Early Settlers In America

Even though both New England and the Chesapeake region came from the same origins, they had different ways of life. Chesapeake masters employed indentured servants, displaced farmers who were desperate for employment and voluntarily worked several years to receive a transatlantic passage and "freedom dues." The people of Virginia also had problems with Governor Berkeley as shown in Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion in 1676 after hearing that their hopes of acquiring land was hopeless. "[the] men in authority and favor to whose hands the dispensation of the countr[y's] wealth has been committed. Let us observe the sudden rise of their estates..." (Doc. H). Bacon was complaining about the current workforce of indentured servants (considered as slaves) because the lands that they were going to receive were being taken while they worked off their time. As a result, Bacon soon decided to turn to Africa for slaves.

While colonies in the Chesapeake region employed indentured servants, New Englanders did their own work to make a living. Since the soil was stone-like in New England, many people turned to trading, fishing, and hunting. Because the Native Americans only recognized the right to use the land, ownership was unheard of to them. As a result, the English settlers took the liberty to improve the land by clearing woodlands for pasturage, building roads, and laying out permanent settlements. They also turned to shipbuilding and commerce by clearing the timber in the dense forests.

New England society grew in a more orderly fashion compared with the Chesapeake region. According to A Model of Christian Charity, written by John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he says that the people "must be knit together in this work as one man" (Doc. A) in the making of the new society in God's name to give an example for other persecuted people to come to the New World as well since they were Puritans