The United States - 1676 Words

The concept of the United States is so ingrained into the hearts of Americans that it can be hard to imagine when the home of the brave did not exist. However, the early seventeenth century features the origins of a country no one could imagine at the time. It began with James I issuing a charter to the Virginia Company, known then as the London Company, in 1606, but it progressed from that rough start to become the first permanent English colony in North America, located in Jamestown. New additions soon came to what would be the United States: Plymouth in 1620; eastern Massachusetts in 1630; and finally Maryland in 1632. The first two colonized regions of North America by the British, the Chesapeake Bay and New England, faced early†¦show more content†¦All of the colonies had an underlying economic focus, which was personified in several different attempts among the colonies: Maryland’s widespread effort of encouraging settlement, which included policies of religious tolerance and their eventual adoption of a â€Å"headright† system; Virginia’s thriving tobacco production; the Pilgrims’ agricultural industry; and the Puritans’ trade with Native Americans. Both regions had colonies established by private companies with charters, such as the Massachusetts Bay Company in New England or the Virginia Company in the Chesapeake. The Puritans and Pilgrims had another reason for their departure from England: religious persecution, especially from James I. Due to this religious purpose, the two colonies in Massachusetts had more families, which added stability to a colony in its infancy; the Jamestown colony, on the other hand, had few families due to their disregard of the settlement as permanent. In regards to location, neither group was particularly intelligent in choosing a site to live: both Jamestown’s apparently well-calculated spot and Plymouth’s unintentional location were on marshlands. Their poor locat ion along with insufficient food and illness led to surprisingly and devastatingly high death tolls in the first year: 63.5% of Jamestown settlers, half of Plymouth’s population, and a third of the Puritans. Yet, the Jamestown colonies were particularly