The views and living arrangements in the Chesapeake Bay and New England in the 1600s were very different from each other. Compared to the Chesapeake in the seventeenth century, people in New England were healthier physically, had more stable religion and better family values.

Health conditions overwhelmed the Chesapeake colonies with infections, diseases, and deaths.

“Plagued by horrendous mortality, the Chesapeake remained, for most of the seventeenth century, a land of immigrants rather than of settled families.” (Nash pg. 39)

Grandparents were almost unheard of because the surrounding environment full of disease. Pregnant women were prone to malaria, and if they did actually bear a child, chances are the child died sick before he or she became an adult (Nash pg. 39).

Marriage was a sacred, yet socially mandatory step in Puritan life. Women were essential to the Puritan community:

In the Chesapeake, families did not typically consist of both parents in a child’s teenage years. Either the husband or the wife was expected to die of disease within about seven years. Women were outnumbered by men three to one and once a spouse died the widow would marry again very quickly. Families started consisting of half-siblings and step-siblings (Nash pg. 39).

The Chesapeake colonies were not strictly of the Puritan faith. Maryland was governed by a Catholic in the 1600s until the Glorious Revolution in 1688, when it was then governed by a Protestant (Nash pg. 77). The Chesapeake colonies, especially Virginia, were tolerant of all religions, unlike the Puritans, who felt that all people should convert

Some topics in this essay:
Compared Chesapeake, Christianity Virginia, England Puritan, Chesapeake Bay, America Nash, Protestant Nash, England Pestana, nash pg, Life England, Glorious Revolution, chesapeake colonies, pg 39, seventeenth century, Bay England, nash pg 39, chesapeake bay,