Apush New England & Chesapeake Region

Anjali Bhakta
APUSH New England & Chesapeake Region
Behrend. 2nd hour
July 31, 2012

New England and the Chesapeake Bay had both evolved into two distinct societies because of their physical and religious differences. Both of these areas had started off equally (population wise, etc.), everyone had equal rights and settling in many different areas of the region. New England started to look towards religious ways to live, while people in the Chesapeake Region started to reply on money and crops, along with goods and raw materials that were being traded back and forth. As settlement spread, the people of the many regions began to adapt themselves to their surroundings. Some of these settlements involved many explorers in search of new land. There were many reason to why the Europeans had started to look westward. Before explorers found site of the America’s commerce and nationalism were two important and related changes that provided the first incentive for many Europeans to look towards new land (Brinkley, pg.9). There also happened to be a person in search of new land, not for settlement, but in dream of establishing a Christian Empire and in search of gold. This person is known as Prince Henry the Navigator. Although, the only reason he planned on establishing an empire in the western coast of Africa; only to receive aid when his country goes to war. But before Prince Henry could achieve his goal, he died.
There also happened to be another person who wanted to make a permanent religion change. This man happened to be Pope Innocent VIII, who happened to be in charge of the Catholic Church. In the year or 1486, Pope Innocent VIII had signed a treaty with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that Catholicism would be the only region of the new territories. After this was decided; it became a mission to convert all natives into Catholics (Brinkley, pg.15-16). Soon enough the religion was spread throughout New England. Once all natives and the Spaniards spread out the religious views, everyone had been converted to Catholics. In the year of 1565, the Spanish Fort was established in St. Augustine, Florida. Though in 1680, the colony was close to being destroyed when the Pueblos grew in revolt due to the religious widespread, though most of the natives continued to practice their own religion. Then came the year of 1492, the year that Christopher Columbus appealed to Isabella of Spain to support his voyage. On his way back to Spain, Columbus had captured a couple of natives and brought them back to Spain with him; only to have them as evidence for his achievement on his voyage. While in the Americas, the Natives were unguarded by the many diseases brought by the Europeans. Most of these diseases were known to be influenza, measles, chicken pox, mumps, typhus and small pox. Due to these diseases millions had died.
In the Chesapeake Region, year of 1608, a young man named John Smith had been chosen to become president of the council. He started to impose both work and community onto the communities. Soon enough, Smith has started to send many people on raids in the villages where the natives were located to steal food and kidnap the Native Americans. Then came the starving time in the years of 1609-1610, this winter was known to be one of the most coldest period. The Europeans had to survive off of whatever food they could find, such as dogs, cats, rats, snakes and many more (Brinkley, pg.35). At the end of the starving time only 60 people were survivors of this harsh period. Soon enough new settlements had started to appear both above and below Jamestown. This had occurred because the colonists of the Chesapeake region had discovered a very marketable and high priced crop, the tobacco plan. The tobacco plant had become common after Columbus has returned from his first voyage near the West Indies. Soon by the early seventeenth century; the tobacco from the Spanish colonies was being used by everyone in Europe (Brinkley, pg.35). However, tobacco was also found to be a very dangerous and poisonous as well, it was also told that it could cause many unknown diseases. In the year of 1612, a planter in Jamestown who goes by the name of John Rolfe started to experiment with the tobacco plant; as a result he produced tobacco crops of high quality and people in England quickly started to purchase the tobacco crop as well.