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Settlement of Colonial America | American Revolution
Settlement of Colonial AmericaThe European population of the North American colonies increased more than six fold between 1700 and 1760. In this period, settlement expanded from a narrow band along the Atlantic seacoast to the very edge of the Appalachian Mountains to the west and up against Spanish and French possessions to the south and north. While dominated and generally administered by the English, colonial America was ethnically and racially diverse. In the middle colonies, for instance, Dutch colonists remained prominent in New York City and the Hudson River valley through the eighteenth-century, and German immigrants settled large regions of Pennsylvania and Maryland. African slaves were heavily concentrated in the tobacco, rice, and long-staple cotton producing regions of the Southern coast, and large numbers of Scotch-Irish settlers moved into the backcountry Virginia and the Carolinas. The economy was also becoming more complex, with new industries dotting the landscape and intensive farming spreading to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Such rapid development had an equally profound effect on the original occupants of the coastline; many of these Native American tribes would play a central role in the European wars for domination of North America.
Within the colonies, which areas were most ethnically diverse? In which regions (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake, South) did three or more ethnic groups coexist? What areas had the least diversity?
Why did English settlers in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake regions settle along the ocean, while the Dutch, Scotch Irish and Germans settled further inland? Describe the patterns that you see in this immigration. What would this pattern lead you to predict about where subsequent immigrants would settle?
What was different about the coming of Africans to the New World, as compared to other ethnic groups - reasons for coming to the area? What regions were Africans concentrated in? Briefly, how would this pattern of migration affect later Southern and American history?
What did the spread of settlement into the American interior mean for the native populations? Were relations with Native Americans different in the northern and southern colonies? Where were the more powerful Native American civilizations located? Did their presence shape the pattern of European settlement in those areas?
You are a settler writing back to your homeland about the colony you are living in. Tell the residents of your former city or village the name and location of your settlement, how your settlement is growing, what types of people are arriving in the colonies, and how people are getting along with groups they had never encountered before in the Old World.
American RevolutionThe military phase of the American Revolution began in Massachusetts in 1775, but quickly spread. An American invasion of Canada in 1775 and 1776 proved unsuccessful, but combined with patriot agitation in the South, it convinced the British that the colonial revolt was not a local phenomenon in the area around Boston. After the British evacuated Boston, the focus of the war moved to New York and Pennsylvania. There, from 1776 to 1778, the struggle turned into a conventional war in which the Americans were woefully overmatched. A series of British blunders and misfortunes allowed the Americans to escape defeat and even to score an important victory in upstate New York in the fall of 1777. The British turned their attention to the South, and spent three frustrating years battling a new and baffling form of guerrilla warfare throughout the Southern countryside. Despite significant victories at Savannah and Charleston, the British commander Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender the bulk of the British troops at Yorktown on October 17, 1781.
In the first phase of the war, where were the forts that the British used for their attacks? What geographical features did Britain take advantage of to press its attack?
What cities were key to both British and Colonial strategy? What features of climate and geography made these cities so important?
How did climate and geography impact the American and British war effort? What are examples of hardships or opportunities imposed by these factors on both sides of the war?
How was the war in the South different from that in the rest of the colonies? How did geographic and human settlement patterns make it difficult for England to win the war in the South?
How did the entry of France into the war give a critical advantage to the colonists? What new path of transport and troop movement did the French intervention open up for the colonists? How did this entry weaken Britain's military position?
