The Early American
Colonies
We have been one nation for so long that
it is hard to imagine a major difference between the thirteen original colonies.
After all a quick glance at a map of these thirteen original colonies will tell
you that they all where established along the East Coast and where most
generally located on a river or body of water. What is strange about this is
just how different each of these separate areas of settlement turned out to be.
After all they where located relatively close to one another and should have had
adequate communication available to them by the numerous water channels close at
hand. So why was there such a huge difference in the way that they developed?
The two most contrasting of these would have to be the
Puritans
and other
religious groups that chose to settle in the New England region, and the
colonies founded for profit in the Chesapeake Bay region. If you look closely at
these two concentrations of people you will see that they have great differences
in their religion, government, family, economics and the very geography that
they where established in. These differences coupled with a very different
reason for journeying to the New World helped to form two very unique cultures
that exist to some extent today.
One of the major differences between the
colonies of the Chesapeake Bay region and the New England colonies is in their
view on religion. The very reason that the Pilgrims journeyed to this new land
was to escape religious persecution and set up a haven for people of their
faith. In contrast the colonies of the Chesapeake Bay region where established
by people who where looking for fame and fortune rather than spiritual
enlightenment. This fundamental difference is one of the major reasons that
these colonies developed so differently. People in the New England colonies
generally knew their neighbors because they worked and prayed with them. In a
Chesapeake region so dependent on the cash crop of tobacco, plantations served
to separate the people and slow the process of socialization. Although church
attendance was required in both the New England colonies and some of the
Chesapeake Bay colonies it was enforced for much different reasons. The New
England colonists where very concerned with education and spirituality while
generally those colonists in the Chesapeake Bay colony where forced to attend
church only as a tool to suppress crime among the youth. As a result religion
developed quite different in both the New England colonies and the Chesapeake
Bay colonies, they would have a dramatic affect on the shaping of the culture of
each region.
Although all of the colonies where under the control of the
English King governmental systems where still required to maintain some control
over the people. The forms of government used by those people in the Chesapeake
Bay region and those in the New England colonies where quite different. In the
Chesapeake colonies government was still practiced much as it had been in Europe
for centuries. This is because of the importance of land to an economy so
dependent on the cash crop. The men that held all of the land therefore would
have most of the political power. This was not the case in the New England
colonies; many people owned land and the ideals of the founders of these
colonies shown through in how they regulated themselves. The Pilgrims in fact
introduced a form of democracy to the New World as soon as they set foot off of
the Mayflower. They did this in the form of the “Mayflower compact” which set
the precedent for democratic government in the New World by binding all to
conform to the majority. So also in their form of government we see a vast
difference, the Chesapeake colonies where controlled mostly by wealthy
landowners while the New England colonies regularly held town meetings. In
addition these governments had different goals the Chesapeake governments where
established to collect taxes and make sure that the wealthy stayed wealthy. The
governments in New England in general where started for the good of the people
and worked toward a common goal.
No where can we find the characteristics of
a culture more fully on display than in the family. The Chesapeake colonies
suffered in this from the beginning as there where very few women or children
with them to begin with. The absence of families did not help those people in
the Chesapeake region establish very strong traditions regarding family. As in
government the family practices in the Chesapeake region followed the original
European pattern. The New England colonies had strong family traditions from the
moment that they stepped off of their ship. This tradition only strengthened as
they adapted to life in the New World. As in all things the New England
colonists where influenced greatly in their family conduct by their religion.
While values and traditions where quite different between the colonies of
Chesapeake Bay and New England, there marked differences do not stop there. The
cold hard facts of economics played very much into the development of each set
of colonies into what they would become by the revolutionary war. The Chesapeake
Bay colonies having found that they could grow large quantities of Tobacco and
at great profit invested most of their land in the growing of these cash crops.
The plantation ruled at this point in history and large amounts of cheap slave
labor where required to run these vast plantations. In contrast the New England
colonies where unable to grow these cash crops and so settled mostly in small
farms as opposed to huge plantations. Natural resources where abundant however
and the colonists used this to their advantage. This huge supply of natural
resources, particularly timber helped to establish several New England cities as
trade centers for the New World. A large part of the New England economy
depended on this trade. However both the Chesapeake colonies and those in New
England had to import the majority of their finished products from Europe, this
was to be one of the common threads that pulled the colonies together during the
revolutionary war. Nevertheless the economies of the New England colonies and
the Chesapeake Bay colonies where drastically different in their early days.
Perhaps the most basic difference between the two regions does not lie with
the people but rather the land that they inhabited. There can be no question
that the land occupied by each of these colonies is quite different. The
Chesapeake Bay colonies where situated in a climate very favorable to the
harvest of tobacco. While in New England the soil tended to be rocky and
suitable only for smaller farms. The entire land was rich with unused natural
resources at this time, the difference is that the colonists in the New England
colonies took the greatest advantage of this.
While there are undoubtedly a
number of similarities between the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England
colonies their original purposes for being here set them on different paths from
the moment that they set foot in the New World. It should also be said that not
only the people’s disposition has an affect on the direction of the society, you
must also take into account the geography of the region. The differences between
the Chesapeake colonies and the New England colonies are numerous and varied.
However if all of the colonies established in the new world had the same culture
it is far less likely that our ancestors would have been as successful in their
bid to change the way civilization operates. They accomplished this with the
American Revolution, which relied heavily on different characteristics from each
of the thirteen colonies and has been more than successful in blending the very
different values and beliefs of the Chesapeake Bay colonies and the New England
colonies.
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