ABSTRACT
The Middle Colonies, including New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, comprised a number of distinct communities that ultimately came together as a region over the course of numerous interactions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These colonies were ethnically and religiously heterogeneous, and, once the Dutch were expelled, were set up as English proprietaries through which the restored Stuart monarchs attempted to streamline their empire. Schemes of religious toleration intended to strengthen power at the center, and attempts to centralize policies on Atlantic trade and dealings with native peoples, were hallmarks of these colonies’ Restoration roots.
