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
