Essay, Research Paper: New England Vs. Chesapeake Circa 1700

The two English societies of the New England and Chesapeake region evolved differently in the 1700 s because of their separate motives for coming, their ideas on a basis of a community, and their geography. Each one of these factors made these two primarily English regions into two completely different societies. The people who came and formed New England came for religious purposes. Invading by ships, families, armed with bibles and the hope of religious freedom, came and settled the northern part of the new land. The people who formed the Chesapeake came to make money. The fertile land in the Chesapeake provided new farmers perfect conditions to produce the cash crop tobacco. These new societies contained the same people with different ideals.
The people to be known as New Englanders, fled from their religiously oppressive home land and looked to practice their beliefs freely in the New World. This new breed of religious reforming men and women called themselves Puritans. The Puritans wanted a world where they may uphold their beliefs and work for the good of man. As seen in Document D and A, the Puritans set forth articles that would outline the basis of daily life in the community. They agreed to set up a small farming community where each one of the forty families would have a plot of land to do with as the family and the community saw fit. The Puritans wanted to be an example on how to live a life of God. In time their plan was to be a model community or " a city upon a hill" preaching to other settlers on how to lead their lives the way God saw fit. The Puritans came to the New World because they wanted to be religiously free from England while creating a government based solely on their Puritan beliefs.
The people that immigrated to the Chesapeake Bay area came for one thing, money. These people saw the fertile land that the area supplied and the demand for the "Jovial Weed", tobacco, could be a very lucrative combination. Settlers then came over from England to acquire land, so they could plant and harvest tobacco with the intent of getting rich quick. The demand for tobacco in England was constantly rising due it addictive properties. The problem was harvesting tobacco was a very labor intensive job. With for incessant demand for tobacco back home the farmers needed a way to harvest the weed with utmost efficiency. The farmers called for indentured servants, people who in exchange for passage and land would work for a certain amount of years on the plantation. This solved the problem of the harvesting of tobacco and thus the Chesapeake region grew.
The Puritans who came over to New England came over as families. The Puritans would set up close knit communities that stressed the value of God and family. As seen in Document B, the Puritans came over as families. They wanted to form a community based around the church, Document D. The Puritans were trying to act as overseer s of The Lord. They convinced themselves that they were curing the injustice of man by converting those who were not pure. The Puritans believed that the good of the community came first and then the individual need came.
The way the Chesapeake region was set up was large tobacco plantations set up sporadically across the land. This setup would have affected the development of a community. A community would not have been in the interest of the farmer for optimal tobacco production. The farms were arranged so that neighboring farmers were miles away from each other. This society was more individual than the communal New England.
The Chesapeake region was set up in the southern half of the country. This region is used to hot weather and a plenitude of swamps and marshes. These conditions are perfect for the mosquito. This mosquito carried the fatal disease malaria to the farmers in the south. The farmers and servants then would die of the disease and the population would "thin out". The geography of the Chesapeake area allowed malaria outbreaks and because of this the south s population was forced by this disease to stay away from their neighbors. This then changes the way the Chesapeake can operate. The Chesapeake region can not develop the communities like the ones in New England because the New England geography is not hospitable to mosquitoes.
These two predominantly English colonies developed these two very different societies because of these reasons: their motives for coming, their ideas on a basis of a community, and their differing geography. As time has worn on and the country has grown we see that the entire country is like this. One Thousand little countries sharing one land.