What was life like for the Colonies and the development of Colonial America?

I would say that Colonial life possessed some of the basic
elements that would end up playing a defining role in America for years to come.  On one
hand, there was a growing sense of industry.  Mercantilist philosophies that dominated
England indicated that colonies must operate as cash producing elements for the parent
nations.  In cultivating this, the British started to sow the seeds of discontent in the
colonies because colonial life was being driven by economic opportunity and the
manifestation of wealth, something that would start the process of demanding separation
from England.  At the same time, while commercialism and wealth were increasing, there
was a drive to determine where spirituality figures in this configuration.  The
questioning of spirituality resulted in the movements such as the Great Awakening in the
midst of miscarriages of religious spirituality such as the Salem Witchcraft Trials.  In
the midst of all of this, I think that the growing influence of the Enlightenment
intellectual movement in Europe started to make its way to the
colonies:

During the eighteenth century
a unique "American spirit" began to take shape. Colonists were not only questioning
English rule but also rebelling against various forms of local authority. Demanding the
rights and freedoms—religious, political, economic, and individual—symbolized by the New
World (a European term for North and South America), Americans were setting the stage
for revolution.