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Economic Disparity In Colonial America

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When many British settlers came to the new world, they were searching for the myths associated with that land. These myths commonly fell along the rights and freedoms that had been restricted in England. Along with restrictions on rights, the economic situation in England was dreadful. The masses of poor became homeless and jobless. Such restrictions on rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, along with the obvious disparage between the rich and the poor, caused enough discontempt for masses of people to leave the nation in search for something better. These people heard the myths of the new world, being a land where anyone could become rich and free, and instinctively immigrated. These people, being influenced by the myths …show more content…
At the time of a major immigration of Europeans to the “New World,” there was a terrible economic crisis occurring in England. The rich were still rich however the poor were generally unemployed and starving. This situation caused a large number of Europeans to immigrate, “Nonetheless, the economic conditions in England were so bad, with vast numbers of peasants being unemployed when the lands they had formerly farmed were combined into large enclosed fields, that many men were willing to become indentured servants; of the 130,000 Englishmen who immigrated to the Chesapeake region in the 17th century, more than 75% did so as indentured servants” (The English Colonies in the Americas in the 17th century, Hist pg. 37). These indentured servants are desperate enough to subject themselves to the likeness of slavery in order to begin a new life in the new world. Consequently, this introduced a large number of hard working desperate people into the colonies and eventually the United States. These people represent one major value of the new world; equal opportunity. Every free man in the new world has an equal opportunity for success. This is shown perfectly by Benjamin Franklin, “So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was taken aboard privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy but of 17, without the least recommendation, or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket” (Benjamin Franklin, Lit pg. 110). Benjamin, like most of the immigrants, started with little money in a new place and ended up as a wealthy, influential person. He exceptionally displays a key new world value, one that very much defined life in the new world

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