American History

Earlier before America has its independence, colonies from Europe, such as Spain, British, and French, set foot on America for many reasons such as settlement, religion expansion, wealth, etc. Two famous British colonies that also found their way in America were Virginia and New England. Virginia, the famous colony of Jamestown was the first British colony that found its way in the New World, America. This first colony was soon followed by other colonies, and one of them is the Puritan that settled in New England. Although both colonies were originally from England, the two colonies were different in many ways. Those differences can be found in the structure, shape, birthrate, mortality, and so on. There were many factors that caused the major differences between these two colonies. Those factors are the social, economic, and religious factors in England during their time of colonization.

Changes in economic was one reason for English colonization in Virginia. During the 17th century, England countered economic depressions that caused widespread poverty throughout England. As landowners shifted from growing crops to raising sheep, many far workers lost their lands and migrated to English cities (Carroll, 53). This situation led many people, especially those who suffer most from the economic depression, to seek for a better life, an opportunity to improve their economy life. And colonization oversea seemed to be just the perfect prospect. As the intention was to seek betterment, around the 17th century, most immigrants to Jamestown were young adults without properties whose primary asset was their ability to work (Carroll, 56). The group was a mix of upper and lower class, who seek for new wealth and to gain financial betterment respectively. It shows that the primary reason for Virginia colonization at Jamestown was to pursuit wealth.

As most of the colonists leaving for Jamestown in search of wealth, most of them did not bring their family with them. It shows that the colonists came to Jamestown in hopes to gain wealth and back to their mother country rather than to build a new life on the New World. This caused low birthrate among the Virginia colonists of Jamestown. Hungers of gold among the Virginia colonists caused the "male colonists paid less attention to planting fields and more to raiding native-grown crops"( Carroll, 54). Little intention to cooperate with the Native, and also no interest in paying more attention to agriculture, these were reasons for the earlier high death rate among the Virginia colonists. With low birthrate and high death rate, Jamestown was near to its extinction.

As the tobacco grew popular in England, the demand for tobacco started to increased. The increase in tobacco demand brought revenue to the Virginia Company's investors. This caused the English commercial investors to continue view Virginia as site for colonial development. The high demand for tobacco production also increase the need of labors, propertyless Englishmen started to grew larger in Virginia. Thus shows how Englishmen view Virginia as the land of opportunity for the poor. It's also the land of opportunity for the lower class to gain social mobility that they couldn't get in the mother country.

Having had no problems between the Virginia colonists and the Church of England, the Virginia colonist built the Church of England. Also, having its base in London, the bond between Virginia and the mother country remained close. But with no intention to settle, no church and schools were built at the beginning of the settlement in Virginia. Colonization in Jamestown required great mobility. Preferring to obtain new lands rather than to fertilize the old one, the colony expanded pretty quickly along the rivers. The mobility of the colonists was one reason why there were no schools and churches found in Virginia. The continuity in expanding their lands also caused many conflicts between the colonists of Jamestown with the Native Americans.

Unlike the Virginia colonists whose main motivation was economic expansion, "the founders of New England migrated to America to build stable communities" (Carroll, 58). As tension built up between the Church of England and those who viewed that the Church of England was still too Roman Catholic, Puritanism arose within the Church of England. Some puritans believe that the Church of England was beyond redemption. They were called Separatists. The separatists, pilgrims, left Europe to escape the Church of England's corruption. The non-Separatists,