What spurred the growth of the middle colonies?

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Figure false: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Figure false: This view of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1757 dramatizes the profound transformation of the natural landscape humans wrought in the eighteenth century by highly motivated human labor. Founded by Moravian immigrants in 1740, in less than twenty years Bethlehem featured precisely laid-out orchards and fields in place of forests and glades. By carefully penning their livestock (lower center right) and fencing their fields (lower left), farmers safeguarded their livelihoods from the risks and disorders of untamed nature. Individual farmsteads (lower center) and brick town buildings (upper center) integrated the bounty of the land with community life. Few eighteenth-century communities were as orderly as Bethlehem, but many effected a comparable transformation of the environment. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallack Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
Figure false: > VISUAL ACTIVITY
Figure false: READING THE IMAGE: What does this painting indicate about the colonists’ priorities?
Figure false: CONNECTIONS: Why might Pennsylvanians have been so concerned about maintaining order?

IN 1700, THE MIDDLE COLONIES of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware had only half the population of New England. But by 1770, the population of the middle colonies had multiplied tenfold and nearly equaled the population of New England. Immigrants — mainly German, Irish, and Scottish — made the middle colonies a uniquely diverse society. By 1800, barely one-third of Pennsylvanians and less than half the total population of the middle colonies traced their ancestry to England. New white settlers, both free and in servitude, poured into the middle colonies because they perceived unparalleled opportunities.

CHRONOLOGY

1733

  • Benjamin Franklin begins publication of Poor Richard’s Almanack.

1770

  • The population of the colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware has increased tenfold since 1700, largely the result of immigration.
  • Germans make up the largest percentage of migrants from the European continent.
  • The middle colonies’ per capita consumption of imported goods from Britain has more than doubled since 1720.