New England and Chesapeake Colonies

The New England and Chesapeake colonies were both settled by English colonists. Most colonists moving from Great Britain to New England were families searching for religious salvation, rather than mostly the single men that traveled to the Chesapeake area in search of wealth. The immigrants of the Chesapeake area were greeted with a climate and soil that were perfect for cultivating tobacco, cotton, indigo, and rice. Those settling in New England could not rely on farming to support themselves because of the rocky soil in the north. While the majority of the Chesapeake colonists were not as cohesive due to the great distance from farms to these towns, New England had close-knit church events, meetings, and schools. Although, the New England and Chesapeake colonies were both settled by people at English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies because of motives, environment, and towns/communities. The motives for moving to the New World behind the two colonial areas helped shape the differences between the Chesapeake and New England societies. Many of the ships going to the Chesapeake region in the 1600’s consisted of single people, mostly men, in search for wealth, gold, and a better life in the New World. At least one third of the freemen in Virginia in 1673 were single freemen (Doc. G). With the residents of the Chesapeake being mainly single men at this time, it only made sense that their motive behind moving to the New World was to find wealth. They had no responsibilities other than themselves; therefore, the want for wealth would be appealing more so to single men causing the Chesapeake colonies to be a majority of this group of people. On the contrary, most people who migrated to New England did so as a way to find religious freedom. This meant that New England colonies would be inhabited mainly by families and couples who held their religion high as a priority. On a ship’s list of emigrants bound for New England in 1635,