A key motivation behind early English settlement in the American colonies was: acquisition of land, and thus a measure of personal independence, escape from the material and spiritual corruptions of England, and the profits to be made in transatlantic commerce.The opportunity to make money was one of the primary motivators for the colonization of the New World. The Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown colony to make a profit for its investors.
Persecution in England from not being able to choose what religion they practiced. also, if you have to look even further back. --> to escape the religious and political turmoil caused by the Protestant and Catholic reformations.
