ABSTRACT
Like the Caribbean, colonial North America during the seventeenth century was a mosaic of European settlements. There was, however, a basic difference between the island and mainland regions. In the Caribbean, the spread of sugar cultivation shaped colonial societies that tended to resemble each other in their basic structures and relationships with Europe. North America, on the other hand, was a scene of great regional diversity. Not only did the colonies of England differ from those of France and Spain, but Atlantic Anglo-America was itself a mixture of several distinctive economic, social and cultural formations.
