On April 26th, 1607, three English ships arrived in Chesapeake Bay with 104 individuals to settle the newly founded colony of Virginia. The colonists expected to find fertile land with an abundance of precious metals, and when these dreams proved otherwise chaos ensued. The group consisted of elite adventures and lower class vagabonds with little to no skills essential for survival in the New World. The Virginia Company, a joint stock business that financed the colony, scarcely provided needed services to the colonists. This resulted in incredibly high death rates from disease and famine. The founding of Jamestown, the primary colonial city, on a swap with no fresh water supply enhanced the possibility of epidemics. Colonists would get sick from drinking salty water, malaria, and the improper disposal of human waste. When healthy, people would refuse to perform work crucial to their survival. Instead of raising crops or repairing structures many preferred to search for imaginary gold mines. The combination of Jamestown’s poor location, with the lack of frugal individuals, helped produce a catastrophic death rate that remained high for most of the century.
The next group of English settlers to the New World experienced a more successful preliminary settlement than Jamestown. These were the Puritans, who felt pressured to leave England after decades of economic decline and religious repression by the Anglican majority. Settling in New England in 1620, the Puritans had some distinct advantages that their counter parts in Virginia lacked. First they benefited from the discovery of an abandoned Indian village. Dieing from the latest epidemic, the Native Americans left behind open land ripe for settlement and agriculture. Second, unlike the settlers of Virginia, Puritans where an industrious people who encouraged hard work through their religious and social values. They consisted of a middling sort that had specialized skills necessary for building a colony. Finally, the Puritans meticulously planned for their voyage to New England. They purchased maps that outlined Massachusetts Bay, liquidated the material possessions they could not take with them, and traveled in tightly woven communities. In New England they immediately established small towns that consisted of religious congregations, merchants, and independently owned farms to provide for their families physical and spiritual needs. This frugality, in conjunction with the abandoned land, produced enough food and services to almost instantly sustain a prosperous community.
The Puritans were an economically independent colony within a period of fifty years. This autonomy angered English entrepreneurs, who wanted New England to be more dependent on trade with England. These businessmen also disliked the Puritans diverse economy of fishing, shipbuilding, lumber, farming, and manufactured goods. They wanted New England to develop a cash crop, like in Virginia, that was solely beneficial to the mother country. Instead of being a dependent, New English goods and services competed with England’s deifying the stereotypical role of a colony.
The Puritans strong economy did not rely on emigration like Virginia’s. This was partially a result of the Great Migration that took place from 1630-1640. During this ten-year period thousands of Puritan families crossed the Atlantic to New England bringing with them needed labor, capital, and commerce. Because they emigrated as families, New England experienced balanced gender ratios and a natural reproducing population that was lacking in other colonies. Thus the initial wave of Puritans where able to maintain healthy population levels after the migration ended in 1640. The end of the Great Migration created a small economic depression that eventually spurred the development of the fishing industry. The success of New English fisheries encouraged the rise of other businesses like the shipbuilding and trans Atlantic trading industries. Differences in material status, however, were of little importance to Puritans who preferred to focus on religious matters. Ministers preached that pious individuals should avoid poverty, but also be wary of greed and temptation of capital. Families where content with the small yields that their labor produced because their society valued hard work over money. This religious work ethic diminished in seaports filled with unfaithful sailors and wealthy merchants, but in general the distribution of wealth was much wider in New England than in other colonies like Virginia.
Despite the Puritans strong start and diverse economy, the colony was not as profitable as Virginia was after the development of its cash crop economy. By 1620, the Virginia Company made two crucial policies that provided the basic framework for an agricultural economy. Instead of trying to control the land directly, the company allowed the colonists to purchase and own private property. This motivated individuals to cultivate the land, and abandon the idea of finding precious medals. The Virginia Company also initiated the “head-right system” which provided the necessary labor and spurred emigration from England. Under this system an individual who purchased passage to Virginia would be granted fifty acres of land upon arrival. If this same individual paid for the passage of servants, than he would be awarded an additional fifty acres of land for each indentured servant. Indentured servants where contracted laborers that gave up their freedom for a certain amount of time in exchange for passage to the New World, and the basic necessities for starting their own farm upon completion of their contract. The policies of the “head-right system” and private property primed Virginia for an economic explosion after John Rolfe learned how to cultivate tobacco in 1616.
The European demand for tobacco was immense during the early 1600’s, and the crop could not be grown in England or New England. Virginias lengthy, hot, and humid growing season, however, was ideal for tobacco cultivation giving the colony a profitable role in the Trans-Atlantic economy. With the initiation of policies like the “head-right system” the colony was able to become the leading exporter of tobacco by 1640, generating huge profits for Virginian farmers. The success of tobacco increased the demand for labor as more indentured servants died, or completed their terms and started farms of there own. These newly freed landowners, combined with the growing plantations of the established planters drew in thousands of poor English laborers looking for work. This produced a society of extremes with wealthy planters on one end and poor laborers on the other. Virginia’s economy remained strong as long as the tobacco market and emigration remained consistent.
Both New England and Virginia had economies dependent on the continual acquisition of new land from Native Americans. This needed eventually resulted in the creation of policies that stressed the total annihilation of near by Indians in both colonies. In 1622 and 1644, Jamestown suffered surprise attacks from the Powhatan Confederacy. By 1646 English counter attacks and disease devastated the Powhatan population. The confederacy was destroyed and the surviving natives assimilated into other Indian tribes or Virginia society. The New English conflict with the Pequot Indians in 1636 came to be known as the Pequot War. When the Pequot Indians rejected colonial leaders demand for heavy tribute, New England declared war. At first, New England suffered heavy losses from the guerilla combat tactics of the Pequot. After recruiting their Narragansett and Mohegan Indian allies, however, the colonists adjusted their strategies and affectively destroyed their enemies. Although land acquisition was not the main causes of these conflicts, it ended up being a great benefit of military victory. The growing populations of New England and Virginia would spill over into this newly obtained land fueling further growth of their respected economies.
Virginia and New England each developed throughout the seventeenth century into two distinct colonies with some similarities. Virginia started out has a desperate colony barely able to maintain a population, but eventually developed into a wealthy agricultural society. New England began has a well-developed colony connected by a homogenous people with a strong religious work ethic. They manifested a diverse economy that was prosperous enough to support a growing population and new businesses. Both of these colonies, in part, derived their success from the destruction of the local Native Americans. The necessity of having the ever-expanding frontier to fuel further economic growth was one of the most universal principles in colonial America. Both Virginia and New England fully engaged in this policy to further develop their unique economic societies.
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