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Modern America truly started with the colonization of the Chesapeake and New England regions. Though the two colonies were both settled by Englishmen, the rural, economic Chesapeake region contrasted heavily with the urban, religious New England region. The root cause of this disparity can be traced back to the differences of the settlers’ social statuses in England: businessmen in the Chesapeake and religious leaders in New England. Through its effects on motivations for creating colonies, initial settler populations, and land disputes, the social hierarchy clearly stands out as the cause for the societal distinctions between the two regions.

Even before the two companies left England, the British social ladder created a stark contrast between the reasons to create new colonies; while wealthy Chesapeake Bay settlers saw colonies as a way to grow their wealth, the more homely New England Puritans desired colonies as a way to move up the social ladder. Since the Virginia Company was more well-to-do than the Puritans, they were more concerned with making money than spiritual salvation. Their higher position in the social hierarchy caused them to run the colony like a business. The Virginian charter tells the settlers how to live in order to turn a profit, a clear reflection of their higher class perspective on the importance of wealth. This upper-class mentality translated to other colonies around the Chesapeake Bay as Lord Baltimore was given permission to found Maryland as Lord Proprietor by the king himself, another example of how the rich Chesapeake settlers viewed colonies as a way to strengthen their own wealthy position with new economic ventures. The lower-class Puritans, however, were not focused on material gains but instead, simply wanted to escape persecution and escape the damnation they saw in England. Instead of seeking to augment a rich life like the Chesapeake Bay settlers, the Puritans were seeking a way to improve their relatively lower-class positions through good moral character. Thus, in both the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter and in John Winthrop’s A Model for Christian Charity, we see a call for the Puritans to live virtuously and be “as a city upon a hill” (Doc A). The colony offered a new beginning, a chance to escape the locked-down British hierarchy and attempt upward class mobility from their despised social position of “religious dissenters”. The other colonies founded in the New England region echo this spirit of a fresh start. Rhode Island and Connecticut were founded by exiles of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, seeking to rise from their poor social standing to become social, religious and economic leaders in a society of their own creation. Clearly, Chesapeake settlers only saw ways to become richer through colonies while New England settlers saw the potential of escaping their low social position.

The social classes of prospective settlers also caused the Chesapeake and New England to differ wildly in demographics; while the wealthy patrons of the Chesapeake region encouraged younger men to settle for easy profits, New England was settled by older, more established families in hopes of creating the best possible environment for their children. Though the Chesapeake Bay was colonized so that the wealthy could have more outlets for economic revenues, these higher-class gentlemen tended to not brave the journey themselves. They were more content in hiring younger, lower-class men as indentured servants to do the job for them. In fact, single males under the age of 30 became the largest demographic to come and settle in the Chesapeake region as can be seen by the emigrant listing for Virginia in 1635 (Doc C). Like the Puritans, these lower-class men saw the New World as their chance to become rich, when in reality, the boardsmen of the Virginia Company were the ones who would reap the rewards. Not only did the headright system give the wealthy more land for every man they imported to the Chesapeake Bay, but the incredibly high mortality rate in the Chesapeake region meant that these men would not survive the 5-7 years required by indentured servitude, giving the wealthy even more land. Thus, as the upper-class exploited the social hierarchy and the dreams of the lower-class, the demographic of the Chesapeake region was largely single, relatively lower-class males. In contrast, the Puritan vision of using the colonies as a way to create a new world order encouraged established families to come to New England. As seen by the emigrant listing for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, settlers would bring women, children and servants with them to the New World, showing the focus on building community and social order (Doc B). Unlike the profit-mongers in the Chesapeake, these older families in New England strived to create a community, a new society where these once lower-class religious dissenters could become the most important leaders in their new society. In short, the lower-class New England settlers were more focused on creating an older, family-based demographic in order to help build up a new societal order while the upper-class Chesapeake Bay founders encouraged single men to settle the colony to increase their profit margins.

Finally, the overall social statuses of the immigrants deeply affected the tone of land disputes in the colonies; high-class Chesapeake Bay founders had tense, explosive relations with their lower-class former indentured servants, while the middle-class Puritans were able to foster more communal values. In both Massachusetts and Connecticut, there was widespread agreement to treat all men equally by sharing land equally (Doc D) and having fair wages and prices (Doc E). Since the Puritans were all of roughly the same social status in Europe, there was less animosity among them and a greater feeling of community and brotherhood. The Chesapeake Bay’s inherent structure of low-class servants and high-class masters, however, created instant class tension. Even in the starting years of the colonies, those rich enough to afford food were able to freely buy food while the lower class resentfully starved (Doc F). As the death rate decreased and more indentured servants were living to satisfy their required work years, class tension grew stronger, to the point that Lord Berkley feared that if the Dutch were to attack, debtors could be bought by the encroaching forces (Doc G). Lord Berkeley’s fears were partially realized with Bacon’s Rebellion, whose manifesto calls for striking down the men who have unfairly taken advantage of the system, such as Lord Berkeley (Doc H). Bacon’s Rebellion served as a final eruption of lower-class resentment of being used by the upper-class to satisfy mere profit margins. While the lower-class in the Chesapeake Bay protested violently against the upper-class, determined to have their own land and to be respected on equal terms as the high-class backers, New Englanders did not have such intense conflicts as they treated one another fairly equally economically.

To summarize, the Chesapeake region differed economically and socially from the New England region because of the different social hierarchy positions of the colonial founders. While the upper-class founders of Virginia and Maryland viewed their colonies as new economic initiatives and imported lower-class indentured servants to do their work for them which resulted in explosive class warfare, the middle-class founders of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island saw their colonies as a chance to escape the British hierarchy, creating a new social community based on older, established families who settled disputes based on economic fairness. Analyzing these root causes of the fundamental differences between the Northern and Southern regions will grant greater understanding into North-South dynamics in the future.