New England, and its collective colonies, was very different from its counterparts in Virginia and the West Indies. From what I can gather from Taylor’s chapter about New England, these differences can be traced back to its founders’ and residents’ original motivations for immigrating. Virginia and the West Indies were generally split up into tracts of lands for wealthy friends of the King, to be worked by indentured servants and slaves. The motivating factor for establishing Virginia and other colonies was generally financial. By contrast, New England was founded by and generally made up of “middling sorts” of Puritans, who came to the New World to establish themselves and their families. Their motivating factor was religious freedom. This central difference is at the root of the relative success and prosperity of New England.
New England was distinct in many ways. First, the model of small, family-owned, subsistence-based farms, instead of large plantations, meant more diverse production. While Virginia lived or died by the price of tobacco and sugar, New England’s economy was more stable. New England was also distinct in its reliance upon family labor, rather than slave labor. People worked their own farms, and worked them harder, as their family’s future financial security was tied up in the soil. This Puritan family unit dictated strict values and ethics. Puritan life meant harder work, less indulgence, a more egalitarian distribution of family duties, and as a result, better health. General health certainly qualifies as a third distinction of the Puritan colonies. Men came to New England with their wives, giving New England a relatively even gender ratio. As one might guess, this meant a higher birthrate. Coupled with longer life expectancy (partly due to a colder, less diseased climate), New England’s population grew from within when immigration began to taper off.
Essentially, New England was more enduringly successful because it was founded to be enduring. The Puritans came there to build, rather than to exploit. They built their future on their own backs, rather than on the backs of slaves. They came to the New World to flourish and to construct, rather than to exploit and profit. The distinctions that allowed them to thrive come down to the sweat of their brow, or the Puritan work ethic. This leads me to a question for my classmates. Do you think that this famous Puritan work ethic is at the root of the now-diverse story of American pioneerism? In other words, does the idea of the American dream come down from the Puritans, or are the Puritans merely part of a patchwork quilt of American immigration success stories?
Your question is interesting. While hard-work to find success is certainly part of the American Dream, I am hesitant to say that this is from the Puritans. Their perspective, according to Taylor, was hard work to gain success that proves you are one of God’s elect and hard work because you have to be a doer to show that you are elect. Though the note of the people in this colony relying on their own labor seems to point toward an American ideal that we have now, I’m not sure that it was so clear at the time. Views of slavery were certainly different, and Taylor suggests that they did not have more indentured servants because they couldn’t afford it and didn’t have slaves because they didn’t have cash crops that might require them. I would, however, agree with your second suggestion that Puritans “are the Puritans merely part of a patchwork quilt of American immigration success stories.” Many of our American ideals were formed from writers deliberately choosing how they wanted to depict the American people and land. In this way the Puritans likely played a role as contributors of writing that determines our self-image of America, but they were not sole contributors of any one ideal. I find it more likely that the value of hard work developed because in writing about Americans this would have been a positive way to depict people struggling to survive in the new world.
Great post, Brandon–you really capture what made the Puritan colony distinct. Well done!