What was life like in the colonies? Was day to day life the same in all

three colonial region?

In 1760 Englishmen Andrew Burnaby traveled throughout the North American Colonies, observing American life. He could not imagine that these colonies would ever join in union for they were as different from one another as “fire and water,” and each colony was jealous of the other. “In short, such is the difference of character, of manners, of religion, of interest, of the different colonies, that I think…

Were they left to themselves, there would soon be a civil war, from one end of the continent to the other.

Although Burnaby thought the colonies would never unite they did grow in population• In 1700 the population of the Colonies was

about 250,000• By the mid-1770’s the population rose to

2.5 million Immigration was important to the

growth of the colonies

About 700,000 people came from Europe

About 300,000 people came from Africa

What is Economics?• the process or system by which goods and

services are produced, sold, and bought What do you think was the main

economic activity in the colonies?• Farming

Small businesses• Mills

Grinding Grain or sawing lumber• Blacksmiths, Shoemakers, furniture makers,

gunsmiths, metal smiths and printers• Shipbuilding

Lumber building primarily came from the forest from New England

• Region also relied on Fishing

Carpentry and flour milling Lumbering, mining and small scale

manufacturing

Farming was the chief source of commerce in the Southern Colonies• Two main crops were Tobacco and Rice• Tobacco was grown mainly in Maryland and

Virginia• Rice was grown in South Carolina and

Georgia

At first the Plantation owners used indentured servants to work the fields.

As the indenture servants became scarce and expensive, Southern planters used enslave Africans instead

Slaveholders who got rich on tobacco had to occasionally had to grow different crops• Why?

Sometimes a surplus of tobacco on the market would cause the prices to fall and then the Planters profits fell as well.

What is a surplus?• Extra Amounts

What do you think farmers would do?

• Grow other crops like corn and wheat

Triangular Trade• A trade route that exchanged goods

between the West Indies, The American Colonies and West Africa