The Process of Colonization

The Process of Colonization

Introduction

The New England region of the United States was comprised of the states of New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island (Kupperman, 2012). It was formerly settled by Puritans and Pilgrims from England. New England is an Atlantic coastal region in the United States of America. Captain John Smith named it in the year 1614. Basically it was a union made by 4original colonies in 1643, for protection against the Indians, particularly after the Pequot War (Kupperman, 2012). This union also offered ample military strength to defend against the prowling risk of Dutch development from the Hudson River Valley. Thus, New England came into being since the tenth century. It was established under the Rhuiddlan's statue in the year 1824 (Kupperman, 2012). For long it has been understood that the primary purpose for the establishment of the colonies of New England was religious independence. Undoubtedly what those early colonists sought was the liberty to worship God as they believed proper, however they did not pull that liberty out to everyone. Those who showed a dissimilar approach to religious worship were not accepted. In particular, the Puritans were bigoted and prejudiced toward those who held beliefs different from their own (Morgan, 2003).

Discussion

The Process of Colonization

The New England and Plymouth colonies in North America were inhabited mainly by troubled and vexed Englishmen, disgruntled with constitutional and religious developments in England under Charles I and James I and distressed about the harassment of people who disagreed from the doctrines and practices of the recognized Anglican Church (Breen & Hall, 2004). The region acquired a pitiable standing, subsequent to the experiences there of the Plymouth branch of the Virginia Company, as a barren and harsh land. To one side from little coastal settlements under the support of the Council for New England in what are now Maine and New Hampshire, it was ignored by the English.

The first tentative steps towards the colonization of New England took place in 1620 when a party of some one hundred people on board the Mayflower made a landfall at Cape Cod and settled in Plymouth (Landsman, 2010). Many of the group, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, had originally belonged to a separatist congregation at Scrooby near Gainsborough, which had emigrated to Leiden in the Netherlands. Its leader and first governor, William Bradford, became inspired by the idea of the New World as a secure haven for English separatists. Although the Pilgrims were by no means destitute, they emigrated on borrowed capital and had to toil in a difficult environment at agriculture, fishing and the fur trade to achieve economic independence. For many years the settlement remained small and weak. It none the less survived with modest growth and was eventually absorbed into Massachusetts in 1691 (Landsman, 2010). Plymouth was the first permanent northern outpost of England in America. Its early difficulties were a warning to English Puritans of the need for adequate financial backing within a corporate company as the basis ...