New England Vs Chesapeake

Kelley Hill

Period 3

Kolasa

DBQ

Although the colonies in the Chesapeake and New England were both founded by people of English origin they demonstrate many differences in their religious, economic, and political values created because of their opposing intentions when they came to America.

Most New Englanders came from England in hopes of a free religious practice therefore they brought their whole family with them. (Doc B) Religion was one of the main reasons for settlement in the new world unlike the people of the Chesapeake who mainly came for money purposes. When arriving in Massachusetts in 1636 the people wrote up their own constitution called the Mayflower Compact that was written by the Americans for the Americans. This constitution included that they would have a church covenant and to walk in the ways of Christ which emphasized the importance of religion to the people of New England. (Doc D) John Winthrop, a nonseparatist puritan, believed in making Boston, Massachusetts "a city upon a hill" by making a church which all eyes of people are upon them from across the oceans. (Doc A) He also became the governor of the early colonies, conjoining the church and the state. Roger Williams was against that and said the church and state should be separate, he was exiled and made his own colony of Rhode Island. People of the Chesapeake had barely any religion and were too busy settling to focus on religion, to them it was less important than money.

There was about sixty men bound for Virginia and only eleven women, this shows that individuals lived in the Chesapeake instead of families. (Doc C) These individuals who only wanted to get rich, they set up plantations and grew mostly cotton and tobacco in 1612, these were the cash crops that helped the Virginia Company to finally earn a profit. The Virginia Company also used the head-right system, which gave land to all the settlers and additional for each person including slaves. Slaves were used a lot on plantations and eventually got out of hand. In the Northern Colonies usually families ran their land. Plus, they gave charity to their neighbors and weren't greedy which also lead to close community. (Doc E) The Chesapeake society was very money and power hungry unlike the Pilgrims of the North.

The Chesapeake Bay was located in Virginia, which is surrounded by rivers, making it hard to defend from the Dutch and their frontiers by the Indians. (Doc G) Thus making the colonists very vulnerable and upset. This led to Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 where Nathaniel Bacon lead poor men of the Piedmont area to rebel against Governor Berkley who would not support them with defense against the attacks from the Dutch and Indians. (Doc H) The Mayflower Compact was also the American's first step toward self-government

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