Europeans came to the New World for many reasons, including to escape debt, persecution, or to make a profit. As the years went by, these colonies grew and thrived, developing distinctive customs, social structures, and beliefs.
Escaping Debt
Originally founded as a debtor's colony, Georgia was to make a profit from the colony's produce and give debtors a means of working off their debts. Georgia was also a buffer between the colonies and the Spanish Empire.
Freedom of Religion
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Connecticut were founded so that different religions could be practiced without interference from the Old World, and in some cases, Massachusetts.
Profit
Virginia, New York, Delaware, North and, South Carolina, and New Jersey were the proprietary colonies. The main mission of these colonies was to make money for the stockholders in England.
Customs and Culture
The colonies were varied fragments of a European Culture interacting in a common manner with their environment and with each other, with an Atlantic trading and idea exchanging community. Becoming in the end, a sufficiently altered European type society to claim the distinctions of independence.