Colonists in America: Seeking Land, Riches and Religious Freedom - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Europeans came to America to increase their wealth and broaden the influence in world affairs. Many reasons made colonists go to the colonies in whichever region they chose. There were different impacts in different areas compared to the others, but the colonists changed them for better. A portion of colonists was afraid of traveling to the new world from the possible dangers of the natives. There were numerous motivations; however, in religious freedom, land, and the riches that are beneath, and that was tempting. It is worth noting that the colonists are settlers or people that help in the starting of new settlements in the colonial American.

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Let us look at the reason why the British wanted colonies. First, we need to understand that there were significant changes in England in the 16th century, and the economic changes centered on sheep production. There was an excellent demand for woolen cloth in Europe (Hansen et al., 2017). Therefore, to meet the rising demand, there were legal actions taken to make the landowners enclose the farms by fencing the large farms. The manufacturers weaved the wool into the cloth, and the merchants sold the material throughout Europe. From the changes, the owners of the land, manufacturers, and merchants got a lot of wealth, and they looked for ways to invest their wealth. They identified one of the strategies as making investments in the colonies. As they looked for ways to spend their wealth, there were those of the Englishmen that were less fortunate. These were people that had lost their jobs after the landowners fenced their lands with fences to raise their sheep.

The men who lost their jobs were forced to migrate to towns and cities to look for work where some of them were forced to begging. Therefore, they found that relocating to a new world seed as hope to them as it was to the businessmen. Consequently, the colonies were a solution to the problem due to the growing number of poor people in the region. They also looked for ways of settlements in territories as a fulfillment to sell more goods and their resources to the other countries more than they bought (Isenberg & Andrew, 2017). Therefore, if the colonies could send them raw materials, for instance, timber from the abundance of the natural resources available in the provinces, England could have to buy them from the other countries. Furthermore, the colonies were market for the goods and products that were produced by England.

To establish a world dominance, England made its first colony in Virginia on the Atlantic coast in 1607. The colonists here were flourishing from the assistance they got from the Native Americans. To keep them away from starving, the colonists planted corn and tobacco that was a valuable cash crop. They became remarkable and prolific as there were economic opportunities from the availability of land, and early marriages led to large families. There were few bachelors and unwed women who could not live comfortable living alone. The widows and widowers needed partners that would help them to maintain their homes and kids and therefore remarried very quickly. Thus most people got married, and many children increased the number of family members. It was a common thing to find a family with ten children. The colonists, therefore, multiplied despite them facing many difficulties and losses from diseases. Also, there was a great migration from Europe and Great Britain.

The colonies were seen as lands of promise in Britain as both the colonies and the homeland encouraged the immigrations as they offered inducements to the ones that wanted to adventure beyond the ocean. The foreign Protestants were welcomed, and many people were then sent to America against their will- as political prisoners, convicts, and enslaved Africans. This led to the doubling of the American population in every generation (Wilson & Kara, 2018). The principal component of the community in the colonies was English origin, and the second was the African heritage. In the 18th century, the German and Scottish immigrants arrived in high numbers. New England was English and had numerous settlers with European origin, and the population was mixed in the middle colonies.

It is worth noting that the European colonization and settlement in Northern America was an invasion and was controlled and settled by the Native Americans. To explain this, the Indian control and arrangement of the land were very different from that of the Europeans as compared to the Indians (Wilson & Kara, 2018). The Indian's perception of the Europeans arrival was seen as encroachment, and they tried different means to deal with them. Finally, the Africans also were another group of people that played a significant role in the Europeans. From the beginning, the attempts in establishing the colonies in the west were in pursuit of labor that could do the hard work of building a settlement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the relations between the natives and the colonies were not friendly despite the right intentions. However, these new relations shaped the countries today and economic trends. The natives were just cautious, while the whites did not care about the impacts of their motives.

Works Cited

Hansen, Karen V., Ken Chih-Yan Sun, and Debra Osnowitz. "Immigrants as settler colonists: boundary work between Dakota Indians and white immigrant settlers." Ethnic and Racial Studies 40.11 (2017): 1919-1938.

Isenberg, Andrew C. "An Empire of Remedy: Vaccination, Natives, and Narratives in the North American West." Pacific Historical Review 86.1 (2017): 84-113.

Wilson, Kara Jo. "New Directions in American Indian History." Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 19.1 (2018).