Colonization In America

England began colonizing America in the 1600s, when religious and political dissenters of the changes imposed by the Stuart monarchy launched one of the largest migrations in written history – The Great Migration – in search of a new life free from persecution and open to numerous employment opportunities. Each emigrant brought with him/her a blueprint in his mind of recreating the culture he left behind, yet, by 1700, the regions of New England and the Chesapeake region had evolved into two distinct societies. Whether their motive for emigration was to attain a second chance to mend failures, to seek an oasis that provided religious freedom, or perhaps to find a place to preserve the vanishing past of England, the settlers basically sought to find better conditions of daily life. By 1700s, their lifestyles became distinguishable due to several key factors: the characteristics of the settlers, the land, and their goals in their new homes.

Age played a significant role in fostering differences among the two settlements. By 1640, New England had come to include Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. Settlers of New England were mainly families, with the male of the household being somewhere in his thirties or forties. The society, thus, was predominated by families, where quantity of people of both genders remained fairly balanced. According to Hawke, their age made them more determined to preserve a way of life known back home (Hawke, 16). Because the men were mostly middle-aged men, with a conservative mind, many came expecting to stay, and were called "planters". They were determined and well equipped to start a farming life in the fertile lands in America.

Settlers in the Chesapeake regio...

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...lity of the land, nor the wellbeing of the whole, they failed to fertilize the land, nor grow crops edible to the settlers themselves. As a result, mortality rate ran as high as 80% in Chesapeake in the first half of the century. However, later on, realizing its faults, the settlers began to change their way of living and their lifestyles became "more wholesome, healthy, and fruitful, yet still not as healthy as that of England" (Hawke, 73).

Works Cited

Hawke, David Freeman. Everyday Life in Early America. New York: Harper & Row Publishers,

1988.

Lukes, Bonnie L. The World Series – Colonial America. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2000.

Sinclair, Andrew. A Concise History of the United States. New York: Sutton Publishing

Limited, 1999.

U.S. Department of Justice. United States History 1600-1987. Washington D.C.: U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1989.