The thirteen colonies were never one plan. They were founded across more than a century, by different people, for reasons that had almost nothing to do with each other. Virginia was started in 1607 by a company hoping to make money. Massachusetts was settled by Puritans who wanted to worship their own way. Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn as a refuge where Quakers and others would be left alone. Georgia began partly as a place to give debtors a second chance. Calling them one country in 1700 would have puzzled everybody living in them.
Historians usually sort them into three regions, because geography pushed each one into a different way of making a living. New England, in the north, had thin rocky soil and a short growing season, so farms stayed small and families turned to the sea instead: fishing, whaling, shipbuilding and trade. The Middle Colonies had better soil and longer summers, and grew so much wheat and grain that they were nicknamed the breadbasket colonies.
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