Motivations_for_English_Colonies_(Dbq)

Motivations for the English Colonies Growth of English colonial settlements in North America, between 1607 and 1630 was greatly influenced by the then current state of English society. This being the need for economic means increased starting in 1607, in rivalry to the growth of the Spanish colonies in South America. Similarly, religious freedom was a much sought after commodity by the Puritans and Separatists of England, and would lead colonization of Massachusetts. Colonization of North America by inhabitants of England between 1607 and 1630 was influenced greatly by the search for religious freedom and the search for economic growth. Beginning in 1607, the Virginia Company of London, a joint-stock company, sent over approximately a hundred men to what would later become the state of Virginia, under a charter given by King James I of England. Jamestown, named for the king, was established in the hope of finding gold in the New World, and possibly finding a route to the East Indies. After little success with finding gold, and having most of the men die, twelve-hundred men out of eight-thousand who had sailed, the Virginia Company was at a loss as to what to do with the men. In 1612, a man named John Rolfe came to Virginia with a revolutionary idea for tobacco. Rolfe had discovered a way to perfect crop, by curing and thus eliminating the bitter tang. Tobacco would then become the yellow-leaved cash crop, appearing all throughout the Jamestown area. Europeans had a high demand for the product, and despite it torturous affects on the soil, the New World was the perfect planters pot. With this increase in economy, immigration would rise high throughout Virginia, enough so that in 1619 the Virginia Company would permit a self government, known as the House of Burgesses. As a result of this, King James would eventually revoke the charter, thus making a Virginia a royal colony. Yet, it cannot be denied that the stems of the future of the United States of America had begun with one simple concept: gold. A year after the entail settling in the south, a group of Puritans would travel to upper North America. In 1608, due to the shrewd rule of King James I, a religious group known as the Separatists made a voyage across. These a hundred and two people, better known as the pilgrims, arrived off the coast of New England in Plymouth Bay, on a ship called the Mayflower, which was captained by Myles Standish. The provoking factor in this settlement was how King James I disagreed with the religious ways of a group called Puritans, more precisely, the extremist views of the Separatists which had entirely removed themselves from the Church of England. Figuring that if the people could not respect him as religious leader, they would eventually be unable to support as a monarch, and King James threatened to remove the Separatists from England. Later, in 1629, a group of non-Separatist Puritans would arrive in Massachusetts Bay. This was due to the fact that new king, King Charles I sanctioned anti-Puritan persecutions in 1629. This small minority escaped for fear of their lives. During the 1630’s, a period as the Great Migration, time when about twenty-thousand people would arrive in Massachusetts. The area, later known as the Bay Colony, would be lead with a well-functioned government, with their founding leader being John Winthrop, who would lead for nineteen years, as the town’s governor. The behavior of the monarchs of England greatly affected the future of the colonies, by threatening to remove other religions from the country, they started their own war. Religious freedom would become a cornerstone of the constitution, as it was the lack of freedom that began the journey across the Atlantic, founding the colonies. In the end, the English colonies would create their own enemy. Greed and freedom would become the beginnings of a new radical nation born out the Enlightenment. With the hope for gold, which would then weld in the hope for money, the colonists came to give the monarchy much wanted profit. Yet, by the same turn, the hope for absolutism would result in a group religious pariahs hoping for a land where they could freely pray. The motivation for more then what they had, for then what they felt they deserved. The motivation for religious freedom and profit that would eventually birth a new nation, merely started off as the motivations for establishing the English Colonies in North America