The document summarizes the socio-political culture and economy of the 13 American colonies. It describes how the colonies had representative governments elected by white male landowners. The economies grew substantially through the 1700s based on farming, trade, and slave labor. Society was unequal with differences between the bourgeoisie, landowners, settlers, and slaves. Religious freedom increased over time, though the Church of England and Congregationalism were initially dominant. Education varied by colony but the first universities were founded in the 1600s-1700s. The Enlightenment influenced American thinkers and ideals of reason and progress.

1. The socio-political culture and economy of the thirteen American colonies
Author:Héctor Linares González, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Translation Paulo Arieu
13 colonies
Thirteen Colonies is the name that has historically given to the colonial possessions of Great Britain in
the North Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia between Florida and America, and in the late eighteenth century
were united under an independent government for creating the current United States.
Politics
In the American colonies it emphasizes self-government since the beginning of its existence. They
usually had a governor elected by the crown and had the legislative, military and judiciary. There was
also un upper house of the legislature, composed of elected by the Crown through the governor and
who were responsible for the legislation. All settler colonies shared the tradition of representative
government. The English monarch named many of the colonial governors, but they should rule together
with an elected assembly. The vote was restricted to white male landowners, but most white men had
enough to vote properties. Besides England he could not exercise direct control over its American
colonies. London was too far, and the colonists had a very independent spirit, in addition to the same
statutes of the foundation of each colony the British Crown recognized the internal autonomy of the
settlers. Finally, the absence of large mineral wealth in the colonies (gold and silver mines) discouraged
direct intervention of Great Britain in government Thirteen Colonies.
The political administration of the American colonies was controlled in the beginning by the English
company. In the early days, colonies were governed by variants of the King's Privy Council. But from
1675, with the creation of the Lords of Trade, the government of the colonies was modified for greater
control of the British Crown. In 1686 the Dominion of New England, a union of colonies under the
channeling of the English Crown, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode

2. Island, New York and New Jersey is established. The Crown established two offices for the government
of this domain, both of English origin and should reside in Boston and New York. This domain failed and
was dissolved two years later, in favor of self-government in the colonies.
The English Crown would never attempt such a comprehensive political domination, but neither
renounced the principle of imperial sovereignty over North America. After the failure of "mastery" of
government statutes, which allow you to set a governor as a representative of the colonies were
established. England resigned to full political subordination, but not to the colonial economy. With this
new focus, we were establishing instruments to promote mercantilism. In 1696 the Lords of Trade was
replaced by The Board of Commerce or Board of Trade, which highlighted the failure of the
administrative centralization of the empire and passed passivity toward the colonies.
Economy
The thirteen colonies, they had tremendous growth, both in population and in the eighteenth century
economy. En New England colonies had great economic and demographic potential. They had raw
materials and labor, much of it given by slaves. In addition, they had a great trade, excellent agricultural
production, the only thing they lacked was the manufacturing license that the UK refused to allow their
colonies.
The plantations and trade system worked perfectly shaped, and the population grew. It had a huge
population regarding Spanish America, having spent much longer the Spaniards in America. The
demographic potential was so important that when the war of independence, the 13 colonies had a
population of about 2.5 million, with some 100,000 settlers of Spanish origin ,. This is due to the great
migration that took from England to the new American territories, and the theory of overpopulation of
England.
The settlers, plus all kinds of cattle, took most of the most valuable vegetables that used to grow. And in
New England, the new settlers did not commit the error of the Jamestown colonists, wanting to find gold
instead of farming. So, they found maize or "Indian grain." Acre of the crop provided twice traditional
English food grains. Less dependent on seasonal changes, could be grown with very simple tools, and
even the stems could be used as fodder.
Gradually, settlers also found that mineral resources were abundant. What I loved the first settlers was
the abundance of good wood.
Of crucial importance it was also livestock. Cattle thrived in general, but especially the pork. In fact, one
of the first colonial exports was a shipment of pork, which later the sheep would be added to configure
the master of his cattle culture.
In any case, none of these products gave an economic "boom" as spectacular as it was for the first
virginianos.que snuff was twice the benefit. Despite the reluctance of King James I, who tried to ban its
consumption, cultivation of snuff broke and brought great prosperity.

