New England and Chesapeake

Both New England and the Chesapeake regions are very distinctive societies. New England includes the Massachusetts Bay Colony and majority of people are Puritans. The New England Puritans are religious; they migrated together in family groups and lived very simple. On the other hand, the Chesapeake colonies are more of the moneymakers that seek for gold and business, such as planting tobacco. While the New Englanders would prosper through their hard work and belief of God, in contrast the Chesapeake colonies prosper through increasing quality of crops and tobacco cultivation.

The New England colony started with an expedition of 1630, with eleven vessels that carried nearly thousands of immigrants. Many which included a minister and his large family, servants, clothiers, as well has husbandman (document B). Many educated persons immigrated to Bay Colony, including John Winthrop, became the colony’s first governor. He believes that he received a calling from God to lead the new religious experiment. Winthrop’s skills helped Massachusetts prosper in fur trading, fishing, and shipbuilding and they became important industries. He believes that God guides us and that everyone has to treat each other with “brotherly affection”. No matter what the situation is, people would “rejoice each other, mourn together, labor and suffer together” (document A). Puritans believed in the doctrine of a calling to do God’s work on earth. It was the “Protestant ethic”, where they spent a serious amount of time committing to work and engaging in worldly pursuits. Most Puritans believe that they had a covenant with God. All the Puritans ever wanted was the freedom the practice their religion.

Most of Chesapeake settlers are single men who emigrated from England, but because of the hit of the diseases, most did not survive (document C). Those men who did survive started their own families, but unfortunately, did not last long. Although diseases and deaths cause a big struggle, still the settlers are hungry for profit. They cultivated the many lands to plant tobacco and shipped out around 1.5 million pounds of tobacco by the 1630s. Because of the enormous production