Colonization In America

As America was colonized, it became a very diverse place. People from many different countries in Europe moved to the new world for various reasons, from wanting a better life to escaping undesirable conditions in Europe. Not only were many different ethnicities present in the American colonies, but many different types of people also migrated to the new world, from undesirables, to slaves and indentured servants, to common people. America’s ideas of social status were also different compared to their original European home. This created a diverse country with its own ideas about way of life, different from other countries across the Atlantic.
Some of the first people brought to America were referred to as Europe’s “scum of the earth”. These …show more content…
They adopted different views on society than their neighbors back in Europe had had, believing that people of all social statuses and economic positions should be treated with respect. Though the wealth gap between the poor and the rich was widening, people held each other in higher regard than they had in Europe. Many people who came to America were able to gain a considerably better life than they had had in Europe as well. There was an abundance of land in the new world, most of it available for the taking. Some acquired vast amounts of land and made their fortune in real estate, while others, particularly in the South, started a profitable plantation on that land and became very wealthy. In areas like England, there were not always many opportunities for poor people to make money, but in America, many people became farmers or worked in cities. By no means did everyone make a fortune in America, but many were able to make an acceptable living from the resources available in the new world, and people tended to be better off in the new world than they had been in Europe. The Great Awakening, a religious revival in the 1700s, also greatly impacted the new world society. Through this revival, people questioned older sources of authority in churches and adopted the principle that ordinary people had minds of their own and could hold positions that had previously been reserved for individuals in the higher classes. This threatened the society and the ideals that settlers had originally brought with them from Europe, and many higher classes were concerned by the Great Awakening. Middle class people in particular were skeptical towards dogma and authority, and also had a renewed feeling of self importance. Once people began questioning the church, they began to question other forms of authority,