What is one reason colonists came to America?

Why this is the answer

The question asks for a reason, not a group or a date, and USCIS accepts six short ones: freedom, political liberty, religious freedom, economic opportunity, practice their religion, and escape persecution. They boil down to three motives. Some people left Europe because they could not worship as they chose at home. Many wanted a voice in how they were governed. Others came for a better living. Two early settlements show how the religious and economic motives played out. Jamestown, founded in 1607 as England's first permanent settlement in North America, drew colonists looking for economic opportunity: land that seemed easier to buy for farming, and for some the hope of finding gold or silver. The first years there were brutal, and many settlers died of hunger, disease or the winter cold. In 1620 the Pilgrims founded the colony of Massachusetts, and many of them came for religious freedom. More colonists from England followed, and the settlements grew into thirteen colonies along the East Coast. Through the 1600s and 1700s, settlers from England and other European countries kept crossing the Atlantic for the same mix of reasons, because those freedoms and chances were often missing in the places they left. USCIS draws the line to the present: people still come to the United States for these reasons. If one of the six is also true for you, it will be easy to recall. All six count the same, and nobody grades which motive you pick. Keep the answer to a word or a short phrase. A long story about the Pilgrims can wander away from what the officer needs to hear, and naming a group of settlers does not answer "why." Be careful with the money answer, too. Say "economic opportunity" rather than "to find gold," which describes what some Jamestown colonists hoped for but is not one of the listed answers.