A House Divided.

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A House Divided

        The seventeenth century proved to be a century of change as men and women crossed the

Atlantic for various reasons.  Some moved to escape bad marriages, some moved from poverty,

and others moved from troubling royal policies.  Whatever their reasons were, the colonists had

one common goal--- to strive for a better life.  Sharing this common bond, Americans banded

together and fought for independence during the Revolution.  As the Revolution ended,

Americans felt overjoyed and united.  They managed to overlook some of the differences

between them that would eventually lead to an intense conflict in the years to come.  Social,

economical, and political differences between the two regions would eventually become so

intense that they would cause one of the bloodiest battles of all time---  the Civil War.

        Differences began as early as the years of the colonial period.  To begin, the Northern

and Southern colonies developed vastly different economies.  The Chesapeake colonies’ most

important staple crop became tobacco.  Tobacco affected nearly every aspect of their lives.  The

colonies were able to collect many duties on tobacco.  Harvesting tobacco called for a great deal

of work.  However, the colonists were unprepared for this work.  They were lazy and greedy.

Whenever possible, planters in Virginia and the Southern colonies purchased able-bodied

workers who were capable of getting the job done.  In all of the Southern colonies, white

planters forced African slaves to produce staple crops for the world market.  In Virginia and

Georgia, colonists were granted land for each additional servant they transported to their colony.

Along with tobacco, wood, naval stores, and rice were also strong factors in the economic

success of Southern colonies such as Georgia and the Carolinas.  In contrast to the Southern

colonies, the Northern colonies relied heavily upon different exports.  Their major export was

grain.  They emphasized the growth of wheat and other agricultural products.  Trade also became

important for them.  Fur trading became popular in New York.  The forms of agriculture used in

the Northern regions, such as cereal and dairy farming, made the employment of a large number

of laborers unreasonable.  The Southern colonies, however, had to rely on indentured servants to

do the job.

        Also, during the colonial period, strikingly different social structures were developing

between the two regions.  The men and women who emigrated to Virginia and Maryland did not

travel in whole families.  Instead, they traveled as young, unmarried servants.  The majority of

these laborers were males between the ages of 18 and 22.  This led to an unevenly balanced sex

ratio.  The ratio of males to females was 6 to 1 in the Southern colonies during the year of 1640.

These travelers were often only interested in themselves.  Many of them desired personal, instant

wealth and did not look out for the common good.  Indentured servants were treated harshly and

their masters used them however they pleased.  This brought about an elaborate social hierarchy:

gentry on top, freemen in the middle, and indentured servants on the bottom.  Men and women

in the Southern colonies did not work together at all.

         On the contrary, social life in the Northern colonies proved to be much different.  Unlike

Virginia and Maryland colonists, New Englanders moved across the Atlantic in whole families.

This led to a more evenly balanced sex ratio.  Life expectancy was also about 10-20 years greater

than men and women born in Chesapeake society.  The Northern colonies possessed strength and

stability because they were banded together by a common sense of purpose.  In most cases, such

as in Massachusetts Bay, this common sense of purpose was God.  People in the Northern

colonies did not look only on their own concerns but also on the concerns of others.  John

Winthrop believed that the colonists needed to work together as one.  Northern colonists

believed that everyone should be treated equally and no one should be excluded.  Even though

there still were indentured servants in the northern colonies, they were less oppressed than those

in the southern colonies.  In addition, there were also quite a heterogeneous population in the

Northern colonies, and contact between blacks and whites occurred more frequently there than

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in the Southern colonies.  These different mixtures of people and their ways of life would lead to

hidden controversies in the years to come.

        As a result of their opposing values, the political structures of the Northern and Southern

colonies developed differently.  The Southern colonists were very self-seeking.  They had no

common ideology to keep them together, so their society was often fragmented.  The higher on

the social scale they were, the more power they had in political affairs.  For example, in North

Carolina and South Carolina, the very poor were excluded from political life altogether.  On the

other hand, ...

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