Differences Between The New England Colonies and The Colonies of The South

The British Colonies in North America were incredibly diverse in several ways, including religion and economics. They did not form an organized group but rather were left to do whatever they wanted within the boundaries set by England without regard to the other colonies. It is comparable to pool, once the cue ball strikes the other balls, they scatter. When the colonists arrived in the New World, they scattered in the direction their goals guided them. Two examples of colonial regions that scattered are New England and the South, which each went in a different direction.

Puritans in England defied King James I as the head of the Church of England because they believed only a select few deserved to be church members. These separatists were a threat in King James’ eyes and he threatened them out of England1. Starting with the Pilgrims landing in New England in 1620, fleeing fleeing religious persecution, New England settlers were motivated by religious reasons. They sought a land where they could practice their beliefs without fear of persecution. Ironically, they did not give people of different beliefs the same courtesy, as proved by the instances of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams.
 In contrast to the religious motivations of the settlers in New England, the settlers in the South were largely there for economical reasons. Starting in Virginia, tobacco farming had “become the main attraction for potential immigrants and a center of life” as many sought to get rich quick off of this cash crop4. Rice also became a major crop in the Carolinas. Similarly to New England however, Maryland was also founded on religious grounds in addition to the want to make money. Instead of protestant Puritans who fled to New England, though, it was the Catholics who came to Maryland, also fleeing from discrimination in England. Then there’s Georgia, which was not founded by people fleeing religious persecution or seeking fortune in tobacco. Rather, Georgia was formed in 1733 to protect the other colonies from the Spanish who inhabited Florida and the French who populated Louisiana.

In addition to the previously mentioned Puritans, New England also hosted Quakers such as William Penn who later fled to Pennsylvania in the middle colonies, and also those seeking a split with the Church of England such as Roger Williams, who fled to Rhode Island. In Rhode Island Williams set up a Baptist church and ensured religious freedom to all. This was largely uncommon in the colonies. Williams even extended that freedom to both Catholics and Jews, which was at the time in the rest of New England and in the colonies of the South almost unthinkable. This freedom drew in the undesirables from other colonies. This made Rhode Island a squatter colony in 1636, filled with the dregs of other colonies’ societies until it was officially established in 16443.

Like in New England, the South had a majority protestant population with Maryland’s Catholic population being the South’s exception much like Rhode Island’s religiously diverse population was New England’s exception. Maryland also practiced relative freedom of religion and soon was overwhelmed by a rush of protestants. The protestants resented the Catholics and threatened to restrict them until the Act of Toleration in 1649 gave all Christians the right to exist without restriction. But it did not at all tolerate Jews or Atheists who were to be put to death, unlike in Rhode Island where Jews were welcome.
These differences in foundings and religious diversity in the colonies are only a few examples in the ways that the colonies were different from one another, even within the same colonial regions. The colonies are much more alike now as states in the United States than they ever were as individual colonies under the control of distant England. It is extremely amazing and awe inspiring that these colonies could eventually put the differences behind them and unite against the British to form a truly unique country.