The purposes of England's American colonies varied and were altered in the early years of settlement. Many settlers came to the new world for economic reasons while others came for political or social reasons. The colonies of Virginia and the Carolinas are examples of Economic change. Political examples of change are the Georgia and the Carolinas, While Maryland, North Carolina, and Georgia are examples of social change. Because of what the settlers found and what they experience their original purposes changed.
The colony Virginia was found by the London Company in 1607 to make money for its investors and to find a route to the Indies. Because Settlers were threatened with abandonment if they didn't find gold or success, the settlers spent too much time searching for the gold, which wasn't there. When the colonists realized this, they knew their ultimate purpose was now to survive. They soon learned how to grow their own crops from the Indians and eventually John Rolfe discovered tobacco, which soon became their main crop. Virginia used indentured servants to grow their tobacco. Near the end of the seventeenth century Virginians turned to African slaves for labor. There were three hundred blacks in the colony in 1650; blacks were 14% of the population by the end of the century. Colonists from Carolina also came to America for economic purposes. Carolina was founded by eight nobles in 1670, originally this colony's purpose was to trade with the sugar cane islands of the west Indies. They exported rice to the West Indies. Along with rice they exported Indians to the Indies. The Indian enslavement eventually stopped because the Indians moved to the Pennsylvania area, because the founder of Pennsylvania promised better relations with whites and the Indians. As time went they specialized in rice, which required many laborers. Since Carolina was a plantation colony, the planters needed workers.
