colonial North America. The ‘thirteen mainland’ colonies which eventually formed the
United States of America had distinctive individual histories. However, by the mid‐18th century, they were part of recognizable regional or sectional groupings. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island formed the most easily identified section, New England. New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania were usually termed the Middle Colonies. Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia formed, with the addition of the biggest colony both in terms of size and population, Virginia, the South. Virginia also had the longest continuous history of any of the thirteen colonies, tracing its origins back to the settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Georgia was the youngest colony, having been granted its charter in 1732. The colonies were established under a variety of royal charters, but in their provincial government they all had a representative element, as well as a royal governor. Representation was underpinned by a broad franchise based on white male property ownership variously defined.
The religious variety in the colonies was great, without parallel in any European country at the time. Although New England was predominantly Calvinist and Congregational, in the Middle Colonies no group dominated. Presbyterians, Anglicans, Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Moravian, Mennonites, and Lutherans were all present, as were others. In the South, the Anglican church was the dominant and, characteristically, established church. However, by the middle years of the 18th century, Methodists and Baptists as well as Presbyterians were rapidly growing minorities. The South was also the major area of primary production, notably tobacco in Maryland and Virginia, and had a plantation economy, focused on sugar, cotton, and indigo in South Carolina and Georgia, based on the institution of chattel slavery. Both New England and the Middle Colonies had more varied economies, but overall some 90 per cent of the population derived their livelihood from the land.
There is much evidence to show that it was the availability of land in the mainland colonies that was a major attraction to emigrants from Ireland, as it was to those who left from England, Scotland, and Wales as well as from other parts of Europe. Seventeenth‐century movement of population seems to have had a New England orientation, but by early next century the focus had changed. Although such distinctively Irish settlements as Londonderry, New Hampshire, remained, for the most part New England Calvinism and Scottish and Irish Calvinism had an uneasy relationship. More and more emigrants from Ireland entered the colonies through Philadelphia and its outports such as New Castle, Delaware, and then moved to the then western counties of Pennsylvania as well as the growing city of Philadelphia. Of course, entry through this port reflected connections with Ireland relating to the trade in flax seed and other products. Once in western Pennsylvania, where the
Quaker‐dominated colony tended to prefer the often belligerent Irish settlers to be, some moved on into the valley of Virginia and then to the back country of the Carolinas. Some entered the Carolinas directly without the detour through Pennsylvania and Virginia. Inevitably, even more overwhelmingly than other settlers, these migrants were involved in agriculture, however rough and ready their methods.
Most of the 17th‐ and 18th‐century migrants came from a Presbyterian background, although recent scholarship suggests that Roman Catholics and Anglicans were a larger minority than had once been thought likely. It is now clear, for instance, that among the indentured servants who crossed the Atlantic there were many from a Catholic background who found the practice of their religion impossible in the colonies. It is also worth noting that Irish Quakers emigrated. Indeed, one of the most striking careers of any Irish migrant in the colonial period is that of James Logan, William Penn's most important lieutenant, born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, of Scottish parents.
Irish emigrants had a more significant role in the early growth of the Presbyterian church in America than those who came directly from Scotland. Francis Makemie, born in Ramelton, Co. Donegal, in 1658, helped establish the Synod of Philadelphia in 1706. William Tennant, born in Ireland 1673 and a graduate of Edinburgh University, founded the ‘Log College’ at Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, as a pioneering Presbyterian seminary. He and his sons were profoundly involved in 18th‐century doctrinal controversy. William himself also helped found the Synod of New York in 1746.
Estimates of the numbers who left Ireland for the colonies in this period are understandably problematic. Between 1717 and 1760, it is thought that 100,000 people from Ireland settled in America. Overall throughout the period 1607–1776 as many as 250,000 people may have arrived.
Bibliography
Jones, M. A. , ‘The Scotch‐Irish in British America’, in B. Bailyn and P. D. Morgan , Strangers within the Realm (1991)
Middleton, R. , Colonial America (1992)
S. J. S. Ickringill
