Comparison of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Virginia
"I have been guilty of wrong thinking." The United States of America can trace its roots back to the English. They were frustrated with over population, poverty, and the lack of freedom of religion. In the early 1600s, England sent groups of settlers to the "New World" to establish permanent colonies. They founded the Virginia Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although the two first colonies of America were similar, they also had very distinct differences.
Virginia was founded by an adventurous distributor also known as a "merchant" that was looking to profit from the land. Massachusetts was founded by Puritans looking for freedom from the Church of England. Anne Hutchinson was an important participant in the founding of freedom of religion in Massachusetts; her strong religious convictions were at odds with the Puritans. Her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened to destroy the Puritans religious experiment in New England.
English: This is a map of the Province of Massachu...
English: Massachusetts_Bay_Colony_1930_Issue-2c.jp...
Anne Hutchinson on TrialShe was eventually convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters.
The Puritans settled in the north, in New England, in comparison the Virginia Company settled in the south. Massachusetts employed only subsistence farming and the men in the family provided most of the labor. By the 1660s in Virginia, wealthy families owned fifty percent of the land. At the same time, Massachusetts had a distribution policy that encouraged extensive property ownership. Virginia profited from their wheat and tobacco farming and used mostly slave labor. The London Virginia Company which was the head right system whom tried to solve the labor shortage by providing colonists with land for each indentured servant that were transported to Virginia. African workers were first imported in 1619, and laws regarding their slavery were classified into Virginia's first...