Jamestown Colony vs. Chesapeake Bay Colony.

In the early seventeenth century two separate groups founded two very different colonies. The first to be colonized was the settlement of Jamestown, located on the Chesapeake Bay which is in present day Virginia. Just over a decade later the colony of Plymouth was founded on what is now known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Though both the Massachusetts Bay colony and the Jamestown colony were established in a similar historical timeframe, they developed distinctly different social views regarding the future, economic status, and political successes. Upon arrival in America, one hundred and four individuals were still living aboard the ship that had carried the future Jamestown settlers all the way from England. Those who were still living had endured a long and hard journey. Many suffered from malnutrition. Quickly the exhausted settlers chose a peninsula on the northern bank of the James River as the sight for their settlement. This sight was chosen mainly for the purpose of defense.

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They did not however, give much consideration to the sight's opportunity for providing a healthy living environment. This decision would prove fatal for many of the settlers in the weeks and months to come. This decision however, may have seemed the only logical one for them at the time.. The Jamestown colonists joined this expedition with one thing on their minds, to obtain wealth.. Their desire for wealth was so great that they overlooked many of the basic necesities such as clean water. Instead they focused on less important things such as setting up protection from savages. This consisted of setting up a circle of wooden posts, driven into the ground and sharpened to points at the tops. Settlers of the Massachusetts colony at Plymouth also endured a long journey across the ocean. This group of seventeenth century separatists first stepped...