Chapter V

Other Colonies

Virginia and Massachusetts were the earliest English colonies in what is now the United States. However, the first European colonies in what is now the US were Spanish. The city of St. Augustine in Florida began in 1565. This was 42 years before the English came to Virginia. The Spanish also had settlements in New Mexico before the English came to live in North America.

Dutch people from Holland began a colony in 1623-24, only three years after the English came to Massachusetts. They called their colony New Amsterdam. It was situated on the island of Manhattan and along the Hudson River. They bought the island of Manhattan from the Indians for twenty-five dollars. People from many countries came to live in New Amsterdam. Among the settlers were many Jews. Many Dutch people settled along the Hudson River. Today, many families of Dutch origin such as the Roosevelts still have land along the Hudson. In 1664, war broke out between England and Holland. England captured New Amsterdam and changed its name to New York. Today, the most important part of New York City is on the island of Manhattan.

Many of the early settlers came to America because they wanted religious freedom. They did not have religious freedom in England until after the English Civil War. This was more than twenty years after the Separatists came to Massachusetts. People who wanted to grow crops that needed a climate warmer than that of England started some other colonies.

In Massachusetts, people spent a great deal of time reading the Bible. Among them was a minister named Roger Williams. He gradually began to think that the Baptist explanation of the Bible was better than that of the Puritans. After many quarrels with the Puritans, he and his followers decided to leave. They went to Rhode Island where they founded a colony for Baptists in 1636. However, Roger Williams did not believe that the government should tell people how to worship. Therefore, people of all religions were welcome in his colony. Today Rhode Island is the smallest state in the United States.

The King of England wanted all of his people to be Anglican. Earlier, the traditional religion of England had been Catholic and some people continued to be Catholic. Among them was an important man named Lord Baltimore. In 1632, the King told him that he could start a colony for Catholics in Maryland. In fact, Maryland was named in honor of Queen Mary, but some of the Catholics thought that it was named in honor of the Virgin Mary. Today, the largest city in Maryland is called Baltimore.

Another new religion that appeared in England was the Quaker religion. It is similar to the Mennonite and Amish religions in Germany and the Shtundy religion in Ukraine. A very important person in the English government decided to join the Quakers. His name was William Penn. However, the King wanted the Quakers to go away. He told them they could have an area he called Pennsylvania. Sylvania is the Latin word for forest. So Pennsylvania means the forest that belongs to Penn. The Quakers invited the Mennonites and Amish to join them in Pennsylvania. So many Mennonites and Amish came that they settled large areas in southeastern Pennsylvania. Even today, the language spoken on the streets of that area is a dialect of German.

In 1638, the Swedes established a colony in Delaware. However, at that time Sweden was not very strong and in 1655 the Dutch captured it. Later the Dutch lost Delaware to the English.

The English colony of Carolina was established in 1663 to grow crops such as rice, indigo and cotton. England needed these crops, but the climate in England was too cold. Later the colony was divided into North Carolina and South Carolina.

Georgia was different from all of the other colonies. It was the closest to Spanish Florida. The English remembered that earlier the Spanish had killed all of the French settlers in Florida. None of the English wanted to live near Florida. So for a very long time there were no settlers in Georgia. But in 1732, England opened Georgia as a penal colony. A penal colony is a place where they send criminals and other undesirable people. For example, the Russian czars used Siberia as a penal colony. However, later, other English people began coming to Georgia because the climate is warm and the soil is very good.

When the English first came to Massachusetts, the Indians were their friends. Squanto showed them how to live in this strange new land. However, the Indians did not know that thousands of Puritans would come to Massachusetts to escape repression by the English king. Most of the Puritans had no respect for the Indians. They called the Indians "savages". Seventeen years after the first Separatists came, a small war broke out between the English and a neighboring Indian tribe. The English won. By 1675, the leader of the Indians in Massachusetts was a chief named Philip. The English called him King Philip. Philip said that the English had taken too much land. A terrible war broke out and the Indians lost again. Over the next two hundred years, many more wars broke out. The Indians lost almost all of them.