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Chesapeake And New England Colonies Essay

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A community is a group of people who work together towards a common goal and share a common interest. Lack of such a quality can and most likely will cause a struggling town or city to fall into the extremes of poverty and wealth. The New England community was so strong and so supportive in comparison to that of the Chesapeake Bay, that it is no wonder they developed into two distinctly different cultures before the year 1700. The Chesapeake region developed into a land of plantations and money-driven owners, with the elite wealthy, almost no middle class, and those in poverty creating the population. New England, on the other hand, had developed into a religion and family based society comprised of mostly middle class families by 1700. …show more content…

The motives that drove the Pilgrims and Puritans away from anything familiar and the trust they placed in God only proved that they were going to make their life in the new world work, no matter what. Not everyone in England was facing a harsh persecution; many travelers came to the New World with high hopes of money, which led to numerous conflicts. It was a land for the rich to get richer. Most of the settlers bound for Virginia and the Southern colonies had a "get rich or die trying" type of attitude. The only thing tearing them from home was a flimsy promise of gold that may or may not be there. The motive of such people is so radically different. There were no pacts of agreement, no common laws that kept them in a community once landing. This led the men to never develop any sense of belonging with their fellow men, causing a distinct survival society by 1700. Every man was for himself. It was a bitter game displaying the survival of the richest.
The travelers from England that headed for the Chesapeake Bay were predominantly men, which led to an unbalanced society and lack of wives to promote a family-based culture. The passenger list for one boat had a sex ratio of sixty-four men to eleven women. Not only was there a radical imbalance, only four of the men were above forty, while only eight total were above thirty (Doc. C). That left fifty-six young males headed to a new land with only their self-government of a House

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