Level 0 — The key ideas, in short sentences. Each part matches a part of Level 1, so you can move up one part at a time.
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The same words at every level. The last three belong to one region each.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire
New England had four colonies: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The soil there was thin and full of rocks. Glaciers (huge sheets of slow-moving ice) left those rocks behind long ago. The winters were long and cold, so the growing season was short.
Crops that need a lot of heat could not grow there. That is why New England had no .
But New England had two good things. It had deep harbors (sheltered water deep enough for ships to anchor safely). It had big forests full of tall trees.
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Farming could not make New Englanders rich. So they made money from the sea. They caught cod, a kind of fish. They dried it and salted it, and they sold it to other countries. Cod was New England’s biggest .
They cut down the tall trees and built ships. Boston became a busy port, where ships came in and went out.
New England also made rum. Ships brought molasses (thick dark syrup left over when sugar cane is boiled down) from the Caribbean, and New England turned it into rum. Traders took the rum to Africa and traded it for captured people. So New England money was tied to slavery too.
Most families farmed only to feed themselves. That is . It fed a family, but it did not make money.
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Most families did their own work. Children worked too. Neighbors helped each other with big jobs. Some workers were . They worked for a few years to pay for the trip across the ocean.
Some people in New England were . There were people in every New England colony. But New England had no , because no crop there needed hundreds of workers. The farms were smaller. The owners were not kinder.
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Most people came to New England for religion. They were . wanted to live by their own church rules. They came as whole families, so the towns grew fast.
But in a town, it was hard to disagree. Roger Williams disagreed. He said the government should not tell people what to believe. Massachusetts forced him out in 1636, so he started a new colony: Rhode Island. Anne Hutchinson was forced out too, in 1638.
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Britain sent a governor. But towns made many of their own rules at town meetings. Men who owned land voted on roads and schools. When people make their own rules, that is .
In 1620, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact. They promised to make “just and equal laws” together. Women, servants, and the Wampanoag people had no say. But the idea mattered later: a government should have the agreement of the people.
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New England’s land was bad for farming, so people used the ocean to make money. Religion shaped their towns, and it decided who had to leave. Town meetings started an idea that mattered later: people making their own rules.
New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware
The Middle Colonies were New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. They were in the middle, between New England and the South. The weather was in the middle too. Summers were warm and winters were cold. The growing season was long enough to grow a lot of food, and the soil was deep and good.
Two big rivers, the Hudson and the Delaware, ran to the ocean. Farmers put their grain on boats, and the rivers carried it to the ships.
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The Middle Colonies grew so much wheat that people called them the breadbasket (a region that grows most of the grain everyone else eats). Farmers ate some of their grain, and they sold the rest. So wheat was their food and their .
People also made things. They built ships and made iron tools. They cut trees into lumber at mills. Skilled workers made shoes and furniture by hand. New York City and Philadelphia became big ports.
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Most farms were family farms, and the family did the work. At harvest, farmers paid workers to help. Many people came as , often from Germany and Ireland. When their years of work were done, they were free. Land was still easy to get, so many of them got farms of their own.
Some people were , most of all in New York City. But there were no big , because wheat does not need hundreds of workers.
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People came from many countries: England, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Scotland, and Ireland. They spoke different languages, and they went to different churches.
William Penn started Pennsylvania. He was a Quaker. Quakers believed in peace and fair treatment. In 1701, a Pennsylvania law said anyone who believed in God could worship in their own way. That is . Because of , many different people moved there.
But had limits. The law protected Christians most. Penn paid the Lenape people for their land, but his sons did not keep his promise. In 1737 they tricked the Lenape and took much more land than the deal said.
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Each colony had a governor from Britain. Each colony also had an assembly. Colonists voted for the people in the assembly, and the assembly made local laws. That is .
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The Middle Colonies had good farmland and good ports. So people farmed, and they also made and sold goods in the cities. They welcomed people from many places, and that made them the most mixed region. But the welcome did not reach everyone.
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia
The Southern Colonies were Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Summers were hot and winters were mild, so crops could grow for most of the year. The land was flat, and the soil was rich.
Wide rivers ran to the ocean. Ships sailed up the rivers right to the farms. So the South did not need many big port towns.
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In the South, people made money by farming. The biggest farms were . A was a very large farm that grew one crop to sell.
Virginia and Maryland grew tobacco. South Carolina and Georgia grew rice and indigo (a plant used to make deep blue dye). These were . They were grown to sell, not to eat. Most of them were to Europe.
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Tobacco and rice need work almost all year. So needed many workers.
At first, many of the workers were from England. They worked for about four to seven years, and then they were free.
Later, owners used Africans instead. people got no pay, and they could not leave. Slavery had no end date. By law, the child of an mother was too. By the 1700s, people did most of the work on the . In South Carolina, more than half of all the people were .
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Most people did not come to the South for religion. They came for land and money.
Georgia started in 1732. At first, Georgia did not allow slavery. Then planters asked to change that rule, and in 1751 slavery was allowed. This shows that slavery was a choice people made. The weather did not decide it.
Africans did not choose to come. They were captured, sold, and brought here by force.
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Each colony had a governor and an elected assembly. Rich owners ran the assemblies (groups of elected men who made laws for a colony), and they made laws that helped rich owners. That was , but only for some people.
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The South’s warm weather and rich soil were good for . made money, but they needed a lot of work all year. Planters forced people to do that work. The land shaped how people made money. But people chose slavery.
This reading was written for this class. These are the places the information came from, and where you can read more if you want to.
The “read more” links below go to the simple English Wikipedia where there is one. A few topics only exist in regular English.