Differences Between the Bringings of North and South Colonies

        Between 1607 and 1700, the 13 colonies in the North and South began emerging due to different motivational reasons. Over time, the Colonies in New England and Chesapeake Bay developed into two distinct societies differing in some aspects from one another. These distinctions can be made clear when looking at the economical and religious influences put on the foundations for different colonies (1,4,5), different groups of people traveling to the Americas (2,3), and relations between Native Americans and Englishmen (6,7).

        When it came to reasons for finding a colony in North America, The North and South were very different. The North was focused mostly on religion while the South was focused mainly on economy. “A Model of Christian Charity” emphasizes the Puritans desires to break away from the impurities of the Church of England and discover their own land where they can freely embrace their ideas without prosecution. John Winthrop’s purpose was to make clear his goal for the new colony, which was to be a colony that other people could look up to and admire as it was meant to be a place of pure and holy worship for the Puritans. In the “Articles of Agreement”, Springfield, Massachusetts shows its devotion to God by establishing certain orders that must be followed in order to walk in God’s grace as soon as possible. This not only shows immediate establishment of a religious fever that the founding townspeople were enveloped in, but the strong sense of religious duty that the colonists felt they had when they set out to establish the New England colonies. While New England was more focused on religious freedom, the Southern colonies were more worried about making a fortune than anything else. John Smith depicts the workers in early Virginia as servants and laborers risking their lives for gold that, in the end, was not even there to begin with. This strong appeal for gold led to the southern colonies eventually focusing on the production and exportation of Tobacco since gold was scarce. Smith described a place with no real purpose except to make money, and in “History of Virginia” this is made evident with the examples of workers dying when they focused more on finding gold than their health. This distinction led to two different societies emerging based on their purpose for establishing a home in the New World. A society revolving around religion developed in the North while a society based on economy established in the South.

        While travel to the Americas was an option for some Englishmen, who they brought with them also differed between the North and the South. “The Ship’s List of Emigrants Bound for New England” shows that People traveling to New England usually moved in groups of families. These families were made up of usually men and women, so there was not a large disparity between them. This List further proves that by providing two families that traveled to New England comprised of both men and women. On the contrary, the South was made up of colonists consisting of mainly men. The “Ship’s List of Emmigrants Bound for Virginia” depicts this large difference between men to women with its list comprising mainly of men. The women make up a small portion of the list, supporting that men were the majority of the colonists in the South. The difference in ratios of men to women between the North and South led to their lifestyles being different from one another when it came to the role of women in society. In the North, the women had fewer rights due to the belief that women to should be considered less than man. However, in the South, due to the small number of women, they enjoyed a few more freedoms than those living in the North. Women who married could have had the chance to own their own property if their husbands died. The difference in ratios also lead to societies in the North increasing naturally through birth, while population increases in the South were due to new immigrants since there were few women to give birth and high death rates. Women were treated differently based on the society they lived in during the colonization process.