Jamestown And Plymouth Settlements example essay topic

The settlers of the new world all came from an area which had similar traditions, lifestyles and practices. Because of this, there were many similarities between different colonies in the New World. In contrast, these settlements were often established by people of different religions and ethnicities. This resulted in slight differences in the way communities carried out their daily lives. Two settlements that are simple to compare and contrast are the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements. Traveling aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, 104 men landed in Virginia in 1607 at a place they named Jamestown.

This was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. They chose their spot in a location they thought would be secure in order to avoid the mistakes of Roanoke. Jamestown offered anchorage and a good defensive position. Warm climate and fertile soil allowed large plantations to prosper. Unfortunately, the land was also marshy, humid, and disease-prone. It was on local Indian land, belonging to the dominant chief Powhatan.

The settlers that traveled from England were mostly businessmen and not laborers, and fell prey to diseases. Malaria attacked the colony, causing a labor supply because most were either too weak to work or dead. By January 1608, there were only thirty four colonists left. The leader of the colony, John Smith, was the reason Jamestown survived in the end. He organized raids on the local Indians to steal food and kidnap natives. In 1608 Puritan Separatists immigrated to Holland after being persecuted in England.

However, after a number of years the Pilgrims felt that their children were being corrupted by the liberal Dutch lifestyle and were losing their English heritage. On September 1620, the Puritans, known as 'pilgrims' before they left, departed with thirty five Puritan Separatists and sixty seven others aboard the Mayflower. The original destination of the Mayflower was at the mouth of the Hudson River, but on December 21, 1620, they established the settlement of Plymouth on Cape Cod. Plymouth was an area just north of the Cape, outside of the area of the Virginia Company. It provided good anchorage and an excellent harbor. Cold climate and thin, rocky soil limited farm size.

New Englanders turned to lumbering, shipbuilding, fishing and trade. The relations between the Pilgrims and the Indians were not bad, mostly because the native population was weakened by disease. The survival and growth of the colony ultimately depended on the natives' help from Squanto and Samoset. Squanto learned English and eased the tension between the two cultures. The Pilgrims had a poor community, but stayed because they were devoted to religion and they had faith. They did not care how they were viewed by other ambitious colonies to the north.

The two colonies were settled for very different reasons. Jamestown was founded for economic motives. The Virginia Company of London, organized in 1606, sponsored the Virginia Colony. Organizers of the company wanted to expand English trade and obtain a wider market for English manufactured goods. They naturally hoped for financial profit from their investment in shares of company stock. Plymouth was formed for religious purposes.

The Puritan Separatists wanted their own society in which the church could rule all aspects of their lives, without corruption from other cultures. The founders of Plymouth were dissenters from the Church of England and established the Puritan or Congregational Church. Those in Jamestown were members of the Anglican faith, the official Church of England. The government was also different in these two settlements.

In 1619, the first representative legislative assembly in the New World met at the Jamestown church. It was here that our American heritage of representative government was born. Since New England was outside the jurisdiction of Virginia's government, the Pilgrims established a self-governing agreement of their own, the "Mayflower Compact". The growth and development of these two English colonies, though geographically separated, contributed much to the present American heritage of law, religion, government, custom and language. Their similarities and differences influenced the United States and helped it to become what it is today..