Essay On Chesapeake Colonies

Despite the common origin of all English colonists, each family and individual had a unique reason to migrate to the colonies across the sea. One reason was the religious turmoil that had enveloped England since King Henry VIII changed the national religion to cater to his divorce. Some members of the Puritan church, called separatists, wanted to leave England and start a purer church elsewhere with less focus on material goods. A different, opposing reason to settle was to search for minerals or to farm a cash crop to get rich due to the Mercantilist system that was beginning in some European countries, including England. These contradictory reasons, including societal structure, motivation, and attitude to colonize contributed to the extremely

The people in the north were hardworking, they focused on their values and morals instead of on personal prosperity. In the Articles of Agreement, the signers believed that rich and poor should be treated equally, with an even distribution of land for every citizen. Anyone who had the same beliefs as them deserved the same treatment, as long as they were white males. The Wage and Price Regulations of Connecticut have about the same message, that taxes and prices should be set in regulation to how they can serve God. New Englanders kept their hard working and religiously strict views throughout the trials of settling a completely new and undeveloped land. The people of Chesapeake were hardly as hard working and moral, they had an every man for himself attitude that lead to numerous fights, as Captain John Smith reported. Governor Berkeley of Virginia wrote that the freemen were unwilling and unable to defend their land, showing that they did not feel as connected to the land as they would have if they were intent on keeping it. There was much more discourse in the Southern colonies, such as Bacon’s rebellion against the established government. In his manifesto, he cites the injustice of the colonies and the stratified social caste of the colony that involved a large split between those with money and power and those in