Beginning The Thirteen colonies

The first immigrants bound for the territory crossed the Atlantic more than a hundred years after the explorations by various explorers of North America. The Spanish colonies had already been established in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. These travelers to North America came in small, overcrowded ships. During their six to twelve week Many of the ships were lost in storms, many passengers died of disease, and infants rarely survived the trip. Sometimes hurricanes blew the vessels off their course, and often calm winds brought long delays.
To the anxious travelers the sight of the American shore brought almost inexpressible relief. The colonists' first glimpse of the new land was of dense woods. The uncut forest with its variety of trees was a veritable treasure house, which extended over 1,300 miles from Maine to Georgia. Here was abundant fuel, lumber, raw material for houses, furniture, and The whole length of shore provided innumerable inlets and harbors for ships to come and go. Also these inlets were protection from the Spanish to the south. Due to an insufficient waterway to penetrate the interior of the land, the settlers stayed east of the Appalachian Mountains for many years.
Many different groups came to this New World to settle. They established colonies up and down the coast. Some groups wondered up large rivers and established colonies. But there was one problem; each colony was an entity in itself. Travel was extremely treacherous between colonies. So each colony became self-sufficient depending only on themselves,
their friendship with the Native Americans and infrequent ships from home.
Each of these colonies developed an individuality that would in later years support the
doctrine of states rights.
The expense of coming to the New World for these immigrants was tremendous. They had
to leave their home in England and come to a new land knowing they would probably
never return.
Do you think they were prepared for the work that was ahead of them? What needed to be done to set up a new colony?
Even after these colonies were established, laborers were needed to keep the colony
continuing.
Read about the
indentured servants. Before 1680 a majority of immigrants were from England. After that time they came from:
Thousands of Germans fled Europe to escape the path of war. A host of Scotch-Irish
left northern Ireland to avoid the poverty caused by government oppression. From Scotland
and Switzerland came people also fleeing poverty. Immigration tended to move in waves,
but over many years it was a steady stream. In 1690, the population amounted to about a
quarter of a million. It doubled every twenty-five years
until in 1775 it numbered more than two and a half million. However, this is not to say that
there were not any problems. Immigrants tended to live with immigrants who had the
same interests. But English became the dominent language.
For the most part, non-English colonists adapted themselves to the culture of the original
settlers.

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