Compare And Contrast New England And Chesapeake Colonies

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The New England and Chesapeake colonies were similar because they both had institutions of self government and they viewed the natives as inferior due in part to their English heritage. At the same time, they were different because the New England colonies settled in the cold, dry North and the Chesapeake colonies settled in the warm, moist, south east which impacted whether they became a yeomen or cash crop society and economy. They were also different in their motivation because the Chesapeake were motivated by the opportunities of wealth while the New England colonies were motivated to create a bible commonwealth separate from the Anglican and Catholic Churches. Therefore, the Chesapeake and New England colonies were more different than …show more content…
Both colonies shared similar beliefs about the natives because of their English descent. The English viewed the natives as inferior because they were not white or Christian, and because they believed that their rituals were ludicrous. In Virginia, the Powhatan uprising of 1622 killed 347 English settlers. The Powhatan were fed up with the English exploiting their lands and treating them with no respect after they helped the settlers out of the starving time crisis. The English retaliated though, and killed any native on sight. Up North in the Massachusetts Bay colony, similar events were occurring. The Puritans believed that they were God's chosen people, and that God was killing the natives to allow the Puritans to expand their commercial property. This sparked the Peqout war in 1636 and the Metacom rebellion in 1675. The Peqout people, fed up with the Puritan brutality, attacked many English farmers that had expanded onto their lands in the Connecticut River Valley. The English struck back by massacring over 500 Pequot men, women, and children. The Metacom rebellion was inspired by the discrimination the natives endured by the Puritans. Metacom, leader of the Wampanoagas, allied with other native tribes and destroyed over twenty percent of English settlements and killed over 1,000 English settlers throughout the New England …show more content…
The area allowed for cash crops such as tobacco, rice and indigo, to flourish on rural, plantation farms. The Chesapeake's economy boomed with profit from these trade industries. After Bacon's rebellion and the drop in price of tobacco, the Southern colonies made the switch from an indentured servitude society to a chattel slavery society because the labor was cheaper and longterm. Chattel slavery became a huge part of Southern society to the point where both terms are intertwined in American history. The New England colonies did not have a similar history because the geography in the North is hilly with dry soil and a cold climate. The dry soil made the land not suitable for cash crops, but the heavily wooded forests and the abundance of animals allowed them to establish successful shipping and fur trade industries. Yeomen farmers also owned small individual farms and lived in compact towns that eventually grew into large cities where the industries grew. In all, the colonies became vastly different due to the differences in geography because the Chesapeake colonies grew into rural, chattel slavery dominated, and cash-crop driven while the New England colonies grew to become compact cities flourished by the shipping and trade