New England and Chesapeake Relations
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New England and Chesapeake relations
Even though the New England and Chesapeake areas were both established by the English, in the 1700s these regions formed into two different societies. This difference in development occurred because of the different intentions and cultures of the English as they came to the New World.
The founding of the Chesapeake society all began in 1606 with the creation of the Virginia Company in order to give the English colonies the same rights as their fellow Englishmen in Europe. As a result, the Virginia Company sailed to Chesapeake Bay where they were attacked by Indians and in 1607; their tumultuous relationship with the natives caused the Anglo- Powhatan wars, which killed most of the Powhatan population in the James River areas due to the subjection to European diseases such as Malaria and smallpox. Apart from disease, many of the English explorers in the Chesapeake regions were indentured servants who provided labor to farm the land in order to produce the staple crop, tobacco. This staple crop helped Virginia develop as a Colony with continuous economic resources and fortunes. Chesapeake colonies were based on wealth and competition within their own communities. Many Southern plantation owners deeply depended on slave labor to keep cash crops such as tobacco and sugar cane thriving. On the other hand, the New England colonies were made up of the middle class society in which they were passionate about education, religion, and family. The Southern colonies therefore had more of an Aristocratic society because they were more about prosperity and supremacy unlike the New England colonies who had a more structural and humble society. Apart from the lifestyles of these societies, their regions had some differences also. For example, due to the marshy region of the Chesapeake colonies, their landscape was not a part of their towns unlike the northern colonies.