The early colonists of North America were mostly religious fanatics driven out of the mother country, convicts, exiles, losers looking for a second start, indentured servants and, of course, slaves. Only male, white property owners could fully participate in the democratic institutions of the early colonies. It may look like a utopia to us now, but in those days, America, for most people, was the end of the line. Hunger, hard work, injustice, and threats from the Indians, French and the Crown were part of everyday life. Maybe the lawyers, merchants and planters were able to apply the lessons of the Enlightenment to the frontier, but for most everyone else it was a survival exercise.

Granted, conditions in Britain or the Continent were probably worse, but it was no still picnic. I think Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle wrote a fictional tratment of life on a space colony set up on pretty much the same lines as colonial America. I can't recall the title, but perhaps one of you can. It's about a guy who wins the lottery and gets just enough cash together to buy a one-way ticket to the colony, and his adventures after. Of course, he succeeds, the hero always does in fiction (eventually, he becomes rich enough to afford Major Medical Insurance, a practical gurantee of immortality) but many of those who came with him were spaced because they could not afford to purchase a ticket home or the air they breathed.