Chesapeake Settlement In Virginia

As Colonial Virginia entered into the 17th century, it was a land marked with opportunity to make a new and also, most importantly, profitable life in the New World. (Cutter Lecture) When the century began, however, it was not the citizens as a whole hoping to make a profit from this new land but rather a small group of greedy landowners profiting off of the work of their indentured servants. (CL) Sure the indentured servants were given a chance to fulfill their contract and one day become free to pursue their own dreams, but the likelihood of this in the beginning was next to none due to harsh living conditions. (CL) According to Richard Frethorne in 1623, "nor is there nothing to be gotten here

In the early America colonies, each colony was largely settled by people of English origin. Although the majority of the colony founders were generally from similar areas, the colonies were all different. Two regions like this were the New England region and the Chesapeake region. New England consisted of the states Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Chesapeake consisted of Virginia and Maryland. Although the regions were very close to each other on a map, by the 1700’s both regions had evolved into two very distinct societies. This was due to the colonists reasons fro coming to the New World, their belief systems, the colonists themselves, and the geography.

The Chesapeake region of the colonies included Maryland, the New Jerseys, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Chesapeake's population consisted mostly of black-slaves. Chesapeake had such a high demand for tobacco that plantation owners relied heavily on cheap labor slaves therfore trading slaves became a prominent industry. Religion was not that important to colonist because they were more focused on being successful economically. The Anglican Church was established after 1692 but many colonists (mostly slaves) did not participate in the Anglican Church. Chesapeake's economy revolved around the tobacco industry, which helped other future industries to evolve as well. Slave trade relied on the tobacco plantation owners as a business to sell slaves

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.

Jamestown or Virginia has been used as an economic front for the London company. Britain posted the nobles who believed they would find on the spot gold and be rich. However, this was not the condition because noblemen were not ready to face harsh conditions. Many of them died, and all the British did was just sent more and more of the noblemen to help maintain the colony, but it did not succeed. John Smith came from England and the colony has accumulated through the discipline that the noblemen did not have when they came to establish Jamestown. Jamestown eventually became a place of prosperity through the cultivation of tobacco, making it a very rich colony. People who grew tobacco does not

Sir William Berkeley arrived in Virginia in 1642 to act as the Colonial Governor of Virginia. He was the King’s envoy in Virginia, though he was a selfish royalist who believed in himself before the King. He brought together some

The group that made up the largest portion of the southern social ladder was the small farmers.

In the 1600’s those coming from the West Indies searching for land established a new colony south of Chesapeake. This colony was owned by the Lords Proprietors. To quickly populate the Carolina’s the Lords Proprietors offered large incentives attracting many colonists. These were things such as religious toleration, political representation, and large grants of land. With workers needed Carolina offered freedom dues; attracting many poor people that would work as indentured servants. As Carolina gained the common settlers and indentured servants the Lord Proprietors made sure to include great planters with large land grants and absolute power over their slaves. As the Lord Proprietors were in England they could not fully control Carolina. This was seen as men known as

Beginning 1625, the first colonies in America was established in the Chesapeake, New England, and Carolina region. More than 250,000 European settlers came over to the colonies, along with 300,000 West African slaves. The colonial societies would become the area for gold, god, and glory. Some of the colonies flourished while some struggled to survive.

The different people who started settling in New England and the Chesapeake region could have come from the same country. But what they were looking for made a lot of sense which was; economic, religious and also their social differences. Their different societies started to lead on to different economics. Religion for New England was the most important, it was their goal in life, they wanted to be a religious example. There were a lot of social differences, and of course differences in people as well.

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.

The reason William Bradford and the pilgrims came to the New World was to flee the religious persecution of the Anglican Church in England and come to a place where they could openly be puritan. This started the Great Migration of the Puritans. After them, almost all other emigrants from England to the colonies came for the same principle idea, religious freedom. From this starting principle, different colonies emerged. Two regions within the colonies became the Chesapeake, which consisted of Virginia and Maryland, and New England, which included, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

The regions in North America called New England, and Chesapeake, sound very similar on paper, because of their English origins. However, in reality, these two regions have more differences than similarities. The three main differences between these two regions were, their attitude/ goals for settling, their economic activities, and the type of settlers who lived there. The goals of the New England and Chesapeake were very different.

Life in the American wilderness was brutal and short for the earliest Chesapeake settlers. Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid cut ten years off the life expectanct of immigrants from England. Half the people born in early Virginia and Maryland did not survive even twelve years, and few lived past their fifties, forties if they were women. The settlements only grew slowly, mostly from immigrants from England, and most of the immigrants were single men in their late teens and early twenties. There were barely any women and so they were fought for; eligible women did not remain single for long. Moreover, families were few as most men could not find wives and marriages were destroyed by deaths. Yet the Chesapeake colonies struggled on, becoming more

With fertile soil and cash crops aplenty, many young men from England settled there in search of their own fortunes. Many of these men were second or third born sons who were denied a share in the family fortune because of the common practice of primogeniture. Initially believing they would find gold there, they pooled their money together to form a joint-stock company to make the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. However when it was discovered that there was no gold whatsoever in the area, the Chesapeake was thought to have met what was seen as its untimely end. Captain John Smith chronicles this in his History of Virginia, where he tells of those fixed on the hope of finding gold, “…There was no talk…but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold…” (Document F). If it weren’t for Smith and Chief Powhatan, the colony of Virginia would have been razed to the