Page "History of England" Paragraph 99

In 1607 England built an establishment at Jamestown This was the beginning of colonialism by England in North America.

Many English settled then in North America for religious or economic reasons.

About 70 % of migrants from England who came between 1630-1660 were indentured servants.

By 1700, Chesapeake planters brought in about 100, 000 indentured servants, more than 75 % of all European immigrants to Virginia and Maryland.

The English merchants holding plantations in the warm southern parts of America then resorted rather quickly to the slavery of Native Americans and imported Africans in order to cultivate their plantations and sell raw material ( particularly cotton and tobacco ) in Europe.

The English merchants involved in colonization amassed fortunes equal to those of great aristocratic landowners in England, and their money, which fuelled the rise of the middle class, permanently altered the balance of political power.

The American colonies did not prove profitable to the mother country in the end.

Pennsylvania and Delaware were home to a large population of self-sufficient farmers from various parts of Europe, especially Germany.

New York traded with pirates and smugglers, and the colonies of New England consistently frustrated the government's attempts to utilize the area's forests for shipbuilding.

Only Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay area produced a useful cash crop, tobacco, but it quickly wore the soil out.

By the end of the 18th century, the tobacco industry in Virginia had been completely ruined by soil exhaustion and low prices.

Indeed, the small sugar-growing islands in the Caribbean were worth more than all of the thirteen colonies put together.