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New England Colonies

Decent Essays

New England is the name given to the Northeastern location of the United States, encompassing Massachusetts to Maine. The name “New England” comes from Captain John Smith, famous explorer of the Chesapeake region, who wrote a piece about the abundance of resources and wealth of the region in a propaganda piece, A Description of New England, in 1616. However, the “New England” region that is known today is nowhere near a literal new England. Due to differences in religious beliefs, climate and geography, and economies, the New England colonies were vastly different from their Crown and home. However, a few hundred miles south, the colonies around the Chesapeake were strikingly similar to Britain, due to their social hierarchy, climates, and …show more content…

They were created for profit. When people started dying and no money was being made, the colonies quickly learned how to sustain themselves and turned permanent. The area was ripe for plantations and mass farming. Tobacco became the most desired thing out of the colonies, and it could be sold at exorbitant prices. As more people heard of the wealth in the New World farming, more people came to set up plantations. As such, more people were needed to facilitate the farming: Slaves. The British looked to Africa and gathered chattel slaves, who were prisoners; those sold out by other tribes, or even sold out by their own families. The slaves were loaded up on a ship, sent to the Caribbean, and then sent to the colonies to be sold. The profits they made would be shipped back to England, and the English would got to Africa to get even more slaves. This triangular trade became a huge portion of the New World economy. As the plantations grew in size, more people heard of the successes, and more people came. Not only did people come just by hearing of the successes, the government of Virginia established a “headright” system, or a provision that stated “that any person who settled in Virginia or paid for the transportation expenses of another person who settled in Virginia should be entitled to receive fifty acres of land for each immigrant” (Gentry). These incentives caused many people to flock to the plantations to try and make money. The ones who came and who had a lot of land had, like back in England, a lot of power. Aristocrats started popping up, gaining control of the areas around them. Following the English way, these aristocrats became the ones in control of more or less everything, be it land, government positions, jobs, etc. These aristocrats did not bother with schools in the Americas, of which there were very few in the south, and just sent their kids back to England to learn.

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