ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by middle colonies,

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the ones who always feel left out and neglected.

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All right, first up, the excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right, and now the question:

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What might have replaced tobacco had the excerpt

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been written by the governor of a middle colony?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ] All right.

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Well, let's take a look at a map of the 13 colonies. Right here.

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Well, you've got your southern colonies here,

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your middle colonies here...

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and your New England colonies here.

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And we need to figure out which answer was all the rage

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in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

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If the governor of a middle colony wrote this excerpt,

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would tobacco have been replaced by A -

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manufacturing and overseas trade?

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Hmm? Well, actually, the English colonies were mostly

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supplying raw materials at this time,

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and most of the overseas trade went through New England,

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which was the center of ship building and commercial fishing.

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So that sinks A and C.

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Could the middle colonies have been focused on D -

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hunting, trapping, and fur trading?

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Well, while the English were busy adapting to their new homeland,

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the French colonists were busy trapping and trading fur.

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So that's au revoir to D, as well.

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See ya.

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Which means that tobacco would have been replaced in the middle colonies by B -

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cereal crops such as wheat and grain.

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It wasn't easy to grow tobacco in every corner of

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the Eastern seaboard, and those middle colonies,

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well, they were best suited for crops like wheat and grain.

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So B is the right answer.

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Eventually, the United States expanded westward and settlers

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planted wheat and grain all across the Midwest,

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loosening the bread belt, so to speak,

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for those middle colonies.

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Yeah. Step up, boys.

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[ rim shot ]

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