he physical conditions of the South led to
the growth of large farms, or "plantations" as they were called, and of a
class of large proprietors; negro slaves thrived there and were useful in
the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice, and later of cotton. The North
continued to be a country of small farms, but its people turned also to
fishery and to commerce, and the sea carrying trade became early its
predominant interest, yielding place later on to manufacturing
industries. The South was attached in the main, though by no means
altogether, to the Church of England; New England owed its origin to
successive immigrations of Puritans often belonging to the Congregational
or Independent body; with the honourable exception of Rhode Island these
communities showed none of the liberal and tolerant Spirit which the
Independents of the old country often developed; they manifested,
however, the frequent virtues as well as the occasional defects of the
Puritan character. The middle group of Colonies were of more mixed
origin; New York and New Jersey had been Dutch possessions, Delaware was
partly Swedish, Pennsylvania had begun as a Quaker settlement but
included many different elements; in physical and economic conditions
they resembled on the whole New England, but they lacked, some of them
conspicuously, the Puritan discipline, and had a certain cosmopolitan
character. Though there were sharp antagonisms among the northern
settlements, and the southern settlements were kept distinct by the great
distances between them, the tendency of events was to soften these minor
differences. But it greatly intensified one broad distinction which
marked off the southern group from the middle and the northern groups
equally.

Nevertheless, before independence was thought of there were common
characteristics distinguishing Americans from English people. They are
the better worth an attempt to note them because, as a historian of
America wrote some years ago, "the typical American of 1900 is on the
whole more like his ancestor of 1775 than is the typical Englishman." In
all the Colonies alike the conditions of life encouraged personal
independence. In all alike they also encouraged a special kind of
ability which may be called practical rather than thorough--that of a
workman who must be competent at many tasks and has neither opportunity
nor inducement to become perfect at one; that of the scientific man
irresistibly drawn to inventi