ere modified to meet the conditions of life on the frontier. In one sense, all the settlers other than the colonial officials sent over from England were 'subordinate groups.' However, they did not so regard themselves until after the French and Indian War which ended in 1763. Colonial legislatures enjoyed considerable autonomy from royal governors, who depended upon them in part to defray the costs of local government and to raise militia for local defense. Localities, as exemplified by New England town meetings exercised a degree of local self-government unknown in England.
Social structures and laws were highly cohesive, reflecting common necessities in the struggle for survival and religious unity, which was particularly strong in New England. Considerable diversity developed over time as the colonial population and the area under cultivation expanded. According to Hall, "in each colony emerged a body of rules that, owing something to remembered English ways, also reflected the circumstances of the New World" (27). The rigors of theocracy, characteristic of early Puritan New England, gave way as the tradition of religious dissent in neighboring states such as Roger Williams' community of free believers in Rhode Island provide outlets for nonconformists. In both New England and the Middle Atlantic states, opportunities were good over time for the growing middle classes as well as the landed and mercantile aristocracies which was not titled or inherited. Class distinctions were much more important generally in the South where a plantation system of agriculture developed first around tobacco and then primarily around cotton after Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin in 1790. A common theme throughout the colonial period and really until well into the 20th century was "white racial and cultural superiority" (Hall 129).
Changes Caused by the Revolutionary War
In order to muster public support, Congress had to appeal to repu...