Development Of The Virginia And Massachusetts Colonies

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade April 2001

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Wealth is powerful when it is obtained by someone, but even more powerful when it is not. When people are striving for riches they tend to put that need above everything else. People will go through all sorts of difficulties and obstacles to make it in life. Striving for wealth and power is something that brings both positive and negative results. During the colonial period the development of the Virginia and Massachusetts colonies was greatly influenced by the effects of the search for riches and power. Each area had common basic interests, but the ways in which they went about attaining these goals were in most views different. Prosperity was the major goal of everyone, but each settlement had its"˜ own idea of the kind of prosperity it wanted and the way in which it was to be accomplished.

Early Virginian settlements themselves revolved around making money. This was mainly due to the fact that the early settlers were predominantly a group of disorderly single men.

They had little interest in families or society, they were there simply to make money. They were not interested in building lives in the colonies, they planned to make money quick and go back to Europe wealthy. Their motives were selfish and individualistic, due to this they became extremely competitive and suspicious of other men's motives. The settlers kept to themselves because they feared that everyone was out to get them and their wealth. Trust was hard to come by in the colony, if you trusted someone it was seen as weakening your defenses. This was a vast contrast to the foundations of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony. In this northern settlement the main concerns were built upon the needs of the community as a whole, not the individual. Families comprised the main...