A Better Life For All ! Or Not

In 1650 and 1651, Clocker obtained 150 acres of land plus a little spot of land in the town where he probably built a house and he was becoming a respected member of the community. The years of work that he and Mary had put into building a house and farm. The Clockers raised and sold tobacco but also gained income from other sources which they had well-established herds of cattle and pigs, they could sell pregnant cows.What the Clockers couldn’t do was obtain necessary manufactures locally all the goods was transported from England in return for tobacco, a situation that prevailed over most of the seventeenth century.

The demand of tobacco cultivation in the Chesapeake resulted in an increase of the slave trade. Unlike indentured servants, Africans was not protected by English law, and was accustomed to intensive labor as well as resistant to many diseases. And because the Native Americans were more familiar with the land which in turn made running away easier, it was hard to keep Indians as slaves. Authorities wanted to improve the status of white servants thus taking away the perception that Virginia was a death trap. In the 1660s, Virginia and Maryland laws referred explicitly to slavery. As Tobacco cultivation continued to increase so did the condition of black and white servants divided. The laws became more stricter and freedom for blacks became nonexistent,

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

Around the 1600’s, New England started to develop a drastic population growth. This growth caused several problems for the occupants including, high prices on food, land, and a shortage of work for many because of the aggressive competition. Immigrants from New England began to prepare for a voyage that would be beneficial for some travelling to Massachusetts and not so much those who were travelling to Virginia. Although the settlers from the Chesapeake Bay and New England came from the same country, these colonies established different societies because of varying elements such as religious freedoms, economy, government’s role in society and unity.

“The Transformation of European Society” by Gary B. Nash talks about the economic, social, and religious changes that took place in the British colonies in the eighteenth century in North America. The author discussed that the people of a once strict hierarchical society of Europe now had a more democratic and individualistic American view. The vast land, which distinguished America from Europe, allowed people to get rich fast and climb the social ladder. Unlike America, in Europe there was a large disparity between the rich and the poor. If you were born a blacksmith's son, you would die a blacksmith. However, the vast amount of land in America offered great opportunities for growth. Poor farmers could become rich businessmen in no time in the northern colonies, which helped to develop an

To cultivate these tobacco crops the Chesapeake Bay colonist utilized slave labor, and the use of indentured servants. The use of indentured servants soon died out when Virginia, forbid the whipping of white servants. In the Chesapeake colonies, religion was not as strict as in New England. In these colonies there were a number of small optional religions, this was very different than the ways of the New England colonies.

John Rolfe was an English settler who based the voyage to America simply on the growth of tobacco. Rolfe’s crew, along with many other young men, traveled to Virginia in 1609 to search for gold. When the ship reached on the shore, all that was seen was sandy beaches and swampy marshes. Neither of which helped with the growth of the major cash crop. Even after the valiant attempts to scrounge for gold, there was no success.With the large amount of crops that Virginia grew, the colony needed to expand west into new land for more room to grow crops. At this time Virginia was an underdeveloped colony that needed settlers to come live and work. Virginia introduced the ever growing indentured servitude. Most of the indentured servants were possibly single men of the lower class. The ship’s list of emigrants

Now for the economic reasons. The Chesapeake region developed a tobacco economy, everything they did was to grow or sell tobacco. Document H states that the poor were unhappy. In a society the poor are sometimes unhappy, but in this case the rich did nothing to make the poor feel any better. In New England the economy was not extremely important, but the average person here was wealthier than the average person in England.

During the 17th and 18th century, English residents felt that England was over-crowded and intolerable. They wanted to lessen these problems that rose up because of the large population increase and to establish more religious freedom (Horn). The English believed that the best way to go about this was to colonize the New World. Subsequently, many colonies began to develop, and of these colonies, Massachusetts Bay and Virginia were the most well-known. The early settlements of Massachusetts and Virginia were both established by similar groups of people at the same time; furthermore, their contrasting beginnings as a colony, views on religion, and method of economic stability all contributed to our American heritage today.

1. The main contours of English Colonization in the 17th century were Protestant motives to strike Catholicism, along with solving England’s social crisis. With the rumors of the Spanish Empire’s atrocities reaching England, one motive to colonize the America’s was to strike the Catholics, and save the natives from captivity (Foner 51). This shows an interesting aspect of the English Colonization: the English allowed their people to go colonize just to strike the opposing religious country. Along with this, England sending emigrants over solved their social crisis. Because of England’s growing population and economy, the amount of peasants in cities grew. This is because of landlords using land for sheep, which kicked out peasants from their land (Foner 51-52). England hoped that some people of the lower classes would then go to America: to be out of the big cities where important people were, while still helping England in it’s economy.

Because of the hot climate and fertile land in the Chesapeake region, its economy was more agricultural, rather than industrial. The settlers in this region sought to discover a cash crop, which John Rolfe succeeded in doing; he found that tobacco

In the 1600's, tobacco became the main source of income for most of the colonists. The economic prosperity of the colonies was primarily dependent on the amount of tobacco produced. The growing of tobacco needed large amount of land, with a large stable work force. The increased demand for a large, stable work force combined with the availability and low price of African slaves, led to the use of slavery in the colonies. To the planter, slavery was the ideal form of labor that would be most beneficial to productivity of his crop.#

Because the low-grade tobacco was being overproduced unceasingly, prices dropped over the years. Tobacco had been the colony’s sole way of income for many years. Berkeley attempted to improve conditions by introducing other industries and building new towns in several places. Unfortunately, the towns could not be maintained and other attempts only resulted in dissatisfaction and increased taxes. Taxes were also increased due to a need for defense against the Dutch and the Indians. The rising price of English manufactured goods and the increasingly limited English market created more problems for the Virginians.

During the late 16th century and into the 17th century, two colonies emerged from England in the New World. The two colonies were called the Chesapeake and New England colonies. Even though the two areas were formed and governed by the English, the colonies had similarities as well as differences. Differences in geography, religion, politics, economic, and nationalities, were responsible for molding the colonies. These differences came from one major factor: the very reason the English settlers came to the New World. 
The Chesapeake colonies were primarily created by companies interested in profiting from the natural resources of the New World such as gold or silver to bring back to England. The New England colonies were primarily created to escaped religious persecution and set up a haven for people of their faith. The inhabitants of the New England area were far healthier. Their clean water supply was a sharp contrast to the contaminated waters of Chesapeake Bay. The cool climate had a good impact on colonists because it prevented the spread of life-threatening diseases. Because of New England’s cool climate, many people died during severe winters. Chesapeake’s climate had positive and negative factors as well. The warm, moist climate in the Chesapeake colonies carried diseases that killed many of the colonists. In contrast to the New England colonists, the Chesapeake colonists did not have to worry as much about surviving cold winters. The natural resources of the

Throughout the time of the Roanoke catastrophe and the hardships of Jamestown, tobacco made its grand introduction as America’s newest cash commodity that would allow success to flourish in Virginia, with a permanent English presence. Tobacco was formally popularized by a man named John Rolfe in the year 1610 and became the top resource that helped the future of this colony thrive. Tobacco did all of this by turning an