Compare and contrast the political, economic, religious, social, intellectual and artistic elements of colonial Virginia and Massachusetts

While Virginia and Massachusetts had some similarities like using crops as a money source, they mostly had differences. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the differences in government, religion, economies and the purpose of each of the two colonies.

Government. Virginia had a Royal government, which was a monarchy. Its owner was England. They had huge land holding and in 1619, Virginia had the House of Burgesses. It was the first representative self-government. In Massachusetts, the government is a corporate government, and in this colony, they had town meetings.

Next is religion, Massachusetts. Massachusetts had a puritan religion and a case could be made, that our country still has some of those puritan traits today. Traits such as the blue laws which prevents you from buying liquor in some states. A classic example would be the drinking age. In Virginia, there religion was Anglican due to the fact that Virginia was mostly English people and the Church of England was Anglican.

The purposes of the two colonies were different in two main ways. Virginia’s purposes was solely for trades and profits. Their land was fertile and England capitalized. The purpose of Massachusetts was to have religious freedom for puritans because in 1629, King Charles took action against the puritans. John Winthrop, who had not been with the puritans at the time decided to join and help colonize the Massachusetts Bay colony.

Last but not least is the economics of the two colonies. Virginia had two main items. Cotton and tobacco. England realized that tobacco was a big ticket item and there was an opportunity to trade it with the rest of Europe. Massachusetts had a mixed economy with farming, fishing, ship building and lumbar.