Colonial History Essay Example

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed on to what we know as the Dominican Republic. The first group of natives Columbus came in contact with were the Taino people. Columbus was an Italian man who received money from Spain and voyaged west to find a faster route Asia but he found the new world. One hundred and fifteen years later the English at created their first colony, known as Jamestown. In the British colonies, they all have a few similarities and differences in their economies, major colonies, and religions.

British colonies

In the British colonies, they all desired their economies and how they can profit on their lands in the new world. In the New England and Middle Colonies, they had a much more diverse economy containing many different jobs and workforces. The northern colonies had hard, rocky soil, which made them not have their industry depend on farming. The northern colonies’ economy was based on jobs such as fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, lumber, and farming. While the northern economy is very diverse in the jobs they have, the southern colonies economy is based on lucrative cash crops.

Tobacco, indigo, and rice were all considered cash crops during the time in which they made the most money once they were shipped and sold back to England. Cash crops are labor-intensive crops and were grown on massive farms called plantations. Because the southern economy was based on slaves doing labor-intensive farming, it leads to the growth of the slave trade from Africa to the colonies. For northern and southern economies even though they were very different they were also similar in their desire to make money any way possible, along with they both had farming even though it was two different types of farming. 

Northern colonies

In the northern colonies, they were not as much based on their economies as they were in the south. In the northern colonies, they had many different types of religions from the Puritans to Quakers who all believed in different things. But one similar thing though the British northern colonies was that they were almost all created around a religion besides Rhode Island which was religious free. The society in the northern colonies changed from each colony. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the colonists were taking the land from the natives without asking and fighting the natives for the land in hard-fought, deadly battles. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony if the Puritans skipped church on Sunday they would have been locked in the center of the town square in the stocks. But in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they had diversified jobs such as fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, lumber, and farming, which all played a key role in the economy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Another northern colony which is known as Pennsylvania is also founded by a religious group known as the Quakers. The Quakers paid the natives for their lands, but they also still let them stay with them after they bought the lands. The Quakers were also much more tolerant and accepting of women. The Quakers, let women have a slight part to do with the mass. Religion was the base of the northern colonies in which it ruled how the way people lived and every part of the followers daily lives along with everyone else in the colony. Pennsylvania had a simpler economy and way of life which depended on living with the natives and learning how to hunt for furs and food along with fish for food.  Unlike the north, the south was not based on religion, but was based on farming and making money.

The government or Statehouse in Virginia was the House of Burgesses, they created all the laws and rules in Virginia. The southern colonies such as Virginia at some point were two-thirds slaves and only one-third of the colonies people were considered real people or citizens of the colony. The southern colonies were dominated by slaves since their main goal in life was to make as much money as possible off of the cash crops. The labor-intensive cash crops called for the demand of slaves and were the reason were the main reason in the slave trade in the south. Some similarities between the three colonies are that they were being persecuted in England so they made their new colonies. Also, though they were not driven by the same ideas and reasons, they were all driven and motivated to survive in the new world if its for money or religion.

The Anglican Church is the Church of England that the pilgrims, Quakers, and puritans were all fleeing from. The Puritans settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and were governed by John Winthrop. The Puritans fled because they wanted to purify the Anglican Church from its ties to the Roman Catholic church in Rome. The Puritans ran from persecution, but once in the new world started persecuting its people in their colony if they did not have the same beliefs. The Puritans became what they were fleeing from. The Puritans had strict set religious rules and laws that contained that believers could not interpret the Bible on their own and had to come to church or a priest to read and interpret the Bible.

The Puritans also only had white men in their masses and working in the Church. The Sunday masses were extremely important to them and if anyone missed they ended up in the stocks being humiliated. The second Religion is the Quakers. The Quakers were led by William Penn, who received a land grant from the King of England at the time. The Quakers were non violent and did believe in fighting the natives Americans. The Quakers instead bought the land and lived with the natives on the land so they could learn how to hunt, fish, and farm best by the natives.

The Quakers were religiously tolerant and accepted everyone into their church, even women to help out even if someone were a different religion and need a safe place of the colony to be in. The southern religion was not regular but instead a desire to make money off their cash crops. The south believed in making money and worshipping money. The southerner had one goal to make money any way possible with cash crops either using indentured servants but mostly slaves. Even though the south did not have a specific religion they were shipped money and the process of making money as if it were a religion. The similarities between the Quakers, Puritans, and southerners is that their religion or worshiping of money is the reason they were driven to the new world to make a new life and being something they were not in England. 

In conclusion, the north and south had very different economies in which the north was diversified while the south relied on cash crops as their main source of income. The major colonies were all created by someone or a group of people who had fled persecution and while the northern colonies had their religions the southern colonies had their desire for money which both were driven by. In the north, they worshipped different religions like the Quakers or the Puritans, but in the south, they were shipped the desire for money and wealth.  In the British colonies, they all have a few similarities and differences in their economies, major colonies, and religions.