Did the factors that motivated the European (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English in particular) to explore and colonize North America and South America did not concern material gain and / or religious freedom.

"Whereas Spanish colonialism was based on the religious conversion and exploitation of local populations via encomiendas (many Spaniards emigrated to the Americas to elevate their social status, and were not interested in manual labour), Northern European colonialism was bolstered by those emigrating for religious reasons (for example, the Mayflower voyage). The motive for emigration was not to become an aristocrat or to spread one's faith but to start a new society afresh, structured according to the colonists wishes. The most populous emigration of the seventeenth century was that of the English, who after a series of wars with the Dutch and French came to dominate the eastern coast of the present day U.S. and Canada. However, the English, French and Dutch were no more averse to making a profit than the Spanish and Portuguese, and whilst their areas of settlement in the Americas proved to be devoid of the precious metals found by the Spanish, trade in other commodities and products that could be sold at massive profit in Europe provided another reason for crossing the Atlantic, in particular furs from Canada, tobacco and cotton grown in Virginia and sugar in the islands of the Caribbean and Brazil. Due to the massive depletion of indigenous labour, plantation owners had to look elsewhere for manpower for these labour-intensive crops. They turned to the centuries old slave trade of west Africa and began transporting Africans across the Atlantic on a massive scale - historians estimate that the Atlantic slave trade brought between 10 and 12 million African (mostly black skinned) slaves to the New World. The islands of the Caribbean soon came to be populated by slaves of African descent, ruled over by a white minority of plantation owners interested in making a fortune and then returning to their home country to spend it. - Role of companies in early colonialism From its very outset, Western colonialism was operated as a joint public-private venture. Columbus' voyages to the Americas were partially funded by Italian investors, but whereas the Spanish state maintained a tight reign on trade with its colonies (by law, the colonies could only trade with one designated port in the mother country and treasure was brought back in special convoys), the English, French and Dutch granted what were effectively trade monopolies to joint-stock companies such as the East India Companies and the Hudson's Bay Company." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Northern_European_challenges_to_the_Iberian_hegemony

The motivation to move into the Americas was to confiscate the natural riches: gold, wildlife, land for population growth and agriculture, and as part of an economical trade route to Eastern Asia and India. Religious freedom was a late motive, but far outpaced by economical advantages of claiming land in the new world, but it was reinforced by the demand to bring Christianity to the indigenous peoples, and to kill them and take their gold.

They only wanted to be American, of course...

Remember the three 'G's : god glory gold.