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What are the differences between the New England and Jamestown colonies in terms of purpose, agriculture, climate, and relationships with natives?
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Jamestown and New England colonies differed in purpose, agriculture, climate, and native relations. Jamestown, founded for commercial gain, struggled initially but thrived with tobacco farming in its warm climate. Native relations were tense, marked by conflicts. New England, settled for religious freedom, had rocky soil and cold climate, focusing on fishing and trade. Early native relations were cooperative, aiding survival, but later conflicts, like King Philip's War, arose as expansion continued.
The first permanent English colony in North America was founded by 104 men in 1607. They landed on a peninsula on the James River and called their colony Jamestown in honor of King James I, who had granted the colony charter to the Virginia Company. Their primary motivation was commercial. They intended to search for deposits of gold and silver and to also find a river passage to the Pacific Ocean to facilitate trade. Neither of these goals was fulfilled, and the first colonists faced many hardships.
Eventually, however, the rich soil and warm climate enabled the Jamestown colony to become profitable through the cultivation of tobacco. Although relations with Native Americans were rough at first, they soon improved, thanks largely to intervention by Chief Powhatan of the Algonquians and his daughter Pocahontas, who married a white settler named John Rolfe.
After the death of Powhatan and Pocahontas, the Algonquians,...
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upset by the rapid expansion of the British colonies, attacked in force, killing up to 400 settlers, or about one quarter of the population. Eventually the colony grew too large for the Native Americans to effectively retaliate.
New England was first settled by a group of 102 Pilgrims who sailed from England on the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in late 1620. In contrast to the settlers of Jamestown, the New England settlers' primary motivation was not commercial but religious.
The Plymouth colony was composed mainly of Pilgrims, who were separatists fleeing the Church of England to find freedom of worship in the New World. Unlike warm and fertile Virginia, New England was much colder, and its soil was relatively rocky and infertile. For these reasons, the New England colonies specialized in occupations such as fishing, shipbuilding, lumbering, and trade.
The New England colonies, and the Plymouth colony in particular, also faced hardships in their early years. Many of the first settlers fell ill and died the first winter due to a disease epidemic that decimated the population. However, the Plymouth colony was fortunate in obtaining the assistance of a Native American named Squanto who joined the colony and served as translator.
Native American assistance helped settlers survive in the early stages of their colony, and early relations with Native Americans were generally amenable. This allowed the colonists to focus on planting what crops would grow, fishing, and hunting.
Later, as the New England colonies continued to expand and prosper, relations with Native Americans became strained. This eventually led to King Philip's War of 1675 and 1676, a bloody conflict that lasted over a year and resulted in the deaths of thousands of colonists and Native Americans.
References
Reasons for settling:
New England: Although throughout the New England colony there would be several different religions which were worshiped, the main motivation for settling in the New World was religious freedom.
Virginia/Jamestown: As the article cited below states, "The investors had one goal in mind: gold." The settlers of Jamestown were not as lucky as the Spanish when they settled in South America; they would need crops to make their money.
Agriculture:
New England: With its rocky climate and short growing season, New England was primarily focused on subsistence agriculture.
Virginia/Jamestown: Eventually, Jamestown realized that the soil they had settled on was suitable for growing subsistence crops and cash crops. The crop that made Virginia successful and eventually very wealthy was tobacco.
Relationship with Native Americans:
New England: Initially, in the Plymouth colony specifically, relations with the natives were cooperative and peaceful. The only reason why these settlers survived was due to the help from natives. Their cooperation culminated in what we now know as Thanksgiving.
Virginia/Jamestown: Essentially, relations with the natives were always tense in Jamestown. The main reason for this was a difference in ideas about the ownership of property, which led to conflict.
References