Compare the political, economic, religious, and social reasons for the establishment of the 13 colonies.

Pls help ASAP

Possible Reasons:

Political - Concerns governments, rights, and power.

POLITICAL REASONS: ENCOURAGEMENT FROM RULERS

British monarchs encouraged the development of colonies as new sources of wealth and power. They

granted charters to groups of businessmen, like the Virginia Company, who offered to help colonists

settle in the “New World.”

Economic - Concerns money and wealth.

ECONOMIC REASONS: HUNGER FOR GOLD AND SILVER

Based on the success of Spain, the first colonists believed that gold and silver existed in great

abundance in the Americas. These early adventurers came to the Americas in search of precious metals.

ECONOMIC REASONS: LAND HUNGER

Colonial settlements presented new business opportunities for merchants. The“Proprietors” who

owned the Carolinas encouraged people to come. Many came to own their own land. Most people in

Britain, Ireland, and the rest of Europe were peasants or tenant farmers with small, over-worked lands

and high rents. In America, land still seemed plentiful. The settlers did not recognize the rights of

Native American Indians or understand their use of the land. Many of the first settlers were given free

land by the colony. Later, they were able to purchase land.

Later many colonists came as “indentured servants.” A colonial landowner paid for their passage across

the Atlantic, and the indentured servant promised to work on the landowner’s plantation or farm,

usually for a period of seven years. Once the debt was paid off, indentured servants obtained freedom

and began saving to buy their own land.

Religious - Deals with beliefs and practices in the worship of God.

RELIGIOUS REASONS

Protestant groups, like the Pilgrims and Puritans, came to the Americas to establish their own

communities, where they could worship God in their own way. Catholics, Quakers, and Jews later

came to the colonies seeking freedom of worship.

Social - Involves how people organize themselves or live together.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REASONS: A BETTER LIFE

Most colonists had faced difficult lives in Britain, Ireland, Scotland, or Germany. They came to the

Americas to escape poverty, warfare, political turmoil, famine and disease. They believed colonial life

offered new opportunities