Answer:
Why Did the English Come?
Initially, European nations were searching for a water route to the Far East, not a New World. Many factors encouraged European exploration. Portugal, Spain, France, and England were newly emerged as nation-states with the means to finance long overseas voyages now possible by innovations in navigation. They searched for a water route to the East because war with the Ottoman Empire interrupted the profitable overland trade routes with the Orient. Support for exploration also came from the Catholic Church, which looked to convert pagans.
The English did not come to Virginia for political or religious freedom. They wanted an empire in America, where Spain already was deriving great wealth. They sought gold and gems, a passage to the riches of China and the Indies, and to prey on treasure-filled Spanish galleons. They hoped to convert the native peoples to Protestantism and challenge the ambitions of Catholic Spain and France.
Europeans hoped that the Western Hemisphere would prove a new Eden of peace and plenty. Jamestown was established by the Virginia Company of London, a stock company established in 1606 by a royal charter issued by James I. The king made promises in that charter that Virginians would remember in 1775: all in Virginia “and every of their children shall have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises, and Immunities as if they had been abiding and born within this our Realm of England.”
