John Winthrop

Having been granted a charter for land, John Winthrop and a group of fellow Puritan merchants set sail for America in 1629. As first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop was charged with founding the colony on binding social principles. Out of this need, Winthrop delivered his famous sermon, A Model of Christian Charity. His sermon presented the budding community with two critical motivational concepts: first, the ideal of the "City on a Hill" acting as an example for other communities, and second, the promise of spiritual reward in return for social utilitarianism, solidarity, and hard work. These tenets set forth a strong foundation, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony flourished as a result. However, objectors (like Anne Bradstreet) to Winthrop's narrow interpretation of the Bible challenged the concept of this "divine covenant" and its similarities to exclusionary Roman Catholic practices. Despite these conflicts, Puritans continued to immigrate to the new and prospering Christian colony for the next two decades.

Jamestown and The Virginia Company

In 1606, James I was king of England, and one of his many goals was to expand English territory to include the eastern coast of the New World. He authorized the Virginia Company, a London-based trading company, to expand British territory through the issuing of land charters. Jamestown was one of these charters.

Jamestown, founded on May 14, 1607, was the first permanent English settlement in North America. As chronicled in John Smith's The General History of Virginia, members of the colony suffered several hardships, including starvation, disease, disorganized leadership, and Native attacks. It was not until the colony's mastery of the tobacco crop that Jamestown became a permanent colony.