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American religions from 1492
The Influence of Religion on Colonial America
The Influence of Religion on Colonial America
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England, after failed attempts to colonize North America, returned and planted crops in the rich climate of the Chesapeake, allowing Protestant dissenters to populate the less fertile New England. The religious motives behind New England’s colonization and the economic motives behind the Chesapeake region’s prompted the creation of distinct societies by the 1700s, the former based on community and order; the latter, individuality and labor. The Puritans’ desire for an ordered world based upon their religion influenced colonial development, making the Church a central part of citizens’ lives and linking the government and economy to the Church. In the Chesapeake, the desire for profit rather than community created a crude, survival-of-the fittest society full of indentured servitude, weak kinship bonds, and few communal institutions. Unique motives created unique conflicts in the two areas. Both those of New England who questioned the stringent order and those of the Chesapeake who opposed class differences felt oppressed.
Early New England colonists wanted to create a religiously based utopian society, which brought the Church to the center of colonial life and governmental choices. At the time, many English people did not adhere to traditional Catholicism, instead becoming Puritans or Separatists. The Puritans hoped to reform and purify the English Church, whereas the Separatists wanted to create independent congregations. Prosecuted by English monarchs, the Puritans fled England and migrated to North America under a royal charter granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company with the desire to salvage their congregations after Charles I’s repression. Those who migrated to New England brought their families, with colonists ranging fro...
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...tives in New England and the Chesapeake.
The divergent development of New England and the Chesapeake region can be attributed to the motives behind each area’s colonization. New England had a religious focus; the Chesapeake, an economic one. Therefore, New England became a highly ordered, model society centered around the Church and community, whereas the Chesapeake region became a crude, competitive community that focused on the labor of the individual. Differences in development created different sources of conflict: New England fought with those who challenged the order created by the Church, and the Chesapeake region dealt with the class antagonism created by its colonies’ profit-based nature. Ultimately, even though New England and the Chesapeake region were distinctive areas, their shared English origin would unite them again in the coming American Revolution.
As stated in Document A, unity was encouraged among New Englanders, which developed into close societies. The close societies often built a bond of trust within the community, knowing that neighbors would come together during times of danger. Document A also stresses the importance of working together as one, and to promote the welfare of the community. By doing so, the community is allowed to strive and flourish. On the contrary, Document F supports the idea that there was little unity within the Chesapeake societies. Document F asserts, “There was no talk…but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold…” Shown in Documents B and D, the emigrants to New England were often whole families. Families in the society resulted in population increases because of higher reproduction rates. The higher reproduction rates allowed for more stable societies. As Documents C, F, and G assert, the Chesapeake region consisted mainly of single men and few women. Few women in the area resulted in a small number of families, l...
The New England colonies, however, were created to be a religious haven for those who opposed the English church. Both regions developed economic and political systems that catered to the desires of the respective populations and the geographical conditions. The Chesapeake and New England regions were both essential to Triangular Trade, but they contributed in different ways due to their differing economic systems. Also, due to these different economic systems, two types of governments emerged in the regions, both helping to lay out the foundation for
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.
In the 17th century, the British colonies still identified themselves as European, but as the colonies expanded and grew more populous, they developed differing geographic, social, and economic systems. This difference between New England, and Chesapeake, is caused by the motivations for settlement between the two regions. While the New England colonies were mainly settled for religious motivations, most notably by the Puritans, the Chesapeake colonies were settled for economic prosperity. Also, while the Chesapeake colonies were mainly settled by individual young men seeking a profit, the New England colonies were settled by families hoping to settle and expand.
A Puritan lawyer, John Winthrop, immigrated to New England because his views on religion were different from those in England. Even though Puritans are Protestants, Puritans tried to purify the English Church. In 1630 on board of the Arabella on the Atlantic Ocean on way to Massachusetts, he wrote “A Model of Christian Charity” which gave his views on what a society should be. ‘…the condition of mankind, [that] in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, other mean and in subjection….[Yet] we must knit together in this work as one man.’ (Doc. A). In this he is saying that men may be different but to make a new world work, they must work together. All through his speech he mentions God. For example, he opens his sermon with ‘God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence…’. This shows that in New England, the people were very religious.
The New England, Middle and Southern colonies were all English ruled, but yet very different. Among their distinctions, was the geography which played an important role in shaping these colonies. New England attracted Puritan farmers who wanted to separate from the Catholic Church. But because of the bone dry soil in the North, these colonists found they couldn't continue with their traditional ways of farming. However, with the immense amounts of water that surrounded them, they found that they could fish and trade. The Middle colonies on the other, hand had a moderate amount of everything. The fertile soil and the major seaports such as Philadelphia and New York, allowed these Middle colonists to make a living any way they saw fit. This led to the brisk development of the Middle Seaboard . Unlike the Middle and Northern colonies, the Southern colonies had large amounts of fertile land allowing for the development of large plantations. Because farming the plantations was the economic thrust for the South, towns and cities developed slowly. Thusly Geography greatly affected the lifestyles of these regions in the New World.
