Deus Quarter Essay

D.E.U.S Quarter Essay

Tommy Wozny

        Although New England and the Chesapeake regions were both settled largely by people of the English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies because of their different motives, the area they lived in, and the ways the social classes were set up. These reasons helped change the course of history for the two colonies and who knows what it would be like if they hadn’t happened.

        The first New England colonies were all founded by the 17th century starting with the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. All of these colonies, with the exception of New Hampshire, were primarily founded for religious purposes. One could say the New England colonies was a great haven for religious groups such as the Puritans, Separatists, and Quakers. The biggest of these religions were the Puritans, whose main goal was to purify their church and build a relationship with God. Getting this Puritan group to establish their own community in the new world was not an easy task. John Winthrop, who was selected as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629, had the task of leading a group of Puritan settlers in creating their own community in New England. He gave his famous speech, “A Modell of Christian Charity,” which was given aboard the Arbella to his fellow travelers. The most famous lines in his speech were, “We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us.”(Doc A) What Winthrop told these new settlers is that the rest of the world is watching them, and that if they were to fail, God would punish all Christians throughout the world. Another example that showed that the New England colonies primary purpose was for religious reasons was in the Articles of Agreement, Springfield, Massachusetts. The article states with its first rule that would model themselves after religious ideas and "walk in all the ways of Christ.”(Doc D) Other colonies like Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island’s main motives were to structure their beliefs on religious principles and equality. The only exception being New Hampshire, who was primarily used for economic gain. They would export things such as fish and wood, which was a huge help.

While the New England colonies focused on religious freedom, the Chesapeake region, which included Virginia, Maryland, the New Jerseys, and Pennsylvania, focused primarily on farming and mining for minerals such as gold and silver. We know that the Chesapeake region was originally for finding gold because of a document from Captain John Smith in 1624. It read, “there is no talk…but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, ship gold...”(Doc F) Since they found very little gold in the area, they resorted to becoming a farming society. Basically the Chesapeake regions that were founded by Englishmen were primarily used for economic growth. The southern reasons around the Chesapeake had very good soil and was great for farming, while the New England colonies were colder and couldn’t harvest as many crops. In 1612, tobacco was introduced and became one of the main crops. Since many people were growing tobacco, it took up a whole lot of the land, which damaged the soil. Because of this, there was a need for more land and population growth. Tobacco also needed a large labor force, which required more indentured servants and African slaves. Some of these tobacco products were sent to England where a lot of the middle class citizens would smoke it. Tobacco was originally introduced to England by the Spanish, but used America as a greater supplier for it. There were still people who did not agree with it because they knew it was bad for them. James I of England said in 1604 that “Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” One of the other main crops that was grown was rice, which was introduced in the Carolina’s and later spread south. The rice plantations also required massive amounts of slave labor. Since most of the Africans knew how to rice farm already, many ships brought thousands of slaves over from Africa.