3. Map of the thirteen American colonies in North America.
Social:
In the eighteenth century the most densely populated colonies were New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Massachuchetts, and Rhode Island. In addition they possessed a fairly diversified economy in sectors
such as trade and shipbuilding. The trade was enormous especially in the port cities of Salem, Boston
and Newport. Primarily a domestic trade with the metropolis, as export taxes were huge. They were
allowed to export the American tea, but with customs duties that made his price is not competitive,
causing riots, the most famous tea mutiny 1773. In the southern colonies, as was Virginia, Maryland,
Carolina North and South, and Georgia, the economy was more plantations, especially of a single crop,
this dependence to England was enormous.
On the social level, we find an unbalanced society, since there were big differences between the local
bourgeoisie, landlords and landowners, settlers and slaves and workers.
The society was mixed. Dominated by settlers of English origin, but as we know had settlers from
Holland, Sweden, France and other European countries. All this was possible thanks to massive
immigration to America. In 1685 there was a great immigration to Pennsylvania, as its founder, W. Penn
allowed the reception of French Protestants, Mennonites, Baptists and Moravians, from France that
after the abolition of the Edict of Nantes, Switzerland, Germany and Holland. Scotland and Ireland also
saw a great migration, 250,000 people emigrated in the seventeenth century to the colonies, only Irish.
Slaves were another huge source of immigration to America. They were taken by force to work on

4. colonial plantations. The slave trade was led by the Royal African Company, but after his death in 1697,
dropped its monopoly, and with their prices. That made trade increases and the arrival of slaves to the
colonies grew.
The colonial religion consisted of multiple confessions, in which he failed to master any of the rest. The
New World from the beginning stressed the religious motivation, is intended to go to Christianize
indigenous populations, as shown in the royal charters granted to the settlements. Thus, since the
origin of a religious climate colonies was established. Moreover, America was also the territory to which
recurred in the seventeenth century persecuted religious minorities in Europe right now, for the chance
of freedom that gave this place. In the thirteen colonies the presence of Puritanism was remarkable.
During the seventeenth century it became a point of religious obsession in some villages there was an
extreme radicalism crystallized acts of Salem where dozens of women were hanged and burned for
witchcraft. Such was the magnitude that had to intervene state governor.
From the beginning he established the Church of England in all the southern colonies and four of the
boroughs of New York, and New England Congregational Church, except in Rhode Island. Rhode
Island was one of the exceptions was too Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey is that there was no
connection between church and state, with a policy of religious freedom. Religious persecution by
Puritans ended after the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. This religion would eventually
break the late eighteenth century, due to a growing revulsion to ecclesiastical authority. In 1691 the
revised charter of Massachusetts was established that the right to vote were given for the property, not
the membership of the Church. In the 1700s Massachusetts and Connecticut granted the Anglicans,
Baptists and Quakers the right to public worship. While Calvinism was revitalized with the Great
Awakening, a religious current that began in the middle colonies and highlighted the personal
relationship with God and the need for conversion to salvation. This Great Awakening sparked
controversy among the laity and clergy, also between different confessions. It is thought that this Great
Awakening had to do with the American Revolution and its democratic spirit. Religious freedom did not
come until after the War of Independence. It was established in the First Amendment of 10
amendments were ratified and included after the 1789 Constitution.
Education:
As for education, resources varied in the different colonies, center and south were less developed
compared to New England. Moreover, education was seen as a way to teach religion, which was

5. marked by a Puritan ideology. In New England include the Laws of Massachusetts Bay that served as
example, established as an obligation of parents that their children are taught to read and requiring
elementary schools in cities of more than fifty families and schools of Latin grammar in over one
hundred. Meanwhile, in the southern colonies, education was seen as a family and not communal
responsibility. The first university in which they carried out a higher education was at Harvard University
in 1636, followed by William and Mary in 1693 and many others were founded in the first half of the
eighteenth century. At first the education systems of the universities were very similar to those of the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge, but later was differentiating under the influence of the
Enlightenment.
In the English colonies prominently it influenced the Enlightenment, as we have seen. This new liberal
ideology permeated this new state that was forming, especially the philosophical theories of Locke.
There are several prominent people, such as Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, James Logan,
William Byrd II of Virginia, John Winthrop IV, John Bartram and Elihu Palmer. But it really is Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790) who best exemplified the American Enlightenment. He was a versatile and self-
taught genius, with faith in reason, progress and man, passion for tolerance and freedom, in short, a
characteristic humanist Enlightenment. But its utilitarian and pragmatic mind set and its relative lack of
interest in pure science or abstract speculation point out as a typical American.
The Enlightenment was a lifestyle that was based on the renewal of the universe through faith in
reason. This American Enlightenment was established by the arrival of these ideas in Europe, so that
developed in each of the American territories. This movement surpassed the European in intensity and
ways of living, is posed differently, as a dynamic society and relatively egalitarian and pragmatic.
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Bibliography
•https://elnacimientodeclio.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/sociedad-y-economia-en-las-13-colonias-
inglesas-de-norteamerica/
•http://www.laguia2000.com/inglaterra/poblacion-e-inmigracion-en-las-colonias-norteamericanas