A,merican Colonies

The Early American colonies

We have been one nation for so long that it is hard to imagine a major difference between the thirteen original colonies. After all a quick glance at a map of these thirteen original colonies will tell you that they all where established along the East Coast and where most generally located on a river or body of water. What is strange about this is just how different each of these separate areas of settlement turned out to be. After all they where located relatively close to one another and should have had adequate communication available to them by the numerous water channels close at hand. So why was there such a huge difference in the way that they developed? The two most contrasting of these would have to be the Puritans and other religious groups that chose to settle in the New England region, and the colonies founded for profit in the Chesapeake Bay region. If you look closely at these two concentrations of people you will see that they have great differences in their religion, government, family, economics and the very geography that they where established in. These differences coupled with a very different reason for journeying to the New World helped to form two very unique cultures that exist to some extent today.

One of the major differences between the colonies of the Chesapeake Bay region and the New England colonies is in their view on religion. The very reason that the Pilgrims journeyed to this new land was to escape religious persecution and set up a haven for people of their faith. In contrast the colonies of the Chesapeake Bay region where established by people who where looking for fame and fortune rather than spiritual enlightenment. This fundamental difference is one of the major reasons that these colonies developed so differently. People in the New England colonies generally knew their neighbors because they worked and prayed with them. In a Chesapeake region so dependent on the cash crop of tobacco, plantations served to separate the people and slow the process of socialization. Although church attendance was required in both the New England colonies and some of the Chesapeake Bay colonies it was enforced for much different reasons. The New England colonists where very concerned with education and spirituality while generally those colonists in the Chesapeake Bay colony whe...

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...used natural resources at this time, the difference is that the colonists in the New England colonies took the greatest advantage of this.

While there are undoubtedly a number of similarities between the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England colonies their original purposes for being here set them on different paths from the moment that they set foot in the New World. It should also be said that not only the people’s disposition has an affect on the direction of the society, you must also take into account the geography of the region. The differences between the Chesapeake colonies and the New England colonies are numerous and varied. However if all of the colonies established in the new world had the same culture it is far less likely that our ancestors would have been as successful in their bid to change the way civilization operates. They accomplished this with the American Revolution, which relied heavily on different characteristics from each of the thirteen colonies and has been more than successful in blending the very different values and beliefs of the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England colonies.