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Chesapeake Colonies Dbq

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Throughout the early 1600s and late 1700s, many left their home countries in Europe to colonize the New World. Most notably were English pilgrims who sailed the Atlantic in large numbers and settled two major regions along the Eastern coast of North America. These regions soon became known as New England and the Chesapeake Bay areas. Though both were established predominantly by the English, both regions had their own and unique identities. These identities were established through regional economic motives, population differences and religious intensities. The Chesapeake region included the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, East and West New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The first successful establishment in the colonies was Jamestown. Founded …show more content…

Largely Puritan Separatists, New Englanders left England for religious freedom. After King Henry VIII established the Church of England, Protestantism flourished in England. A large number of Protestants, however, sought complete separation from Catholicism and were thus labeled “Separatists”. These Separatists and persecuted Catholics, whom had refused to join the newly founded Church of England, sailed for New England where they could practice their religion as they wished. Therefore, unlike the economic motives of the Chesapeake residents, the New Englanders motives for leaving the motherland were solely religious in nature. Once living in New England, the settlers mocked much of England’s economy, relying skills such as carpentry, shipbuilding and …show more content…

As mentioned before, the Chesapeake economy was tobacco oriented which was fueled by the indispensible slave trade. Additionally, the tobacco industry was so successful that the plantation owner usually had enough funds to pay for the importation of indentured servants. Thus increasing the production of tobacco further. It soon became a cycle with a positive outcome of seemingly never ending tobacco production. New England’s economy, on the other hand, was much more diverse when compared to that of the Chesapeake. Rather than having one industry feeding the economy, New England relied on the success of their fishing, shipbuilding and farming industries. Not to be mistaken, farming played a much smaller factor in the New England economy than it did in the Chesapeake’s. The scale of farming in New England was much smaller, being so family oriented, farms usually produced just enough to feed one’s family, with a very small surplus. Simply put, New England farms came nowhere near the size and production of the plantations in the Chesapeake, considering that New Englander’s focus was not solely economic

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