The total population numbered in 1775 nearly two and one half million souls.

Of these, the slaves formed about 500,000.

The three largest Colonies, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania contained 900,000 inhabitants, of which a little more than one half were slaves.
Pennsylvania, the third Colony, had a total of 300,000, mostly white, while South Carolina had 200,000, of whom only 65,000 were white.
Connecticut, on the other hand, had 200,000 with scarcely any blacks.
The result was a very mottled population.

The New Englanders had already begun to practise manufacturing, and they continued to raise under normal conditions sufficient food for their subsistence.

South of the Mason and Dixon line, however, slave labor prevailed and the three great staples--tobacco, indigo, and rice--were the principal crops.