Looking at the early English colonies in the Chesapeake Bay region, it’s clear that the English had not learned any lessons from their experiences at Roanoke. Poor planning, a bad location, unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, unsuccessful relations with the local Indians, and no hope of finding the mineral wealth the Spanish found in Mexico, all contributed to failure. The first colonists in the Chesapeake region were not only ignorant, lazy and unambitious, but their attempts were hampered before they had begun. However, a solution to these problems was found in a single plant: tobacco. Nevertheless, this cash crop ultimately created numerous problems for the colonists. The ignorance and indolent acts of the Chesapeake colonists to unsuccessfully restore the colony by themselves led to the demise of the colony as a whole especially regarding the planting of agricultural goods for food. With an eye toward finding precious metals, the Virginia Company, a joint stock company sent jewelers, goldsmiths, aristocrats, and the like, but not a single farmer. As the company had expected, the settlers spent their time searching for gold, and hoped to obtain all of their food by trading with the nearby Powhatan tribes. This made their settlement neither profitable nor socially stable, since individual colonists felt little attachment to their community but instead sought individual wealth. A lack of social bonds in the community was further exacerbated by the fact that all the initial colonists, and most of the later arrivals, were male. Without wives or children to protect, the colonists had little incentive to protect their settlement or work towards its long-term growth. The noblemen who made the journey to the Americas often came with their respective titles, but no wealth, because of the British custom of primogeniture. These second born sons intended to create their wealth through exploitation of the Native American population and the many indentured servants who came to work for them. However in the early colonial years, these nobles became great burdens on the society, due to their refusal and laziness to participate in the cultivation of the land. Instead of farming to produce food, these nobles came with the intention of feeding themselves by conquering nearby tribes and looting the precious stones, as the Spanish had previously done. “…the colonists were not growing enough to feed themselves and were still begging, bullying, and buying corn from the Indians whose land they scorched so deliberately”(Morgan 50).
The Chesapeake and New England regions were settled by people of English descent, but by 1700, they had become two distinctly different societies. They had evolved so differently, mainly because of the way that the settlers followed their religion, their way of conducting politics and demographics in the colonies. Even though the settlers came from the same homeland: England, each group had its own reasons for coming to the New World and different ideas planned for the colonies.
The Crusades of the middle ages introduced much innovative and formerly unheard of merchandise into Western Europe; however the scarcity of these luxury goods instilled Europeans with drive to find easier access to the Far East. Although desired "Northwest Passage" never was found, joint-stock companies, like the Virginia Company of London, settled colonies in the New World for untapped resources such as silver and other tradable goods. Many more corporations followed suit, settling mainly in the Chesapeake Bay area, their small settlements eventually developing into the Chesapeake colonies. The Chesapeake colonies were focused primarily on profitable enterprises. At the same time, the New England colonies were being settled with a whole different set of initiatives, principally religious freedoms and family. Governing bodies were established, with their success dependent on the quality of the settlers the colony attracted. The different motives for settlement affected the routine events in such a way that the New England and Chesapeake colonies differed very greatly from one another even though they were both mainly settled by the English.
Another reason they bought land was to give their children a better future so that he/she could do the same. The sons looked upon their father to inherit them with land, but how much can an average colonist afford if he had more than just one son. An example that Gross provides in his book is of a young man who looked upon his father to give him some land. That young man was Purchase Brown a seventeen year old boy, whose father Captain David brown “lived in a household crammed with thirteen people.”(Gross 83). Purchase had four younger brothers and Purchase could not “take over the family farm… before the youngest child came to age…” (Gross 84). This was a problem to all of Concords residents and as land became scarcer, men of Concord started looking west to the frontiers for more land. Another example that Gross describes in of the struggle of some residents of Concord, is a story of two couples named Lucy and Joseph Hosmer. They got married at a young age and Lucy lived her husband on “her in-laws land that was still owned by Joseph’s father.”(Gross 101). The couples worked hard to sustain a good family living. When the war approached in Concord Lucy Hosmer was scared that what if she loses her husband and he dies without “writing a will, then Lucy would struggle to make a living…”(Gross 103). Then Gross state how the
Early Virginia's flourishing cultivation of tobacco drew a diversity of people, from fresh war veterans and former soldiers, to adventurers and ordinary people looking to recoup from former monetary losses. However the tobacco did not only alter the country culturally and economically, but it “ threw more wood into the fire.” It strengthened the infamous individualistic attitude the colonists had. The advent...
A community is a group of people who work together towards a common goal and share a common interest. Lack of such a quality can and most likely will cause a struggling town or city to fall into the extremes of poverty and wealth. The New England community was so strong and so supportive in comparison to that of the Chesapeake Bay, that it is no wonder they developed into two distinctly different cultures before the year 1700. The Chesapeake region developed into a land of plantations and money-driven owners, with the elite wealthy, almost no middle class, and those in poverty creating the population. New England, on the other hand, had developed into a religion and family based society comprised of mostly middle class families by 1700. Looking at the terrain, ethic, government, and even the people themselves, reveals clues about how the drastic split in society came to be. It was one America, but two distinct societies had developed in it by the 1700's.
