made several attempts to settle

in the part of America that they called Virginia, for Elizabeth the Virgin Queen.

From that time on came a rush of immigrants, mostly English with some Welsh and also Scotch-for in 1603, the two kingdoms of England and Scotland came under the same sovereign, King James I. A century later the two countries were united into one kingdom of Great Britain, and the word British came to be used for the people of the country. Ireland was added as a part of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, and was made a Commonwealth of the British Empire in 1922.

Within a few years after their settlement the Dutch and Swedish colonies were conquered by the English, and their territory was opened to English settlers. From that time until the American Revolution, there was always immigration from England and some from Scotland, Ireland and Germany. The population grew very fast, by its natural increase, because it was so easy to get quantities of good land and hence to make a living for a large family.

Besides the Protestant English and Scotch settlers came a large immigration of Protestant Scotch-Irish, who pushed out into Pennsylvania in 1682. They liked the frontier, and spread westward and southward and into the mountains.

English Colonial Life

The English were used to village and town life at home; and in the northern colonies built villages and commercial

towns. In the South, where the crops were raised on big plantations, the planters lived more by themselves, and Charleston and Savannah were almost the only large seaports.

Many bold spirits pushed out on the frontier, but the English mixed very little with the Indians, and their way of pressing westward was to plant frontier settlements So that the people could help to defend each other.

Religion was interesting to all the English Colonists. Ninetenths of them were Protestants. The Congregationalists were strong in all New England except Rhode Island, where Baptists and Quakers flourished. In the Middle Colonies the Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed were numerous. In the South the Episcopal Church was strongest. Chief among the churches of the frontier were the Baptists and later the Methodists. Catholic churches were to be found in the large coast places, and the frontier French settlements. German Lutherans and Mennonites were numerous, and there were a few Jewish synagogues.

The church made almost the whole population familiar with the Bible; though there were no Sunday or Parochial Schools and few and poor day schools. In a few places schooling was free for those whose parents could not pay for it, but there were no public schools for girls and few academies and high schools. Nevertheless the colonists set up nine little collegesnow called Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Brown and Dartmouth. They

trained the ministers and also

were to be leaders in the Revolu

tion.

For reading matter the colonists had the Bible and the current English literature. A few colonists wrote books-theology, history, travels, politics, even poetry. Newspapers were few and dull.

The Negroes

That the Indians could not be made a slave race was an unlucky thing for the black people of the distant continent of Africa. First the Spaniards and Portuguese, and then all the European colonies, brought in negroes as bond slaves. The reason given was that new land had to be opened, which took a great deal of labor, and slaves could be compelled to do the hard tasks that the white men disliked, and thus could make money for their owners.

Hence from the year 1619, when the first negro slaves were purchased in Virginia, the English colonies, like all the rest, entered on the slave trade.

Africa was ravaged by slave dealers who brought down their helpless captives, men, women and children, to the West Coast. There they were bought by slave traders who paid for them in beads and cotton cloth and brass wire and guns, and particularly in rum. They were brought across the Middle Passage" to America, crowded like animals into narrow spaces between decks, ill-fed, sometimes short of water, flogged and abused. Those that reached America were sold like cattle to the highest bidder, and their children were also slaves.

66

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Published by Authouty.

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Both North and South shared in the profits and the sin. Negro labor could not be used to advantage in the cold northern settlements; but northern colonists freely engaged in the slave trade.

White Slaves

The white "indentured servants were also in bondage. These were men and women who were brought over in shiploads and sold at the dock for a term of years, in order to pay their passage money. But their slavery ended when they had worked out the required years, and their children were born free.

Almost from the beginning some men protested against slavery as contrary to humanity, to the rights of man, and to the Christian religion. The Quakers came to the point where they would not allow any slaveholder to be a member of their church. The negroes in South Carolina were more numerous than the whites; and after slavery was well started, they were about one-sixth of the total population of the English colonies, and about one-third of the population of the southern colonies. Most of the negroes had some sort of training in the Christian religion, and seats were provided for them in white churches, or they had churches of their own.

Numbers and Races

What sort of people were those who inhabited the thirteen English colonies, carried on the governments and founded the American Union in the Revolution of 1775? The first federal

census (taken in 1790) shows the distribution of the races by the family names of those who were counted. Out of the nearly 4,000,000, we know that about 80,000 Indians lived in the United States. Of the 760,000 negroes, 700,000 were slaves. Out of 3,200,000 white people more than four-fifths were of English, Scotch and Welsh descent. The Protestant ScotchIrish, living mostly in the hill and mountain about 200,000. About 150,000 people of German descent were living in Pennsylvania and on the frontier.

regions, were

The Catholic Irish were known in most of the colonies; but the Catholic churches and priests were so few at that time that the number of Irish, except the Protestants from the north of Ireland, could not have been great. There were a few thousand Dutch, a few thousand French Huguenots, a few Spaniards and Jews.

Almost the whole population spoke English-except perhaps 50,000 Pennsylvania Germans, and a few French, Dutch and Spaniards. The negroes took up the language of their masters.

The English colonies were a farming country. About ninetenths of all the people lived on farms and plantations. The five largest cities were Philadelphia (42,000), New York (33,000), Boston, Charleston and Baltimore. About a twentieth of the people lived beyond the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains.

A Prosperous Land

Travelers through the country at that time tell us that it was very prosperous. The farm

A STUDY OF THIS PICTORIAL CHART will give the reader a knowledge of what sort of people inhabited the thirteen English colonies and the number belonging to each class.

THE ENGLISH COLONIES were a farming country. About nine-tenths of all the people lived on the farms and plantations. The five largest cities were Philadelphia (42,000), New York (33,000), Boston, Charleston and Baltimore. About a twentieth of the people lived beyond the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains.