In the mid-Atlantic region, settlers from all over northwestern Europe were creating a new ethnic mosaic. English colonists were probably always a minority, outnumbered at first by the Dutch, and later by Germans, Scots, and Irish, but New England was in every sense the most English of the colonies. New France was as French as New England was English. The farther south one went, the more diverse the population; the farther north, the more uniform.
Sometimes, reading history books, one might be tempted to think that the United States was formed mainly by the British: but evidence tells us that it was actually German and Dutch settlers who formed the core of American culture.
