Middle and Southern

Colonies
Chapter 6
The Middle Colonies
Core Lesson 1

 Lesson 1 Objectives:
 Describe the founding and
government of New York and
New Jersey.
 Explain the roles of William
Penn and Ben Franklin in the
early history of Pennsylvania
and Philadelphia.
 Words to know:
proprietor
representative
treaty
Lookat the map on page
189. With your partner,
name the Middle
Colonies.
The Middle Colonies are:
1.Pennsylvania
2.New York
3.New Jersey
4.Delaware
 New York and New Jersey
 England captured New Netherland in 1664 from
the Dutch. The capital of New Netherland was
New Amsterdam.
 They began to settle here.
 Given to James, the Duke of York, who was the
King of England’s brother. He became the
proprietor, which meant he could do what he
liked with the land.
◦ Proprietor-a person who owned and controlled all the
land in a colony.
 First thing he did was changed its name to New
York.



 New Amsterdam had included all of the land
of both New York and New Jersey.
 James of York only kept part of the land. The
rest was given to two of his friends, John
Berkeley and George Carteret. But they
still lived in England.
 They divided their land into 2 colonies, East
and West Jersey.
 The 2 joined in 1702 and became NEW
JERSEY!
  The proprietors divided the land to sell or rent
to colonists to farm in order to make money.
 Since it was very difficult for them to govern
from England, they decided to choose
governors, who then chose a small group of
people, called a council, to help make
important decisions.
 The colonists also elected representatives to an
assembly, who helped the government and
council make laws.
◦ Representative- someone who is chosen to speak and
act for others.
 This was a very important step toward self-
government.

Pennsylvania and Delaware
 William Penn was a Quaker from England. A Quaker
believes that all Christians should be free to
worship in their own way.
 Penn and many others were put in jail for their
beliefs, maybe even killed. Remember, in England,
everyone is supposed to belong to the Church of
England.
 Penn had the idea of starting a colony in North
America where all Christians could live together in
peace.
 His wish came true in 1681 when the King, who
owed money to his family, repaid them by giving
Penn a piece of land in North America.
 He name his land Pennsylvania.

 The Duke of York later gave Penn more land,
which belonged to Pennsylvania for awhile, but
later became the colony of Delaware.
 Penn made laws in Pennsylvania that allowed
people to be able to voice their opinions and
worship freely.
 He also allowed them elect representatives to
an assembly.
 The Pennsylvania Assembly had more power
than the New York and New Jersey Assemblies.
They could actually approve and reject laws
that the governor and his council suggested.
 Penn respected the Indians and wanted
them all to live as equals.
 He made fair treaties with the Lenni Lenape
Indians of Delaware when he bought land
from them.
◦ Treaty-an official agreement between nations or
groups.
 Pennsylvania’s colonists and the Indians
lived together in peace for many years.
 SPONGE ACTIVITY:
 Find the person in the class who has the same
color paper as you.
 Go find a spot in the room to sit together.
 Take a set of flash cards.
 One partner will hold a card to his forehead,
making sure not to look at what is on the card.
The other partner will give him/her clues as to
what their word is without saying the word or
any form of the word.
 As soon as the person guesses the word, it is
the partners turn to choose a card.
 Continue taking turns until all of the cards have
been used.
 Philadelphia
 William Penn also planned the colony’s first
large city, Philadelphia.
 He chose a site located on the Delaware
River because it set up an excellent harbor
where the Delaware and Shuykill Rivers
met, which made trade very easy.
 HE designed wide, straight roads that made
it easy to travel throughout the city.
 It became the center of trade, and soon was
the largest city in all of the colonies.

 Benjamin Franklin
 Philadelphia’s most famous citizen.
 HE bought his own printing press and
published a newspaper as well as a
popular book of stories, jokes, and sayings
called “Poor Richard’s Alamanac”
 He helped start Philadelphia’s first library,
fire company, and hospital.
 He was also a very famous inventor,
inventing things such as the wood stove,
clock, and many other useful things.

Early to bed, early
“

to rise, makes a
man healthy,
wealthy and wise.”
 Lesson Review

1.What events led to the founding

of New York as an English
colony? New Jersey?
2.Why did William Penn start the
colony of Pennsylvania?
3.What were 3 things that William
Penn did for Pennsylvania?
4.
Life in the Middle
Colonies
Core Lesson 2

 A Mix of People
 People here came from many lands: German,
Dutch, Scots-Irish, Scandinavian, and English,
even enslaved Africans.
 Many were Quakers or members of Protestant
churches.
 Others were Jewish or Catholic
 Their society was so diverse because their
proprietors believed in religious tolerance.
 William Penn supported tolerance, as well as
other proprietors who didn’t care at all about
their religious beliefs, only the fact that they
would rent or buy land and could pay for it.

