King James I, realized that if they could defy him as a religous leader then they could also defy him as a political one, and so, King James I forced many of them out of the land into Holland. Puritans afraid of "Dutchification" of their children left in the Great Migration towards the New World. Fourteen thousand Puritans left Europe and migrated to the New England Colonies. In the ship's list of those bound to New England, (B) most consisted in a family structure. Husbands, wives, and children alike traveled to New England for permanent settlement. Unlike emigrants to the Chesapeake Bay Colonies, these emigrants settled not for greed, but for their religious and their heritage's sake. .
When Jamestown was founded many of the settlers died of disease. The wooded area and slow moving waters contributed to the fast spreading of malaria. The Chesapeake area was home to a dozen tribes under the Powhaten Confederacy. The English tense relationship with the Powhaten caused two wars which the second ended the Indians inhabitants in the colony. Berkeley's council report of December of 1673 (G) stated that vast rivers were hard to defend against the Dutch. The environment indeed caused much conflict which made living hard for settlers, but the earth always gives back and with the good soil and weather their major crop was able to be grown in abundance, the product was tobacco.
Tobacco being easy to grow and easy to tend made it an economic breakthrough. The Europeans became addicted to the weed and the demand for it was high. Settlers began to grow everywhere and bought much land to support the crop. Settlers bought so much land that they lacked the man power to tend to the crops. Families formed too slowly to provide natural population growth. The settlers desperate for workers turned to indentured servants. One hundred thousand indentured servants were brought to the Chesapeake area by 1700 contributing to its population.