In the passage, the author is primarily

In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with In a recent study, David Cressy examines two central questions concerning English immigration to New England in the 1630s: what kinds of people immigrated and why? Using contemporary literary evidence, shipping lists, and customs records, Cressy finds line that most adult immigrants were skilled in farming or crafts, were literate, and were 5 organized in families. Each of these characteristics sharply distinguishes the 21,000 people who left for New England in the 1630s from most of the approximately 377,000 English people who had immigrated to America by 1700. With respect to their reasons for immigrating, Cressy does not deny the frequently noted fact that some of the immigrants of the 1630s, most notably the organizers and 10 clergy, advanced religious explanations for departure, but he finds that such explanations usually assumed primacy only in retrospect. When he moves beyond the principal actors, he finds that religious explanations were less frequently offered, and he concludes that most people immigrated because they were recruited by promises of material improvement. summarizing the findings of an investigation, analyzing a method of argument, evaluating a point of view, hypothesizing about a set of circumstances, establishing categories