The New England and the Chesapeake Regions

DBQ #1

The New England and the Chesapeake regions were settled largely by people of the English origin, but by 1700, the two developed in opposing ways and evolved into two distinct societies of their own. The large difference in development occurred between the New England and Chesapeake regions because each group had their own specific reason for coming to the New World. The two regions differed in their cultures. The New England region revolved around religion. Their main objective was family and religious freedom. When speaking of the Chesapeake region, it was founded mainly for economic reasons. They were geared around profits. To put it simply, with different motives came different outcomes.

The people that settled in the New England region mostly came in families. In Document B, you see a number of people that have the same last name. Puritans, as the New England people were called, were simply looking for a new place to live, mainly to escape religious persecution. The people who came to the Chesapeake region, mostly male, came for money. In Document C, you see a number of single names meaning not many came with family. They set up plantations and made profit from tobacco, indigo and different crops of that nature. Because people came in families to New England population they grew on their own, unlike in the Chesapeake region. There were no women in Chesapeake and that's why the population in Chesapeake never flourished. The crown was continually sending people just to keep the colony alive.

In New England, they had a multiple crop economy. They planted more vegetables and foods needed to survive. You can say that because they planted vegetables people in New England had less food shortages. Chesapeake had a single crop economy: tobacco. It's bad to have a single crop economy because if something happens to that crop, like a natural disaster, then people