Early Colonial Settlements

Early Colonial Settlements

In the early seventeen hundreds, after the establishment of both New England and the Chesapeake, many similarities and differences arose between the two settlements. Some of the similarities and differences included such things as family life, economy, life expectancy, and society.

In the Chesapeake area, the life expectancy and general healthiness of the settlers was dangerously low. Diseases like malaria, typhoid, and dysentery had a deadly effect on the inhabitants of the area, cutting 10 years off the life expectancy. Family life in the Chesapeake was also a problem. Women were very scarce which made a strong family life almost impossible. Unmarried pregnancies were everywhere and marriages did not usually last for very long due to a death of one of the partners. This lifestyle was greatly contrasted in the area of New England. New Englanders enjoyed clean water and moderate temperatures that slowed the spread of diseases among the people. The people of New England actually had a life expectancy of ten years more than that of a person living in England. Also, in New England the family life was very strong and important. Women usually wed by their twenties and had around ten children, with about eight of those that would survive.

Another contrast in the lifestyle of the New Englanders to that of those in the Chesapeake was that women in the south would usually acquire land from their husbands after they died. In New England, however, the women would give up their property rights at marriage because widowhood was much less common and also because it did not promote the unity of marriage.

One common point between the two civilizations was the very prominent class distinctions. In both areas settlers also fought to restructure these systems. Rebellions such as Bacon's 1676 rebellion in Virginia, and Leisler 1689 to 1691 rebellion in New York were due to the settler's unhappiness with the social class distinctions. Another similarity was that of relatively cheap and wages which almost tripled that of the English.

Unity in New England was something that was not commonly found in the Chesapeake. New England's puritan ways easily molded this tightly knight colony. In the Chesapeake this was not the case. Farmers were more of loners who did not move or live in very close communities. New England grew in a more organized way, unlike the Chesapeake that was very spontaneous in its growth.