During the 1600's, many people in the American colonies led very many different lives, some better than others. While life was hard for some groups, other colonists were healthy and happy. Two groups that display such a difference are the colonists of New England and Chesapeake Bay. New Englanders enjoyed a much higher standard of living. This high standard of New England's was due to many factors, including a healthier environment, better family situation, and a high rate of reproduction.
Thesis: The Roanoke colony proved to be an unsuccessful venture in the New World for England, since leaders of the expedition held the viewpoint that privateering would prove to be the most profitable aspect of founding the new settlements in the West. However future, still unsuccessful attempts to make a permanent colony at Roanoke, helped England understand how to build a prosperous one; and it became a building block for establishing future colonies for England and helped shape the ideas that would help launch their empire.
The first settlement was built by the English and consisted of 117 men, women, and children on Roanoke Island; which is off the coast of North Carolina. Within three years all of the colonists had disappeared leaving no trace of what happened to them. Analysis of tree rings has shown that Roanoke Island had the worst three-year drought in the past 800 years during the time they settled and disappeared. This is just one of the many challenges that colonists faced.
The land that they decided to build Jamestown on came with many problems. "They could hardly have made a worse selection. The situation was extremely unhealthful, being low and expos...
With their aspirations as unlikely as winning the lottery, the men encountered numerous obstacles and difficulties that would kill the majority of the English population- all in result of the colonists poor decisions and the timing of their fateful arrival. The staggering perishment of the early Jamestown settlement was due to environmental hindrances, the mens’ skills and professions, and the poor Indian relations. In order to establish a propitious new community, the colonized land should preferably host a plethora of fresh water in close perimeters, a plentiful supply of natural resources, and a reliable measure of food- ironically, the settlers decided to set up base in a “a disease-ridden, bug- infested swampy island with no source of fresh water," (Bridges). This was (Doc,.
Plantation life in Virginia required a large family and slaves for agriculture labour. As most of the settlers coming to Chesapeake colonies caught diseases and died. Also, between 1619 and 1622, 3570 people arrived in Jamestown but only one-third of them were alive. This was caused by Powhatan warriors who attacked and killed 347 of the settlers. By 1622, after the population had almost been wiped out in 1622, they imported women to Virginia to get married to the settlers, which did not bring any sign of growth in population by nature increase. So when the settlers had family, usually women were supporting their families by cooking, gardening, childcare, and laundries. Also, men took in part of helping their wives with the laundry, drying,
Once established, the Virginia colony had nothing to offer England. This all changed when John Rolfe introduced tobacco. Tobacco changed a poor useless colony into a thriving cash crop colony in just a few years. After the American Revolution, many farmers began growing grains such as wheat, oats, and corn. These crops required fewer workers to grow, didn’t take as many nutrients as tobacco growing did, and was in great demand in
The English were late to colonize in North America with a lack of political unity primarily to blame. There were hopes that this venture to North America could expand mercantilism and increase their income. When they finally arrived in North America they were met with a lot of hardship. Most of the first colonies they attempted to establish were failures. As they established the colony of Virginia they had many blunders a long the way. They had unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, troubled relations with the local Powhatan Indians, and a lack of economic viability (Oakes, 60).
In Virginia’s early year, it was victim to very large death rates, “In 1625 the population stood at 1300 or 1400; in 1640 it was about 8000. In those fifteen years between those dates at least 15,000 persons must have come to the colony. If so, 15,000 immigrants increased the population by 7000.”(1) As soon as this disease that had killed so many died off, the population sky rocketed. The growing economy could not support all of the immigrants that were coming into the country. This shortage of employment caused many of these white new comers to be reduced to poverty. As the poverty grew in Virginia, revolt became imminent. In about 1680, rebellion took over Virginia. In order to combat this rebellion, Virginian legislators began devising strict laws which stripped the Englishmen of their rights. Needless to say that these laws increased the discontent of the inhabitants...
The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys (both East and West) and Pennsylvania. In 1607, Jamestown, the first English colony in the New World (that is, the first to thrive and prosper), was founded by a group of 104 settlers to a peninsula along the James River. These settlers hoped to find gold, silver, a northwest passage to Asia, a cure for syphilis, or any other valuables they might take back to Europe and make a profit. Lead by Captain John Smith, who "outmaneuvered other members of the colony's ruling and took ruthlessly took charge" (Liberty Equality Power, p. 57), a few lucky members of the original voyage survived. These survivors turned to the local Powhatan Indians, who taught them the process of corn- and tobacco-growing. These staple-crops flourished throughout all five of these colonies.