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The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of [[New York]], [[New Jersey]], [[Pennsylvania]], and [[Delaware]], were characterized by a large degree of diversity—religious, political, economic, and ethnic. Many Dutch and Protestant Irish immigrants settled in these areas, as well as in [[Long Island]] and [[Connecticut]]. The Germans, called "[[Pennsylvania Dutch]]," were included in this emigration.
The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of [[New York]], [[New Jersey]], [[Pennsylvania]], and [[Delaware]], were characterized by a large degree of diversity—religious, political, economic, and ethnic. Many Dutch and Protestant Irish immigrants settled in these areas, as well as in [[Long Island]] and [[Connecticut]]. The Germans, called "[[Pennsylvania Dutch]]," were included in this emigration.
===Mid-Atlantic Region===
Unlike New England, the Mid-Atlantic Region gained much of its population from new immigration, and by 1750, the combined populations of [[New York]], [[New Jersey]], and [[Pennsylvania]] had reached nearly 300,000 people. By 1750, about 60,000 [[Scots-Irish]] and 50,000 [[German Americans|Germans]] came to live in British North America, many of them settling in the Mid-Atlantic Region. [[William Penn]], the man who founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682, attracted an influx of [[Quakers]] and other immigrants with his policies of religious liberty and freehold ownership. "Freehold" meant that farmers owned their land free and clear of leases. The first major influx of immigrants came mainly from Ireland]] and consisted of Scots-Irish [[Church of Scotland|Presbyterians]]. The second major immigration came with Germans trying to escape the religious conflicts and declining economic opportunities in Germany and Switzerland.
====Ways of life====
Much of the architecture of the Middle Colonies reflects the diversity of its peoples. In Albany and New York City, a majority of the buildings were Dutch style with brick exteriors and high gables at each end while many Dutch churches were shaped liked an octagon. Using cut stone to build their houses, German and Welsh settlers in Pennsylvania followed the way of their homeland and completely ignored the plethora of timber in the area. Thus in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 80% of the buildings in the town were made entirely of stone. On the other hand, the Scots-Irish took advantage of America's ample supply of timber and constructed sturdy log cabins.
Ethnic cultures also effected the styles of furniture. Rural Quakers preferred simple designs in furnishings such as tables, chairs, chests and shunned elaborate decorations. However, some urban Quakers had much more elaborate furniture. The city of [[Philadelphia]] became a major center of furniture-making because of its massive wealth from Quaker and British merchants. Philadelphian cabinet makers built elegant desks and highboys. German artisans created intricate carved designs on their chests and other furniture with painted scenes of flowers and birds. German potters also crafted a large array of jugs, pots, and plates, of both elegant and traditional design.
There were ethnic differences in the treatment of women. Among Puritan settlers in New England, wives almost never worked in the fields with their husbands. In German communities in Pennsylvania, however, many women worked in fields and stables. German and Dutch immigrants granted women more control over property, which was not permitted in the local English law. Unlike English colonial wives, German and Dutch wives owned their own clothes and other items and were also given the ability to write wills disposing of the property brought into the marriage.
====Farming====
The Europeans brought entirely new animals, which transformed the landscape, such as hogs, cattle, horses, sheep and poulry. (The Indians already had dogs.) Ethnicity made a difference in agricultural practice. As an example, German farmers generally preferred oxen rather than horses to pull their plows and Scots-Irish made a farming economy based on hogs and corn. In Ireland, Scots-Irish farmed intensively, working small pieces of land trying to get the largest possible production-rate from their crops. In the American colonies, Scots-Irish focused on mixed-farming. Using this technique, they grew corn for human consumption and as feed for hogs and other livestock. Many improvement-minded farmers of all different backgrounds began using new agricultural practices to raise their output. During the 1750s, these agricultural innovators replaced the hand sickles and scythes used to harvest hay, wheat, and barley with the cradle scythe, a tool with wooden fingers that arranged the stalks of grain for easy collection. This tool was able to triple the amount of work down by farmers in one day. Farmers also began fertilizing their fields with dung and lime and rotating their crops to keep the soil fertile.
Before 1720, most colonists in the mid-Atlantic region worked with small-scale farming and paid for imported manufactures by supplying the West Indies with corn and flour. In New York, a fur-pelt export trade to Europe flourished adding additional wealth to the region. After 1720, mid-Atlantic farming stimulated with the international demand for wheat. A massive population explosion in Europe brought wheat prices up. By 1770, a bushel of wheat cost twice as much as it did in 1720. Farmers also expanded their production of flaxseed and wheat since flax was a high demand in the Irish linen industry and a demand for wheat for slaves existed in the West Indies.
Some immigrants who just arrived purchased farms and shared in this export wealth, but many poor German and Scots-Irish immigrants were forced to work as agricultural wage laborers. Merchants and artisans also hired these homeless workers for a domestic system for the manufacture of cloth and other goods. Merchants often bought wool and flax from farmers and employed newly-arrived immigrants, who had been textile workers in Ireland and Germany, to work in their homes spinning the materials into yarn and cloth. Large farmers and merchants became wealthy, while farmers with smaller farms and artisans only made enough for subsistence. The Mid-Atlantic region, by 1750, was divided by both ethnic background and wealth.
====Seaports====
Seaports, which expanded from wheat trade, had more social classes than anywhere else in the Middle Colonies. By 1750, the population of Philadelphia had reached 25,000, New York 15,000, and the port of [[Baltimore]] 7,000. Merchants dominated seaport society and about 40 merchants controlled half of Philadelphia's trade. Wealthy merchants in Philadelphia and New York, like their counterparts in New England, built elegant Georgian-style mansions.
Shopkeepers, artisans, shipwrights, butchers, coopers (barrell makers), seamstresses, cobblers, bakers, carpenters, stonemasons, and many other specialized professions, made up the middle class of seaport society. Wives and husbands often worked as a team and taught their children their crafts to pass it on through the family. Many of these artisans and traders made enough money to create a modest life.
Laborers stood at the bottom of seaport society. These poor people worked on the docks unloading inbound vessels and loading outbound vessels with wheat, corn, and flaxseed. Many of these were African American; some were free while others were enslaved. In 1750, blacks made up about 10 percent of the population of New York and Philadelphia. Hundreds of seamen, some who were African American, worked as sailors on merchant ships.
== '''Southern Colonies''' ==
== '''Southern Colonies''' ==