 People came for different reasons: some for
religious tolerance, others to farm their
own land.
 All came to find a better way of life!
 Arrived at the ports of New York or
Philadelphia.
 Some stayed in the city to find work, but
most moved to the countryside to live and
work on farms.
 Making a Living
 Most people were farmers because the
climate and soil were perfect for it.
 Children helped out as soon as they were
old enough.
 Boys planted and harvested crops.
 Girls helped with inside chores.
 Children also cared for the families animals
and gardens.

 Farmers
 Raised livestock such as cattle and pigs
 Grew vegetables, fruits, and other crops.
 Grew many different grains (wheat, corn and
barley) used to make bread.
 The Middle Colonies became known as the
“breadbasket” of the thirteen colonies.
 Agriculture was so good that farmers had
enough for their families and still had a
surplus.
 They would sell this surplus to earn a living.


 They would use the long rivers of the Middle
Colonies to ship their goods and livestock
to be sold in Philadelphia or New York.
 Some even sold the wood and furs from
their land.
 The merchants in Philadelphia and New York
would turn around and sell the goods as
exports to Europe, the West Indies, and
other colonial cities (Boston and Charles
Town)
 The Middle Colonies had a free market
economy, where the people, not the
government, decided what would be
produced.
 The proprietors gave them free enterprise
(business), which is an economic system
where people may start any business that
they believe will succeed.
 City LIfe
 Philadelphia and New York were 2 of the largest
cities in the Middle Colonies, both with ports,
which made them centers for shipping and
trade.
 Their free market economy attracted
merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans (people
who are skilled at making something by hand,
such as silver spoons and wooden chairs.
 Laborers, people who do hard physical work,
also found work in cities.
◦ some were enslaved Africans, who worked in
laundries, as house servants, or on the docks
loading and unloading ships.

 Young people became apprentices, someone
who studies with a master to learn a skill
or business.
 An apprentice often lived in the master’s
house.
 They usually worked with their masters for
4-7 years.
 BOY apprentices learned skills such as
shoemaking, printing, and bookmaking.
 GIRL apprentices learned skills such as how
to spin thread and weave cloth.
 Most children learned how to read and write
 BUT, most colonists believed it was more
important to learn useful work skills.
 Parents expected their children to learn a
business or run the family farm instead of
going to college.
 Sponge Activity
1.Each person has a sticker on their back of a
job that a child choose to become an
apprentice with.
2.Your partner will give you clues without
saying the word or any part of the word.
You may want to use clues such as “1
word”, or “2 words”, or “your job is a
compound word”.
3.Once you have guessed your word, it is your
turn to help your partner try to guess
their word.
The Southern Colonies
Core Lesson 3

 Lesson Objectives
 Explain the structure and
importance of Virginia’s
colonial government.
 Summarize the founding of
Maryland, North and South
Carolina, and Georgia.
 Words to know:
 Plantation
 Legislature
 Refuge
 debtor
 Virginia
 Became the first permanent English colony
in North America in 1607.
 Colonists started plantations, a large farm
on which crops are raised by workers who
live on the farm, on the soil of the
tidewater.
 Most plantation workers were indentured
servants or enslaved Africans.
 Plantation owners became wealthy by
growing and selling cash crops such as
tobacco and rice.

 As the land around the tidewater began to
fill up, colonists began to have to settle
and build their plantations in the
backcountry, farther from the ocean.
 Governing the Colony
 Colonists wanted a voice in the laws of the colony,
so they created the first elected legislature, a
group of people with the power to make and
change laws, in 1619.
 These representatives in the legislature were known
as burgesses, and so the legislature became
known as the House of Burgesses.
 Colonists elected the burgesses, but only planters
and other white men who owned property could
vote.
 Almost all of these members of the House of
Burgesses belonged to the Church of England, and
so the Anglican Church became the official church
of Virginia.
 Anyone NOT Anglican had to leave the colony.
 New Colonies In the South
Maryland
 This land was given to Cecilius Calvert (Lord
Baltimore) by King Charles I in 1632.
 Lord Baltimore was Catholic.
 Catholics in England were often punished for
their religious beliefs just like the Puritans.
 Calvert wanted to make Maryland a refuge
for catholics. A refuge is a safe place.
 Maryland passed the Toleration Act, which
was the first official law in North America
that promised that all Christians could
worship freely.

 The Carolinas
 England, France, and Spain had all claimed
land south of Virginia.
 In an effort to keep France and Spain out of
this area, so he started a colony in 1663
called Carolina.
 Colonists first settled the southern part
because of the good farmland and
excellent harbors.
 Planters built rice plantations in the
tidewater.

