Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DBQ AP US History
Although English settlers developed both the New England and the Chesapeake
Bay areas, by 1700 they had grown apart into recognizably different societies. These
differences were caused by a variety of reasons, including people who settled there, and
their goals and motives for moving to the New World. The differences that existed
between the two areas were what made the New England Colonies more stable in many
There are many different elements of any given society which make it stable, or
not. One of these elements is the marital status of its inhabitants. When a society is made
people cannot do anything rash without having to worry about the effect that it will have
on their families. Also, the prescence of children in a society means that it will continue,
as there will be people living there after their predecessors have died, having children to
do the same in the future. In other words, the society will not die with those who
established it. As is shown in document B, the large majority of people emigrating from
England to Massachusetts, in New England, were emigrating along with their families.
This provides a much more stable basis for a society than exists in Virginia, or the
Chesapeake Bay region, which is shown in Document C to have more than three times
the number of men emigrating there than women. This also causes the men to compete
for the women who are there, turning them against each other and creating ill feelings and
colonists headed to Virginia, “The worst [among us were the gold seekers who] with their
golden promises made all men their slaves in hope of recompenses. There was no talk . . .
but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold . . .” This shows how many of those going
to the Chesapeake Bay area were motivated by greed: they wanted to become rich, and
they saw better opportunity to do so in the New World, rather than back in England. And
what’s more, many achieved this goal, though not through gold as they expected.
Virginia, and other surrounding areas became largely agricultural colonies, growing and
shipping cash crops such as tobacco, corn and indigo for large profit. The owners of the
plantations where these crops were grown consequently became very rich, while those
working for them did not. This caused a large gap between the rich and the poor in this
area. Contrastingly, in New England equality, not individual wealth was the main goal.
the striving for equality that occurred in this area, with goals to give the forty families
(families with a range of wealth) an area for their home that fits their income, and that
each family will have an area for planting. This shows that while the families in this New
England town will not all be equal in terms of wealth, they will all have a place for their
home and their food, as opposed to those further south who sometimes even when any
debt owed to the plantation owner was paid, could not afford land, and so still had to live
off of the plantation. Also showing how New England colonies looked more toward a
people (particularly traders and merchants) to accept a moderate profit and income so that
their neighbors will not become poor, and the society will continue to thrive. This focus
on keeping the town stable is in direct contrast to the individualistic behavior of the
Chesapeake area settlers. Also, while those going to the Chesapeake region did tend to be
going for the sake of wealth, often those headed to New England had a higher purpose.
As shown in Document 1, the thoughts of John Winthrop on his way to the New World,
he and those he was with were going to the America’s in the name of God, and if they did
not make the settlement work it would be seen, both to them and to those watching their
progress, that they have shamed “the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause
their prayers to be turned into curses upon us [the settlers]” The fear of this is another
reason that they banded together, always thinking of their “community as members of the
Although unity is important to a society, there are those who say that the
individual drive to achieve more is what brings growth to a community. While it is true
that in order for society to expand and grow there need to be individuals who keep trying,
and yearning for more, it is even more important that they are not doing so for
themselves, but rather for the society as a whole. This is not what was occurring in the
Chesapeake area. In the Chesapeake area the people were out for themselves, not their
colonies, and so even if there was growth occurring, it was not nearly as substantial in the
end as what occurred in the New England colonies, because in New England it was the
societies which expanded, not the wealth and territory of a single person.
New England settlers from the Chesapeake settlers. Those in New England were unified
in so many more ways than those in the Chesapeake area that they continued to expand as
a whole, in a way that most everyone was happy, while those in the Chesapeake area
reached out only individually, oppressing most while only a select few prospered over the