...When Europeans first started colonizing North America, they settled in the modern-day southern state Virginia. However, when The United States declared independence, the Northern colonies had a much larger population than the southern ones. In this essay, I will explore the question “What were the push and pull factors that caused more European colonists to settle in the northern colonies instead of the southern ones during the 17th century?” to find out why the population distribution was so unequal. The first source is the book The Atlantic Migration, written by Professor Marcus Lee Hansen in 1942. Hansen was the son of a Danish immigrant and a Norwegian immigrant and a professor of history at the University of Illinois. He conducted research on the history of American immigration for four years to write this Pulitzer-prize winning book. It is a secondary source, which allows Hansen to look at emigration and immigration factors from hindsight. The content of this book is valuable because it mentions the push factors in Europe, the pull factors in each colony, and why people would want to leave for...
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...geographic factors shaped the Chesapeake region and New England. in different Throughout the century, New England maintained a strong, communal identity while the Chesapeake remained widely scattered. Through the hot river valleys of the Chesapeake had a climate that facilitated staple crop plantations and disease, New England’s extreme climate made mass production of staple crops and the spread of disease difficult. The combination of poor free men, and later, indentured servants and slaves, resulted in a larger rich-poor gap in the Chesapeake. When the New England settlers first arrived, they had strong ties to religion. They believed that it was their responsibility and God’s expectation that they create moral, Christian communities. John Winthrop reflects this in Doc. A by saying their failure would “open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of…God.” The Chesapeake settlers, however, had similar yet, separate, goals based on the economies. People’s main motives were not religious, but economic, there to “dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold,” as per doc. F. This resulted in competition, rather than bonding, over the settlement. Document B reflects that people settled in New England with their families, whereas Doc. C shows that Chesapeake settlers were mostly single men. This happened because the religious freedom and practice was more appealing to families, to form communities that worship God, and resulted in a much more unified settlement. The economy of the Chesapeake...
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