 The city of Charles Town, now known as
Charleston, grew very wealthy.
 The northern part of the colony was not as
good for farming
 In 1729, the colony of Carolina became 2
separate colonies, North Carolina and
South Carolina.
 Georgia
 Still trying to keep the Spanish and French
away, England’s King George III started
another colony.
 HE gave the land to James Oglethorpe, an
English law maker and army officer.
 Named the colony Georgia
 He wanted Georgia to be a place for poor people
and debtors, people who owe money.
 In England, debtors who could not make their
payments were thrown in jail.
 Oglethorpe thought it would be better to
provide a place for these people to start new
lives.
 He offered them free trips and small farms of
their own.
 Oglethorpe made many strict laws for
Georgia.
 Colonists did not like all of these rules, and
soon they were changed.
 As soon as slavery was allowed, they
brought in slaves to work on the
plantations.
 Georgia quickly became a wealthy
plantation colony
Life in the South
Core Lesson 4

 Lesson Objectives
 Identify agriculture as the main economic
activity of the Southern Colonies.
 Compare life on a plantation to life on a
small farm.
 Describe enslaved Africans lives, work, and
culture,
 Southern Agriculture
 Perfect place to grow tobacco and rice because
of the long growing season and warm climate.
 These cash crops made the Southern plantation
owners very wealthy.
 BUT…these crops required much more work
than other crops, so they hired indentured
servants and enslaved Africans to do the hard
labor.
 The main cash crop in Virginia and Maryland
was tobacco.
 North Carolina’s greatest resource was their
pine forests.
◦ They would use the sticky sap to make pitch, which
was used to seal the boards of ships to keep out
water.
 The 2 main cash crops in South Carolina and
Georgia was rice and indigo, a plant that
can be made into a dark blue dye.
 Indigo was very hard to grow, until Eliza
Lucas Pinckney developed a type of indigo
that was much easier to grow.
 Soon South Carolina was growing over
100,000 pounds of indigo per year.
 Charles Town
 Even though the south had large plantations,
they didn’t have the large cities that New
England and the Middle Colonies did.
 They did have Charles Town, the largest city in
the Southern Colonies, that was South
Carolina’s capital and a center for trade.
 Became Charleston in 1783.
 Planters and traders bought, sold, and exported
thousands of pounds of tobacco, rice and
indigo and ships brought goods back from
Europe and the West Indies to sell in the
colonies.
 Population was very diverse.
 Plantations and Small
Farms
 The planter’s house sat in the middle of the
large plantation, near a river or stream,
surrounded by horse stables, workshops,
gardens, fields, and workers’ houses.
 Many laborers were needed to keep the
plantation running.
 Workers were usually enslaved Africans, who
worked mostly in the fields.
 Other workers took care of the animals and
gardens.
 Maids and cooks worked in the planter’s house.

 Although the south was known for their
plantations, small farms were much more
common.
 Most colonists lived on small farms away
from the tidewater.
 Most of their help came from family
members and maybe one or two
indentured servants or slaves.
 Grew their own food and had a small
amount left over for cash crops.
 Family Life
 Children of wealthy planters were educated
at home by a tutor.
 Boys spent their free time outdoors, learning
how to ride horses and hunt.
 Girls learned how to sew and sing.
 Life was more difficult in backcountry farms.
 Children only learned how to read and write
if their parents could teach them.
 Backcountry children began helping around
the house at a very early age, including
plowing, hunting, sewing and cooking.
 Fun Activity
 Gather around in a circle.
 One player, the hunter, leaves the room.
 One student in the circle takes the object
and holds it.
 The hunter comes back in and stand in the
middle.
 The hunter has 2 tries to find out who is
holding the slipper. If the hunter finds it,
he/she switches places with the person
and play continues.
 Southern Slavery
 Enslaved Africans were brought to North
America more and more in the 1600s and
1700s.
 By 1750, although enslaved Africans lived all
over the 13 colonies, most of them lived in
the South.

 Life Under Slavery
 Enslaved Africans were treated more like property
than human beings.
 Husbands and wives were often separated from
each other, and families torn apart.
 Adults and children were forced to work as either
house servants or in the fields.
 Field work was exhausting, laboring from morning to
night, in both heat and cold, almost every day of
the year.
 Overseers, a person who watches and directs the
work of other people, sometimes whipped and
punished workers.
 Many died at an early age as a result of being
treated so cruely.

 They were not allowed to leave their
plantation without permission, or they
would be punished.
 Many had to wear heavy iron chains.
 Sometimes they were beaten or even killed
by planters or overseers.
 Many fought back by running away.
 Most resisted by working as slowly as they
could without being punished.
 African American Culture
 Enslaved Africans banded together and became
like a large family to help each other survive.
 Many turned to Christianity and the teachings of
the Bible to help them survive, which inspired
them to write powerful spirituals, which is an
African American religious folk song.
 They blended their African culture with
American culture.
 They told stories about their homeland.
 They invented and played music on the banjo.
 In South Carolina, Africans invented a new
language, called Gullah, which was a blend of
African and English.
Why does this matter???
Because more than a
hundred years from
now, slavery will
become a huge
source of conflict!!!