Most the New England colonies took religion very seriously. One of the most extreme was the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The puritans came to America to flee from the growing feud with the Anglican Church. They had strict rules to obey the puritan religion otherwise facing the penalty of being fined, banished, whipped or even imprisoned. Also in Massachusetts, in order to take part in office it was required to follow the puritan faith.
Englishmen saw the Chesapeake as a place to make profit. Despite originating from the same area, New England and the Chesapeake evolved into two distinct societies at two different rates. Although New England and the Chesapeake regions were settled largely by people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies due to demographic, motivational, political, and geographical differences. From the beginning New England and Chesapeake settlers started off creating their colonies disparately. Unlike Puritans of New England, settlers destined for the Chesapeake region migrated individually.
The Colonies by 1763- A New Society? Between the settlement at Jamestown in 1607 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the most important change that occurred in the colonies was the extension of British ideals far beyond the practice in England itself. The Americans were different from the expectations of Great Britain due to various dissimilarities between itself and the colonies. As time passed, the lack of major influence of English on the thirteen colonies due to the great distance between them, lead to many changes that helped the colonies get established under their own influence and soon develop their own identities. Every colony was different in a certain way and the people considered themselves as the citizens of their colonies, instead of the mother country.
Unlike New England, the Chesapeake region developed a society that was not primarily dependent on religion; most of these people came to America to seek economic prosperity. From the beginning, New England and the Chesapeake region were deviating, which was caused mostly by the fact that settlers developed a society around different goals– that is developing a religious, communal society in New England and seeking gold or cultivating crops for economic prosperity in Chesapeake; in addition, different climate and response to economic gap also contributed to the regions’ differences. New England maintained a strong, communal identity while the Chesapeake remained widely scattered. When New England settlers first arrived, they had strong ties to religion. John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, emphasized in his sermon that they were to be “a city upon a hill”, where everyone can see them and can be represented as a model Christian community (Doc A), which would also shame England into truly reforming the Church of England.
The community lived under a strict code where pleasure is not allowed as people were expected to put all their heart out for the Lord while working hard to gain the Lord’s approval. Developed as a colony with the purpose of trade and as an enrichment of the motherland, the Puritans held their religious beliefs before anything. As John Higginson reminded the community that “ […]this is never to be forgotten that New England is originally a plantation of Religion, not a Plantation of Trade.” (J). The puritans built their economy off of trade and through acquiring land from the Native Indians through violence. Such actions were defended by the explanation that they were obligated to defend this land, this land that god has granted them for (D).
He hoped his colony would serve as a model for all other societies. He wanted the society to be a very tight knit community, always keeping God at the center. Everyone should “rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together,” to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. He didn’t want religious faith forced on anyone, but for it to happen naturally by the hope and faith of the people themselves. Winthrop refers to them as a “city on a hill”, meaning that they will be unable to hide their failures from anyone.
Proprietors of the companies that sponsored American colonies quickly realized that settlers were needed if their investments were to show a return, and their efforts to recruit settlers made the New World appear far more attractive than conditions warranted. Essay According to Smith (1986) in the broadest sense the American colonial experience was not unique in history. Following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, the European nations primarily Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France, and England all set out to build colonial empires based on certain assumptions:
They also appointed officials. These meetings molded the political structure of the colonies, and even Thomas Jefferson stated, was “the best school of political liberty the world ever saw.” Not only did the Puritans influence the colonies politically, they also influenced them economically. The Puritans were hard workers. They believed that only prosperity and success could be achieved through piety and hard work. The Puritans worked mostly on farms and traded their goods for other goods that they could not produce themselves.
In the 1700s, Europeans saw numerous opportunities in the New World. They envisioned the colonization as a chance for them to live a free and prosperous life, but, in reality, the American colonists faced many setbacks. The tension between Great Britain and the New England colonies led to American Revolution. In Transcript of Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson acknowledged how the act of force was a rational option in order to obtain liberty from Great Britain; however, in The Rise and Fall of the Newburgh Conspiracy, George Marshall depicted how there is a more reasonable alternative to resolving problems within the new independent country. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson explained how governments should not be overthrown for petty reasons, but he believed the King of Great Britain had taken the situation too far.
During the American Revolution, our founding fathers were of different religions like Quakers, Methodists, Baptists and other religions. This could have been a problem but their desire for democracy outweighed the religious differences. Each religion could see that in our new democracy that their religious leaders’ voices were being heard. I think that this was an important part of country being united in our desire to be free. Many of the new colonies were settled people who faced religious persecution for their beliefs in England.