English Vs. Spanish/French
AP US History
English Vs. Spanish colonizers
The original settlers in New England and the Chesapeake area were similar in many ways, but by the early 1700s the two regions were quite different. The prime motivation in the Chesapeake area was gaining material wealth and in New England Puritanism was central to their lives. Another distinction is the ratio of males to females and its effects on domestic affairs; the Chesapeake had every few women whereas New England had a stable amount of women able to produce large families. A third notable shift is the growing gap between the have and the have-nots in the Chesapeake. New England did not have such an obvious hierarchy.
The English Puritans that ventured into the Bay colonies were not seeking to become wealthy, they were already fairly prosperous and educated. Their main reason for fleeing Henry the Eighth was to practice Puritanism, a branch of Calvinism, freely with interference of the newly establish official church of Anglicanism. John Winthrop, an influential theologian whom founded Connecticut, makes this clear in a speech entitled A Model of Christian Charity(document A) he thought up while sailing to the colonies from England. He writes;
We must knit together as one man
A city upon a hill, with the eyes of all people upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work
and cause him to withdraw his presence
we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.'
It is clear that the original Puritans had no intention of deviating from Winthrop's words as shown in Document E, a wage and price Regulation in Connecticut, 1676. It states that all prices and wages were to be set at each of the General Courts annually and that neighbors do not enrich themselves by impoverishing others. This is a stark contrast to the attitudes of Virginians of this era, whereas the colony was founded by a company to generate capital in the first place. Captain...
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