Conditions in England during the 16th and 17th centuries reflected great changes which were taking place in both rural and urban areas. Economic changes centered on sheep and the demand for woolen cloth. Through a series of legal actions, known as the “En-closure Acts”, English landowners were allowed to enclose their farms and fence off large areas as grazing lands for sheep. This made available large amounts of wool which mer-chants sold throughout Europe. It also meant that farmers who had rented their small plots of land from large landowners were uprooted and drifted from the countryside to towns and cities looking for work. While landowners, wool manufacturers and merchants amassed great wealth, many of the migrants were reduced to begging or steal-ing to survive. Migrating to a new world seemed a hopeful choice for many of these people, as it did for English leaders who saw colonies as a way to solve the problems of the growing numbers of displaced and poor people. England was looking at the settlement of colonies as a way of fulfilling its desire to sell more goods and resources to other countries than it bought. If colonies could send raw materials, such as lumber, from the abundance of natural resources available in the colonies, then England would not have to buy these from other countries. At the same time, colonies could be markets for England’s manufactured goods. England knew that establishing colonies was an expensive and risky business. The orga-nization of business ventures by merchants, blessed by the crown, served both the economic and po-litical interests of the country.
