Colonial Inhabitants of New England and Chesepeake Region

The Puritans, who were the main inhabitants of New England, found their community largely centered on religious beliefs. The Chesapeake region was also settled by English immigrants, some of whom were Puritans, but the foundation of their community was mostly based on making money for the charter companies. These two drastically different substructures, one based on economic prosperity and one founded on religious beliefs would eventually splinter the once similar communities into two starkly different areas in the new world.

The Puritans of New England such as John Winthrop believed in the development of a society that would include rich and poor, but everyone would help each other to better the community and themselves. Winthrop stated in his famous City Upon a Hill speech that they would mature into a society that would be looked upon by others as an aspiring community. The plan for the New England colony can bee seen clearly in the List of Emigrants bound for New England document that lists the first person as a minister, reiterating that their colony would be established on religious ideals. Also on this list, it can be noticed that families came to the new world with servants as well as clothiers and tailors. Each person that emigrated from England to form this new colony was seen as playing a vital role in their respective social classes that created a hierarchy throughout the colony; this hierarchy helped shape the perception of a community.

The Chesapeake region was formed by the Virginia Company which was chartered by the King of England in hopes of instituting a colony that would find gold or economic prosperity. Unlike the organization of the New England colony, The Chesapeake region experienced a large gap at the center of their social classes. In this region, there were the rich and the poor; this was largely in part of the dependency on slavery that this region showed. Without money, you couldn’t buy slaves, without slaves, cash crops couldn’t be planted or harvested, and without the production and exportation of cash crops, farmers would never establish a financial support for themselves. The lack of community can be observed in the List of Emigrants Bound for Virginia in which almost all male passengers were young able bodied slaves and the women were single and sent to find companionship with the predominantly male colonists in the Chesapeake Region.

The importance of a community was not fully realized by the Chesapeake Colonies until it was too late to change anything. Being based on slavery and money, these