Individuals from England started to explore North America in pursuit of national glory, profit, and religious mission. Through the 1600s and early 1700s, three major colonial regions, the New England Colonies, the middle colonies, and the southern colonies, formed and developed. Two of the earliest colonies to be established in the United States were Massachusetts and Virginia. The colony of Virginia was founded in 1607 by John Smith at Jamestown and the Massachusetts Colony was founded in 1630 by John Winthrop at Massachusetts Bay. Even though both of the settlements were English colonies, they were different in many aspects. Their differences were based off of three main factors: religion, economy, and demographics.
The pilgrims were motivated to leave England because they would receive freedom from religious persecution. Puritan merchants obtained a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company: The Massachusetts Bay Company was a joint stock trading company chartered by the English crown in 1629 to colonize a vast area in New England extending from 3 miles north of the Merrimack River to 3 miles south of the Charles River. (Zeichner) The Puritan leaders carried the charter with them to New England and created their own self-government in Massachusetts. The colony was originally organized as a stock company with voting rights limited to stockholders, but John Winthrop held a vote and gave the freemen of the colony the right to elect their own legislators. The Puritans created the Mayflower compact, which allowed them to have a self-government. In addition, the Puritans modified the charter and transformed the company into a religious commonwealth. They hoped to establish an ideal Christian community and Winthrop wrote that the colony must become a “city on a hill.” The puritans believed that God had formed a special covenant with them and expected them to live according to religious texts. The Puritans sought to simplify religious practice and abandon traditions that were not grounded in scripture: they wanted to reform the Anglican church. Church membership was restricted to Puritans who were willing to provide a conversion narrative telling how they came to understand their spiritual estate by hearing sermons and studying the Bible. The colony was intolerant of other religions, and excommunicated people who challenged their way of life. To sum it up, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was mostly settled by Puritans who wanted to establish their own church and were looking for religious freedom.
In contrast, the colony of Virginia was mainly founded by individuals with economic motives. The Virginia colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London and organizers of the company wanted to expand English trade as well as obtain a wider market for English manufactured goods. (Virginia Company of London) Settlers of the Virginia colony were mostly wealthy gentlemen and their indentured servants; these men wanted financial profit and were mostly supporters of the Anglican Church. The settlers did not have a desire for religious freedom and supported other Christian religions. However, they did not support the beliefs of the Native Americans or African Slaves. Thus, the colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia were similar because they did not observe the religions of the minority groups. They were different from each other because the individuals in the colonies had different motives for settling North America.
The gentlemen of Virginia believed that they would have an easy time settling their colony, but they faced many hardships. They were not prepared because they thought that they would be able to hunt animals and trade with the natives: this did not happen. There was a lack of clean water and disease/famine killed many of the colonists that had planned to settle in Virginia. The colony struggled for two years until John Rolfe brought over a strand of tobacco from England and it grew very well in Virginia. (Wood) Over the next decades, tobacco became a profitable crop and it was the main economic resource of the colony. The colonists needed room to grow their tobacco, so the colony expanded inland and the individuals were able to find cleaner water and were able to live longer. The warm climate and fertile soil allowed plantations to prosper; thus, the Virginia colony eventually reached economic prosperity. The Puritans in the Massachusetts colony had an easier time setting up their colony and they were much more agriculturally stable than Virginia in the first few years. The economy of Massachusetts was based off of shipbuilding, fishing, fur, and lumber. Since Massachusetts did not have big plantations and their towns were only about 20 acres in size, they did not need as many slaves as Virginia. Since Virginia had a cash-crop-oriented economy, it became a three-tiered society. Slaves were at the bottom, laborers and small farmers were in the middle, and wealthy plantation owners were at the top. However, in Massachusetts, society mostly consisted of a middle class. Some families did own one or two slaves, but they were treated better than the slaves in the south.
The development of the colonies can also be explained by their demographics, which were similar in some ways and different in others. The majority of the English colonists that approached the Virginia colony were young single men about 20 years old. They the Virginia Colony was a location where they could earn rapid profit before they returned to England. However, some colonists did have an intention of staying more than a few years. This approach is in jagged contrast to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, most of the communities were composed of family units. In America, the Colonial New Englanders came with anticipation that that colony would be their enduring home. Therefore, the colonists in the Massachusetts Bay Colony brought their children and wives. A similarity between the colonies was that they both had decent relationships with the Native Americans in the beginning. However, frictions arose over cultural differences which led to numerous wars between the colonists and native Americans.
In conclusion, even though both of the colonies were English and were founded within a few years of each other, they had completely different social, economic, and political ideologies. The settlers of Massachusetts were able to set up their own government, they were religion oriented, and their economy was centered on fishing, timber, and fur. Colonists in Virginia were looking for prosperity and were able to gain wealth through their plantations that grew tobacco. These colonies were also different because they were based in different climates: Virginia had a warm climate and Massachusetts had a colder climate. A similarity between the two was that they both contributed to the road of independence and had mixed relations with the Native Americans. Thus, the colony of Virginia and the colony of Massachusetts were different in many ways, but they each proved to be successful in the end.