Eurocentrism Is Quite Simply the Colonizer

American colonies were founded by groups of people who differed greatly in peoples own reasons for leaving England. The Chesapeake region was colonized by those seeking economic opportunity whereas the New England region was colonized by those seeking either to escape religious persecution or establish religious freedom.  One would hardly expect these two very different groups to establish ways of life that were exactly the same.  Moreover, the different geographies of the colonies only made the path that the colonies took more diverse. By 1700s, the New England and Chesapeake colonies exhibited pronounced economic, social and political diversity due to both the differing motives for colonization and the differing geographies of the regions.

Essentially, the New England colonies and the Chesapeake colonies were founded by people with distinctly different motives, the two region’s social, economic, and political developments varied greatly.  The New England colonists were interested in escaping religious persecution and seeking spiritual enlightenment (Doc F).  This indicated that many of the colonist left England in families which varied the number of population in these colonies.  In addition the colonist placed a strong emphasis on education, as evidenced by the 1647 Massachusetts ‘Old Deluder Satan Law’ which mandated that if a town exceeded a certain threshold of families it must start a school (doc A).  Interestingly enough, Massachusetts own experience with religious persecution in England did not necessarily make the colonists tolerant of other religions, as evidenced by the events that led up to the Half-Way Covenant and the Salem witch trials.  Roger Williams, however, founded Rhode Island with the express purpose of religious tolerance, and thus this colony was socially different than other New England colonies due to the different motives of its colonists.  The Chesapeake colonies, however, were founded by colonists who were seeking to escape poverty and the primogeniture laws which limited the opportunities of non-first-born children. This emphasizes that the colonists were mostly comprised of single men, as opposed to the families of New England.

Besides the fact that there were religious different justifications, the colonist had a majorly different aspects of political situations.  With that being said, because the Chesapeake colonists were in search of profit as opposed to spiritual enlightenment, the Chesapeake colonies did not have a strong emphasis on education.  The motive of the colonists greatly differentiated the political structures of the colonies as well.  In addition, Virginia was in fact founded by the Virginia Company which was chartered by James I (Doc D).  This caused the crown to play a much greater role in Virginia’s government from the very beginning.  Although Virginia attempted to have an assembly of elected representatives, which they called the House of Burgesses, it was largely ineffectual and James I revoked the charter of the Virginia Company in 1624.  New England colonists, however, were escaping the crown to begin with and thus held town meetings in which all males with property had voice (Doc H). The Virginian settlers at first dug for gold, but then they turned their work towards producing tobacco. While only the wealthy owned land in Virginia and set up such tobacco plantations, Massachusetts on the other hand, gave everyone a piece of planting ground in convenient proportions which created a monarchy between the colonies.

The differing geographies of the New England and Chesapeake regions also played an important role in causing these regions to develop differently.  The Chesapeake region was very favorable to growing Tobacco.  Tobacco, however, was very land and labor intensive. The head right system gave fifty acres of land to anyone who paid a laborers ship fair.  Many whites came to Virginia because the colonist were promised freedom dues of both land and tobacco seeds to the indentured servant after several years of service.  Furthermore, because tobacco plantations took up huge swaths of land, there was no land left for the indentured servants to receive (Doc C).  This situation prompted Bacon’s Rebellion in 1675, which unintentionally created distrust towards the indentured servants that consequently prompted the West African slave trade in the Chesapeake, especially on Virginian Tobacco farms (Doc G).  In 1670, blacks constituted only 7% of Chesapeake, which by 1750 jumped to 50%, accelerated by the promotion of natural black reproduction by slave owners.  That being said, the geography of the Chesapeake region was favorable to tobacco, the Chesapeake colonies had high populations of slaves which led to slave codes and intergenerational slavery.  The geography of New England, however, was not favorable to tobacco growing.  New England’s economy was therefore based on subsistence farming and was thus more self-reliant, not requiring indentured servitude or slavery.