While under English control, each of the three regions of colonial America developed its own economic system- plantation agriculture was based in the Southern colonies, but other sectors of the economy flourished in the Northern and Middle colonies (along with some forms of agriculture). The natural resources that were available at the time provided the foundation for each region’s unique specialty. However, one could argue that these economies eventually led to the development of certain social issues within colonial society, such as the cruelty of slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, and even the lack of available labor in Maryland.
While residing in England, the Puritans and faithful Catholics faced prosecution, which led to their immigration to the New World. Most left England to avoid further harassment. Many groups and parishes applied for charters to America and, led by faithful ministers, the Pilgrims and Puritans made the long voyage to North America. Their religion became a unique element in the New England colonies by 1700. Before landing, the groups settled on agreements, signing laws and compacts to ensure a community effort towards survival when they came to shore, settling in New England. Their strong sense of community and faith in God led them to develop a hardworking society by year 1700, which Documents A and D express through the explanation of how the Pilgrims and Puritans plan to develop...
The disparity in social development arises from the type of people sent to each region. Mostly single men were sent to the Chesapeake colonies in search of wealth (Document F). There were a few women; however, not enough to really produce heirs and a great next generation. In New England, in contrast, families of four, five, and six members arrived together (Document B). With families in New England new generations were sure to come and a closer unity among the family would arise. When the families from New England came to their settlements, they made a strong and upholding pact among them (Document D) whereas the Englishmen who settled in Virginia and such were there only to satisfy their infinite greed (D...
While both the people of the New England region and of the Chesapeake region descended from the same English origin, by 1700 both regions had traveled in two diverse directions. Since both of these groups were beset with issues that were unique to their regions and due to their exposure to different circumstances, each was forced to rethink and reconstruct their societies. As a result, the differences in the motivation, geography, and government in the New England and Chesapeake regions caused great divergence in the development of each.
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Company set sail to the New World in hope of reforming the Church of England. While crossing the Atlantic, John Winthrop, the puritan leader of the great migration, delivered perhaps the most famous sermon aboard the Arbella, entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop’s sermon gave hope to puritan immigrants to reform the Church of England and set an example for future immigrants. The Puritan’s was a goal to get rid of the offensive features that Catholicism left behind when the Protestant Reformation took place. Under Puritanism, there was a constant strain to devote your life to God and your neighbors. Unlike the old England, they wanted to prove that New England was a community of love and individual worship to God. Therefore, they created a covenant with God and would live their lives according to the covenant. Because of the covenant, Puritans tried to abide by God’s law and got rid of anything that opposed their way of life. Between 1630 and the 18th century, the Puritans tried to create a new society in New England by creating a covenant with God and living your life according to God’s rule, but in the end failed to reform the Church of England. By the mid 1630’s, threats to the Puritans such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Thomas Hooker were being banned from the Puritan community for their divergent beliefs. 20 years later, another problem arose with the children of church members and if they were to be granted full membership to the church. Because of these children, a Halfway Covenant was developed to make them “halfway” church members. And even more of a threat to the Puritan society was their notion that they were failing God, because of the belief that witches existed in 1692.
Many of England’s problems could be solved in America, and so colonization began. When the earliest settlers came, England had the responsibility to continue the Protestant Church, and prevent the Catholic Church from converting the entire Native American population of North America (Morison, p.105) A potential Protestant refuge could be based there in the threat of civil wars or a change of religion.
...ere more concerned about the commonwealth of the people due to their strong sense of community. Chesapeake government placed a harsh rule to ensure the survival of the settlers like the colony of Jamestown. New England had a diverse product due to poor soil and cold weather. They engaged in small scale agriculture, fishing, trading and shipbuilding. The Chesapeake regions had a warmer climate therefore it was more suitable to farm. The economic products that the Chesapeake region produced were tobacco and rice. The New England colonies were more of a community than the Chesapeake colonies. One of the reasons was that the settlers New England emigrated as a family and the Chesapeake emigrants were mostly males with the ambition to find gold and to own a large plantation; this resulted in mostly male population without female to enforce a sense of a real community.
During the late 16th century and into the 17th century, European nations rapidly colonized the newly discovered Americas. England in particular sent out numerous groups to the eastern coast of North America to two regions. These two regions were known as the Chesapeake and the New England areas. Later, in the late 1700's, these two areas would bond to become one nation. Yet from the very beginnings, both had very separate and unique identities. These differences, though very numerous, spurred from one major factor: the very reason the settlers came to the New World. This affected the colonies in literally every way, including economically, socially, and politically.
Though there were religious concerns that contributed to the settling of British North America, the economic concerns outweighed the notable religious concerns. A religious concern that played a role in British colonization was that the British wanted to have the Indians of North America converted to Protestant Christianity (Boorstin et al. 34). In addition, specific groups that were seeking religious freedom used the British colonizing as a venue to achieve this objective. Such groups included the Puritan separatists who had begun to lose their freedoms in England, and thus they became colonists in New England.