principally by the labor of negro slaves. There were also many indentured
servants at the South, where the dividing lines between the different
classes were most strongly marked.

Up to 1700 the history of each colony is practically that of a separate
unit. Almost all the colonies had trouble with Indians and royal governors.
Pirates, rapacious politicians, religious matters, or witchcraft were
sometimes sources of disturbance. All knew the hard labor and the
privations involved in subduing the wilderness and making permanent
settlements in a new land. History tells of the abandonment of many other
colonies and of the subjugation of many other races, but no difficulty and
no foe daunted this Anglo-Saxon stock.

In 1700 the population of New England was estimated at about one hundred
and ten thousand. In 1754, the beginning of the French and Indian War,
Connecticut alone had that number, while all New England probably had at
this time nearly four hundred thousand. The middle colonies began the
eighteenth century with about fifty-nine thousand and grew by the middle of
the century to about three hundred and fifty-five thousand. During the same
period, the southern group increased from about ninety thousand to six
hundred thousand. By 1750 the thirteen colonies probably had a total
population of nearly fourteen hundred thousand. Since no census was taken
until 1790, these figures are only approximately correct.

Such development serves to show the trend of coming events. This remarkable
increase in population soon caused numbers to go farther west. This
movement resulted in collision with the French, who were at this time
holding the central part of the country, from the Gulf into Canada. One
other result followed. The colonies began to seem valuable to England
because they furnished a market for English manufactures and a carrying