Early Jamestown Colonies

Most English colonial societies were established as royal charters. As early as Virginia to Massachusetts to newer settlements like Georgia and Maine, all wanted more independence from Parliament. Non-Catholics populated the New World substantially, with some practicing religious tolerance; however, the Puritans did establish strict religious leadership in Massachusetts. A variety of economic activities — such as fishing, farming, and trading — contributed to the increase in labor across the colonies. Despite the number of common components a colony may have with another, there exists different aspects that adds variability and distinguishes a colony from another. Differences between these early English settlements are accounted for

The New World started off with approximately 104 settlers, all of whom were men, in search of gold and exploitable natural resources in hopes of catching up to the Spanish empire decades prior. The unfortunate settlers did not find gold but were able to establish the first permanent English settlement of Jamestown. The early people of Jamestown came to settle for gold and glory. This self-serving drive jeopardized the settlement; John Smith stated that the men of the settlement “would rather starve than work.” In comparison, John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, stated in another famous work that Puritan community life should be seen as “a City upon a Hill.” In a later work, Winthrop describes how the people can live freely as long as they, the individual, lived in “subjection to authority” that would coincide with the idea of a model city previously described. His sermon distinguishes two types of liberties — natural and civil liberties — that would contrast the monetary liberties that John Smith’s men sought after. The natural liberties outlined in Winthrop’s sermon aligns with the idea that men share similar attitudes with beasts in a natural state of being. He continues by saying that we have the liberty to “do what he lists…and

Approximately in the year 1585, Richard Hakluyt had concocted a list of reasons in hopes of persuading the English to sail across the ocean and colonize what would be North America. He claimed that colonizing would enlarge “the dominions of the Queenes most excellent Majestie, and consequently of her honour, revenues, and of her power by this enterprise” and stretched as far of “planting of religion among those infidels” in hopes of spreading the Christian influence to what would be the Native Americans. Although the written intent was clear — God, Gold, and Glory — there were still ambiguous notions established in the document. Hakluyt was essentially uncertain about the hostile natives and how the colonization would affect the living situations of both natives and colonists. “To plant Christian religion. To trafficke. To conquer” are three points to characterize another indication of who and why the English would and should come to North America, a trend that alludes to conquests similar to those of the French and Dutch, more or less on the conquering, prior to the English