Life in Colonial America

In the 1750s the residents of British North America began to claim greater privileges within the British Empire, a process that culminated in the American Revolution. Despite this common cause, the colonial population was more divided than ever before. The three main geographic regions—New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the South—continued to have distinct social and cultural identities. Moreover, within each of these regions there were new religious, ethnic, and geographic divisions—between New Lights and Old Lights in New England; among Quakers, German, and Scots-Irish in the mid-Atlantic; and among lowland planters, enslaved Africans, and backcountry yeoman farmers in the South. These social divisions would influence the struggle for independence. Some ethnic groups, such as the Scots Highlanders in North Carolina, remained loyal to the British Crown. Because they were pacifists, various religious groups, such as the Quakers and some German sects in the mid-Atlantic region, refused to give full support to the patriot cause. Some enslaved African Americans fled from their patriot owners and won their freedom by assisting the British cause. The regional and racial divisions of the colonial period—between New England and the South and between people of European and African descent—remained important after independence, affecting the history of the new American republic.