During the 1700's, people in the American colonies lived in very distinctive societies. While some colonists led hard lives, others were healthy and prosperous. The two groups who showed these differences were the colonists of the New England and Chesapeake Bay areas. The differentiating characteristics among the Chesapeake and New England colonies developed due to economy, religion, and motives for colonial expansion. The colonists of the New England area possessed a very happy and healthy life. This high way of living was due in part to better farming, a healthier environment, and a high rate of production because of more factories. The colonists of the Chesapeake Bay region, on the other hand, led harder lives compared to that of the colonists of New England. The Chesapeake Bay had an unhealthy environment, bad eating diets, and intolerable labor.
Because of the way that the New England and Chesapeake regions set up their colonies, they became entirely different societies. One was community based, while the other sought gold and wealth; in one region a poor person had the same opportunities are a wealthy person, while in another place they could not; and one came seeking religious freedom while the other came for gold.
Finally, partially due to the stable family life of New England, reproduction was much steadier in the north than in the Chesapeake Bay region. New England's women married young, around 20 years of age, and had many children before their child bearing days were over. They could expect to have at least 10 children, with 8 of them surviving. Chesapeake's lack of families-and more importantly-lack of women kept reproduction rates from being up to par. Thus, New England's growth was steady a nd stable, whereas Chesapeake Bay suffered the effects of an extremely low growth rate.
The political difference between the New England and Chesapeake region was that New England government associate more with religious matter than the Chesapeake government. The New England regions included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth colony, the New Hampshire colony, Maine colony, Connecticut colony, and Rhode Island colony. Massachusetts colony for example was governed as a theocracy government. As the first governor of Massachusetts colony once stated in A Model of Christian Charity (Written on board the Arbella on the Atlantic Ocean, 1630),"we shall be as a city upon a hill" a holy commonwealth that could be served as an example community to the rest of the world. The Massachusetts Bay colony placed great importance on religious matters. Only the church member were allowed to vote or held office position. Those who held office position would enforce the law requiring attendance at services. Jamestown, Maryland and the Carolinas were some colonies in the Chesapeake regions. The governments in these regions were less concerned about...
The Chesapeake and New England attracted different types of settlers and, by 1700, the populations differed enormously.
While the Protestant Revolution raged in Europe, Catholics and other radicals were fleeing to the New World to find religious freedom and to escape prosecution. Because of this, the northern colonies became more family and religiously orientated as the families of the pilgrims settled there. From the Ship’s List of Emigrants Bound for New England we see that six families on board made up sixty nine of the ships passengers (B). Not only did families tend to move to New England, but whole congregations made the journey to find a place where they could set up “a city upon a hill”, and become an example to all who follow to live by as John Winthrop put it to his Puritan followers (A). Contrastingly, the Chesapeake colonies only had profit in their mind, which pushed them to become agriculturally advanced. Since Virginia, one of the Chesapeake colonies, was first settled with the intention of becoming an economic power house, it was mainly inhabited by working-class, single men. The average age of a man leaving for the Americas was only twenty two and a half years old according to the Ship’s List of Emigrants bound for Virginia (C). The harsh conditions of the colony did not appeal to those who wished to settle with a family. Added on to that was the fact that the average lifespan in the Chesapeake colonies was a full ten years or more shorter than that in other more desirable living quarters to the north.
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.
Virginia was started and fueled by indentured servants and the location of the Chesapeake demanded it. The colony started out as a get rich fast scheme and men scurrying the area looking for gold. Even though the area had great farm land, with out John Smith's direction, the land was not cultivated as much as it should have been. People did not last long in this area, dying from starvation and illness. This resulted in England dumping off more and more indentured servants to fuel the colony. With some guidance eventually the tobacco plant was farmed and with its prime location boomed. Due to to the importance of the plant it spread the planters further from each other to h...
Compare and contrast the government, religion, geography, and economy of the three English colonial regions (the Chesapeake area, New England, and Pennsylvania). Be sure to consider the role of race, gender, and ethnicity.
The Chesapeake Bay Colonies and the New England Colonies were both colonized by the British, but both regions were vastly different from one another. The English-Native American relations remained tense since the moment the English arrived, and the results of the war was the same: English won, Indians lost. The Chesapeake and New England were both influenced by the geographical differences and lead to a difference in economic values as well as governments. The Chesapeake and New England were both established for different reasons: to expand an empire and to get away from religious prosecution. The oversea British Empire was the most dominant in the world, and even though the colonies were all “British”, they are all vastly different from one another.
New England was a refuge for religious separatists leaving England, while people who immigrated to the Chesapeake region had no religious motives. As a result, New England formed a much more religious society then the Chesapeake region. John Winthrop states that their goal was to form "a city upon a hill", which represented a "pure" community, where Christianity would be pursued in the most correct manner. Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans were very religious people. In both cases, the local government was controlled by the same people who controlled the church, and the bible was the basis for all laws and regulations. From the Article of Agreement, Springfield, Massachusetts it is ...
Another large difference between the development of the New England colonies and the Chesapeake Bay region is the development of economic and political structure. All of the original colonies were a part of the Atlantic trade network which included the West African slave posts and Caribbean islands. In the South, the rich farmland meant expansive plantations and a feudal-like structure. The patroon system in New Netherlands was similar in the aristocratic impression, but further North the development of communities was much more prevalent. On the plantations in the South, “planters” would live nearly entirely in self-sufficiency, almost independent but still loyal to the mother country. The land was great for farming crops such
In the time period leading up to 1700, American history was a time of tremendous settlement and establishment of colonies across the nation. In determining how the colonies were to be created, the settlers had to question how long they were going to live at these locations; as well as, which places were flowing with the resources and materials they were searching for. In this case, English settlers founded the New England and Chesapeake regions in the early 17th century; however, the two regions became different from each other as time passed, for each became distinct colonies by 1700. Although the English settled both New England and the Chesapeake region, these two regions differed in development because though both were ruled by an English
Socially, settlers in the New England and Chesapeake regions had many differences. The Chesapeake region had more young settlers who primarily occupied the role of indentured servants (Doc C), while the New England region had many more families who migrated together (Doc B). Men were far more common than women in the Chesapeake region, especially in Virginia, whereas in New England, there were almost as many men as there were women. Due to this,
Thesis: Despite bearing some superficial similarities, the differences between the Virginia Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony are prominent.