An Examination of the Differences Between the Colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth

Hundreds of years ago in what we now call the United States, there were European colonists settling all over for a multitude of reasons Varying from religious freedoms, to business reasons- and their success relied on their willingness to work, and their environment. In this essay, I will be addressing the differences of two different colonies that had different reasons for creating their colonies, and they were started up in different places. There were two main English colonies, one in Jamestown, Virginia and one in Plymouth, Massachusetts Both of the settlements were founded around the same time, The Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620, and the Jamestown Colony, in 1607. Keeping this in mind, it is interesting to note that both of these colonies had their own ways of surviving, and their own beliefs.

So, here’s the big question, what makes them different? First of all, the Plymouth Colony and the Jamestown Colony had different types of people in them According to Fisher (1985), the Plymouth colony was full of closely knit people, all looking to get away from religious prosecution. In contrast to the Plymouth Colony, the Jamestown colony was made up of upper class nobles, who were in search of gold and other materialistic items, The Jamestown colony also enjoyed direct rule from the king and a centralized government A centralized government is one in which only a few people have total political authority. They make sure that the economy and community are working properly, While Jamestown had a centralized government, Plymouth did not Instead, it had a decentralized government, which means that all of the people who want to be in the government need to be voted in, giving everyone a say in who is going to lead the colony Adecentralized government also has a lot more people in their government than the regular centralized government because they have a legislative body.

Both of the colonies were vastly different, the Plymouth Colony became self sufficient over time, but the Jamestown Colony was dependent on the British crown for materials such as supplies and some food. Since the Plymouth colonists were for the most part regular people, they were people who had farmed regularly, hunted regularly, and did other labor intensive jobs on a daily basis, Unlike the Plymouth colonists, the Jamestown colonists were for the most part from the cities, where there was really no need to know how to do any real labor intensive work. Creating a colony with inexperienced people was obviously a horrible plan, since they couldn’t do anything on their own besides trade. The Jamestown colonists were inexperienced, unwilling to learn, and never on the same page with each othert All of these issues, plus environmental issues including disease and famine made it very difficult to survive in Jamestown.

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The original colonists never planned to become self-sufficient, which obviously blew up in their faces in the winter of 1609, when they had gone through something the modern world has dubbed ‘The Starving Time’. According to Neely (2013), Jamestown had a huge famine which had wiped out 80 percent of the colonists in just one winter, which led to the colonists having to eat their animals, like horses, cats, dogs, snakes and other small animals During all of this they also possibly eat other humans, as there has been evidence of cannibalism in some human remains found in the area in which Jamestown was founded. Ahuge impact on life in the colonies is environmental impact, which obviously varied a bit, depending on the colony’s location. Since the Jamestown colonists obviously were unwilling to work, the good soil they were on was practically useless until they had finally realized that they would need to begin to start up plantations and grow their own food, instead of relying solely on the British Crown.

The climate is much warmer in Jamestown than in Plymouth, which gave them an advantage in terms of farming, compared to the Plymouth colonists , who were stuck with thin, rocky soil and a shorter growing season, Obviously, thin rocky soil in cold weather is unsuitable for any sort of farming, but since the Plymouth colonists were already familiar with farming, they could still make do with what they had. The Plymouth colony was also near water, which means that they had access to another food source (fish and seaweed), access to trade routes and somewhere to build boats, which was very hard labor, but it usually paid quite a bit more than trading or selling fur pelts and food. So, in conclusion, even though obviously Jamestown had a lot more funding, the Plymouth colony was much more successful in terms of survival, farming, and becoming self-sufficient.

The Jamestown colony was lucky in terms of physical surroundings, such as good soil, warmer temperatures, and flat plains all overt. The Jamestown colonists however, did not take advantage of these good qualities, never thinking to start plantations up, instead relying on the British Crown for help. The Jamestown colonists never really got along with each other either. All of them fought over everything and complained about the work they needed to do. The Plymouth colony, on the other hand, had bad soil but also had access to the ocean, giving them multiple ways to get food, and also allowing them to make money by building ships. The Pilgrims were a closely knit group of people, so everyone was working together peacefully. The Plymouth colony even befriended a group of Native Americans who later helped them with survival.

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