Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition: 1  Rock(ProperNoun) for someone living near a rock or an oak ( atter + oke 2  ). Rock(ProperNoun) transferred from the surname. 3  Rock(ProperNoun) Nickname of Gibraltar. 4  Rock(ProperNoun) Nickname of the prison on Alcatraz Island, USA.
In 1700, there were about 250,000 European and African settlers in North Americaâs thirteen English colonies. By 1775, on the eve of revolution, there were nearly 2.5 million.These colonists did not have much in common, but they were able to band together and fight for their independence.1  Tags.he Middle Colonies. In 1664, King Charles II gave the territory between New England and Virginia, much of which was already occupied by Dutch traders and landowners called patroons, to his brother James, the Duke of York.
By 1650, however, England had established a dominant presence on the Atlantic coast. The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Many of the people who settled in the New World came to escape religious persecution.The Pilgrims, founders of Plymouth, Massachusetts, arrived in 1620. In both Virginia and Massachusetts, the colonists flourished with some assistance from Native Americans.ew World grains such as corn kept the colonists from starving while, in Virginia, tobacco provided a valuable cash crop. By the early 1700s enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population. By 1770, more than 2 million people lived and worked in Great Britain's 13 North American colonies.