13 Colonies 1607

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13 Colonies 1607 The thirteen colonies were 13 English colonies in North America that were latter split into three regions. Those regions were the New England Colonies, Mid Atlantic Colonies, and the Southern Colonies. These colonies were self governed and separately charted. On May 14, 1606 about 40 miles up the James River in Virginia, the colonist founded Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. A lack of preparation cost a lot of colonist their lives. In 1609 some 400 more colonist arrived but that winter dieses and famine hit the colonist again during a period called the starving time. Colonist in Virginia suffered high death rates, which led to labor shortages in the colony. The majority of workers were indentured servants, people who received a free trip to North America by agreeing to work without pay for a period of years. Indentured servants also helped increase the population. Not all labors in Virginia came from Europe. A Dutch ship brought first Africans to Virginia in 1619. Soon the demand for workers was soon greater than the supply of people working as indentured servants and overtime the cost of slaves fell. By the mid- 1600s most Africans in Virginia were being kept in life-long slavery and were mostly working in southern plantations, which were large farms that grew one type of crop and made huge profits for the owners. When the colonist first came they were unprepared but luckily the native Americans had helped them but later on their alliance had failed when the leader of the Powhatan tribe was killed which lead to a 20 year war. Since the London Company could not protect the colonist their charter was canceled and Virginia became a royal colony under the authority of a governor chosen by King James. A charter is a document giving permission to start a colony. On September 16, 1620, a ship called the Mayflower
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