The New England and Chesapeake regions were two of the major areas for colonization in the 17th century. From the early 1600’s into the early 1700’s, many English immigrants left their homeland to explore an uncharted territory. The two geographic regions, one nestled in the warm muggy weather of the South and the other in the harsh climate of the North, lead to various different experiences and obstacles for the settlers to face, and to different lifestyles in the colonies. Through economy, religious persecution, and geographic location, the colonies became distinctly different. But even through all of their differences, the colonies in both of these regions did have some key aspects in common; most importantly their desire to become successful. The differences and similarities between the colonies created the building blocks of the diverse country that we inhabit today.
Though there aren’t many elements that the Chesapeake and New England colonies have in common, one major aspect they do share is that they were all chartered by England. Every colony belonged to the English Kings and parliament, and were forced to follow the laws of their English homeland. Though it happened in a much later time period than the settlement of the colonies, the English King had control over the key elements of colonial survival such as trade and commerce, and even went so far as to start passing revenue-inhibiting acts. The Navigation Acts passed in 1660, 1663, and 1673, stated that colonial goods produced in the New World would had to be traded with British subject or transferred through the British before being sent to any other country so that Britain would make a larger profit (Brinkley; pg 61).
The Essay on The Chesapeake and New England regions
... energetic. The English settling in America led to the development of The Chesapeake and New England regions. The ... the English came to the New World and settled in The Chesapeake and New England regions. The lives ... and better homes for themselves. The New England region prospered within their families, freedom to practice ... small plot of land to come to the colony to work. Once they were freemen most ...
Even though this happened later on in the history of the colonies, it is an example of how much control the English Empire had over the colonies.
Another commonality that the Chesapeake and New England colonies shared was that many were formed because of religious persecution from the English Church. Though the colonies in the Chesapeake region were mainly created to generate revenue in finding silver and gold and producing cash-crops like tobacco and rice, Maryland was formed as a haven for Roman Catholics (Brinkley; pg 38).
Virtually all of the New England colonies (more importantly Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Pennsylvania) were formed by Quakers, Pilgrims and Puritans who were not allowed to freely practice their own religion in England. Even if the colonies were vastly different in many ways, religious persecution was one of the main reasons that the New World was created, and therefore is one of the most important similarities the colonies could have.
One thing that the New England Colonies and the Chesapeake colonies also had in common was that when settlers initially arrived to the New World, they were not prepared for the conditions of the land. Automatically assuming that the entirety of the New World was similar to Central America, where the Spanish had created colonies, the settlers in the Chesapeake and New England regions had come to the new land with preconceived ideas of what the conditions would be like, and the resources it would have to offer them. One prime example of this would be Jamestown, where the sole purpose of the settlers was to find gold and silver like the Spanish colonists had found. Instead, they discovered marshy land that spread diseases like malaria (which settlers were highly susceptible to contracting), and poor soil that they did not know how to grow crops in.
The Essay on A Merican Colonies England Chesapeake Bay
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 ...
Jamestown barely scraped by, and experienced a “starving time” where hundreds of settlers died. And much like Jamestown, the early settlers of Plymouth landed in New England without knowledge of the cold winder climates, and they too experienced a “starving time” in which many of the colonist did not survive (Brinkley; pg 35).
The early settlements did not have the ability to know what the New World would be like because they were the first Englishmen to step foot on the soil and had only the previous ventures of the Spanish to base their judgments on, making it virtually impossible for early settlements to be successful.
The differences of the Chesapeake and New England colonies seem to be more evident; mainly the purpose of the colonies in each region and their economies. Though Maryland was a colony of the Chesapeake that was created for the Roman Catholics to escape persecution, most of the other Southern colonies were created to produce revenue. Much like Jamestown, which was created in hopes of producing wealth for England, the colonies of the Chesapeake were an attempt for England to gain more money and a monopoly on trade. The Southern colonies were a major source of tobacco, which was a product that had become popular ever since the Spanish had colonized Central America. Virginia and the Carolinas were key areas that produced these products, along with rice and other soil-depleting crops. As a result of poor crop rotation, colonists were forced to start expanding onto Native American lands, causing deadly feuds with Chiefs like Powhatan and his brother Opechanconough that resulted in the death of hundreds of settlers (Brinkley; pg 36-37).
Also due to the labor-intensive crops of the Chesapeake region, slavery evolved as a source of a cheap work-force. The first ship of slaves came to the Chesapeake region in 1619, where the blacks on board are believed to have been treated as indentured servants for a period of time. Eventually, it became more profitable to enslave blacks and the slave population of the South soon outnumbered the white population.
Much different than the Chesapeake colonies, the New England colonies were created in part due to religious persecution from the English church. In order to remove dissenters from England, the king would issue charters to the leaders of religious groups and allow them to create their own colonies. Though making a profit off of the colonies was also necessary, it was important to English Protestants to cleanse the Church of England of other religions.
The Essay on Jamestown Colony vs. Chesapeake Bay Colony
In the early seventeenth century two separate groups founded two very different colonies. The first to be colonized was the settlement of Jamestown, located on the Chesapeake Bay which is in present day Virginia. Just over a decade later the colony of Plymouth was founded on what is now known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Though both the Massachusetts Bay colony and the Jamestown colony were ...
In terms of economy, the New England colonies didn’t depend on crops to turn a profit as much as the South did. Trade was better in New England; natural harbors like Plymouth and Boston were ideal places for other countries to stop and trade. Many artisans and craftsmen developed in the colonies, on top of having small farms, lumber mills, fish, and shipbuilding industries, creating small “cities” of trade in the New England region.
Another large difference between the two settlement regions is that because colonists were settling in the Chesapeake before New England, the colonists of the Chesapeake were not prepared for the conditions of the New World, while the New England settler’s had a chance to learn from early Chesapeake colonist’s mistakes. The first settlers of Jamestown were all male noblemen, while the New England colonies were composed of family units. The presence of women and their medical knowledge (though limited as it was) helped prevent disease, and the support of family helped keep moral high (Brinkley; pg 35).
The New England colonists also learned from the Chesapeake colonies that it was imperative to attempt to keep good relationships with Native Americans for trade usage and to avoid war. The reason New England colonies survived was because they had a chance to draw conclusions about the New World from the Chesapeake colonies.
The colonies of the New World endured many different obstacles that made them unique from each other, but also had many common goals that tied them together at the heart and eventually helped create an American nationalism. Though the colonies were different economically, socially, and were created in different geographic areas with equally different intentions, they still had their desire to become successful and their need for exploration in common. The colonies were the earliest form of American nationalism, and just like modern society they were very diverse, and striving to reach one common goal: prosperity in all aspects.
Bibliography:
Alan Brinkley, American History: A Survey, 11th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2003)
The Term Paper on North American Free Trade Agreement Nafta
Introduction I believe that the North American Free Trade Agreement was an inevitable step in the evolution of the United States economic policy. The globilization of the world economy due to technological advances in computers and communications have shrunk the world to the point where no single country acting alone can effectively compete on the foreign market. Even the United States, with its ...
