Similarities Between Colonial America And Colonial Virginia

I completely agree that Colonial Massachusetts and Colonial Virginia did not have much in common although it is all rooted from their values. Colonial Virginia took a very capitalistic approach towards their settlement. This ambition and greediness caused a lot of agony for both the English settlers of Virginia and African Americans. As stated in the lectures all of the first settlers in Virginia were men looking to get rich and find gold. They came in very underprepared and were very fortunate to have found a specific strain of tobacco. Had they not been so lucky to have found this strain of tobacco they would have been fighting their extinction. Farming tobacco was very labor intensive and did not make up for all of the agony prior to the

The English gave them weapons while the natives gave them food. This led to the preservation of the English settlers. As I mentioned before tobacco was very labor intensive and led to land owners employing indentured servants and later enslaved Africans to farm the crop. Because of the capitalist nature of the Virginians they end up taking advantage of the Africans. They were cheaper and had to work for their whole lives as opposed to the 4-7 year term indentured servants served. As the lifespan increased, indentured servants were not as valuable. After farming the tobacco and exporting it for some time there becomes a socioeconomic structure. Large land owners started to get rich while the rest of society stayed poor. This creates a large wealth gap. Colonial Massachusetts had an entirely different approach towards their settlement; with their entirely contrasting values. The people who settled in Colonial Massachusetts had a very religious point of view. Their whole goal was to create a puritan society. This led to them being very unified and working together as a community for the greater

Women are important for sustaining society as they play roles that men do not. Aside from those roles having more women meant more natural reproduction. Not only did they have better community relationships but they also created a better relationship with the Native Americans. The Native Americans taught the people of Massachusetts how to farm. This gave them a very balanced diet as opposed to the people of Virginia who did not know how to farm and were starving. Massachusetts also valued education specifically being able to read. This was because of their religiosity and inherent necessity of being able to read the bible. Their value of education in turn made them to be very literate. One of the few struggles Massachusetts faced that Virginia did not was with political views. Virginia had created a democracy known as the House of Burgesses. This was a full democracy with the exception of the governor who had the final say on everything. On the other hand Massachusetts had a very harsh criterion to be able to elect the general court. To participate in the election you had to be a Freeman. This was no easy task considering all of the criteria you had to