New England and Chesapeake

New England and Chesapeake were two of the first colonies settled by people of English origin. That is where the similarities end. These two colonies evolved into two completely different societies. There are many factors that contributed to the different lifestyles. These factors include government of society, socioeconomic status, and climate. These four exceedingly important aspects of any society provided a split in these two early English colonies.

Those who arrived in the New England as opposed to those who arrived in Chesapeake were much wealthier and more respected members of society and therefore had a higher socioeconomic status. There are records of the ship that was bound for New England and these records seem very neat and well documented. There were one hundred and four people on the ship: about four to five families including their servants. These records include occupation, age, relation to the head of house (always a male) and obviously a name (DocumentB). The record of the ship bound for Virginia was not nearly as acute as that of New England. These records only listed age and name, in no particular order, with no reference to occupation or any other valuable information. (Document C) This disparity between the two records tells a lot about the socioeconomic status of these people back in England. The ship headed towards New England consisted of members that were of important top society and therefore their records informative and punctilious. There was no room for error because these were important members of society and thus it would not be good to upset them. The people headed to Chesapeake were very different. Their registration was featureless and dull. They were not important because the people were not important. The English did not have to keep detailed documents of these people because they did not care about these people for they were poor and were not respected.