The Protestant Reformation in England led the Puritans to immigrate to America. Also, Old England was going through a hard economic time. Many were poor and unemployed, and this caused English men to seek a better life in the new world. The Spanish exploration, led by Christopher Columbus, led the way for other European countries to follow to the new world. The eastern coast of North America was colonized by English men of the same background and origin, but by the 1700s, the New England and Chesapeake regions have developed into two distinct nations.

The two regions were founded for very different reasons. New England was founded for religious reasons because the Puritans were seeking religious freedom. Puritans came to America as
New England had a very centralized government, while the Chesapeake was completely the opposite, decentralized (Doc D). Among these differences were the education systems. New England based their education off of the bible, since the rest of their society was built around the bible. The Puritans valued education greatly. To this day New England has the best education systems in the nation. They were also the first to found a college, Harvard, which was founded in 1636. They also had a law that stated that for every fifty families, and new school must be built. The middle colonies were not concerned about providing the public with education. Their first college, William and Mary, was not founded until 1693, 57 years after Harvard was founded. And in the southern colonies, children of FFV’s had tutors, but there were no public schools. New England’s government was centralized and structured. They had town meetings, which were significant because it recognized every citizen in the community (Doc G). The Chesapeake and Southern colonies had no laws or rules since the land was more rural, especially the large southern plantations. The FFV’s ruled the southern colonies. They were in charge of everything. The government was very decentralized, opposed to New England’s government. People were told what to do, and it was very hard for someone without money to have a say in what was happening. In other words,