whites in an effort to avoid similar uprisings in the future.

In New England, Metacom, an Indian leader (known to colonists as King Philip, because colonists sometimes gave Indian chiefs English names) launched a widespread Indian attack on Puritan villages. During Metacom's War, Indians attacked fifty-two Puritan villages, destroying twelve. Metacom's forces seemed at first to be winning, and perhaps even in a position to drive the English entirely out of New England. The Indians could not continue to supply themselves with food and other supplies amid the war, enabling the English to turn the tide. Thousands of Indians and settlers were killed during the war, and the colonists would not regain the territory they had lost for forty years.