Early American Identity

English agriculture was another contribution to the growing American identity of the mid-eighteenth century. In the early colonies of Virginia and New England, the colonists attempted to transplant the style of farming and husbandry with which they were familiar in England. "They brought with them farming techniques based on ownership and cultivation of land". "The colonists saw it as their birth-right if not their duty to tame the land and transform it into profitable, workable tracts." When these techniques were unsuccessful in the New World, they adapted their methods to suit their new situations. When the poor soil and short growing season of New England prevented the English colonists from building the style of farms they were comfortable …show more content…
Influences by North American Indians and enslaved Africans helped to make America an identifiably separate culture from that of England well before the American Revolution formally cleaved them from their motherland. As mentioned earlier, tobacco was a plant not known to the Europeans until its introduction by the Indians. The Indians taught the colonists how to grow, cure, and smoke this new plant. They also introduced the colonists, especially in New England, to the 'three sisters ' of Indian agriculture; squash, beans, and corn. These three combined to form a fully-balanced meal, and when fertilized with fish or eels, grew in complimentary fashion to each other. These crops became staples of the early New England colonist 's diet and are still popular today. Indian warfare had a major influence on the growth of the new American identity, and created a frontier culture or mentality amongst Americans, often unifying disparate interests against those Indians that threatened the edges of civilizations. "What drove these disparate groups together was their fear of the French and Indians on their borders and the rare attacks by them. This fear and the writing about these attacks by the colony 's producers of pamphlets and …show more content…
In Europe, all of the land was spoken for, much of it by royalty. There was little to no land available for new generations of farmers to have their own farms. This led to an increased surplus population, often travelling to the cities in search of work, and creating a burden on society before the Industrial Revolution. In contrast, America had plenty of land for all, allowing for even the poorest settler to have his own farm, but also leading to the abuse and waste of land, such as slash-and-burn farming. Some parts of the colonies were more land poor than others, such as the comparison on New England 's generally rock soil to Virginia 's open forests, but in comparison to Europe, land was