Puritans: The Impact Of Non-Separatist People In Massachusetts

The Puritans were the first and surprisingly largest colonists of America during Colonial Times. A separatist group that had migrated from England to escape persecution and to find a place where they could be religiously satisfied and undisturbed. The Puritans built their society in North America that revolved around a strong connection towards God and family. Although the Puritans were not the only group of people to migrate to North America or only group present in colonial times, they were one of the most impactful, and many of their ideals, morals, and values influenced the economic, political, and social development of New England.

Puritan Separatists/Plymouth Plantation/Pilgrims/Mayflower Compact: Puritan Separatists were a group of English Puritans who left England to seek religious freedom. They first went to the Netherlands, and in 1620 to America. They were sponsored by Thomas Weston and other merchants who had received a patent for a settlement from the Virginia Company of London. Eighteen families went across the Atlantic in the Mayflower with the agreement that they would send back goods to England to pay for their new land. In November of 1620, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth, outside the bounds of Virginia.

Religion played an enormous role in forming early New England society. The Puritans. who migrated to the United Kingdom in 1630, wanted to attain independence from the church and local executives, who had prohibited them from pursuing their religion (Winship 72). This paper describes the challenges posed to the Puritan orthodoxy by Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. However, why the Massachusetts Bay colony leaders were unable to tolerate such disputes?

Salem is a Puritan community, and its occupants live in an extremely strict society. Although the Puritans left England to avoid religious commitment, they established a society in a America founded upon religious discrimination(Critical Essays Historical Period: Puritans in Salem, 2016). Government and religious authority are virtually inseparable, and the individuals who question the local authority are accused of questioning divine authority. The Puritan community considers physical labor and strict discipline to be a religious doctrine which is the best indicators of faithfulness, honesty, and integrity.

An understanding of the Puritans is fundamental to understanding how the events in Salem could have taken place. Research the Puritans, their religious beliefs, and the kind of society they hoped to establish in the New World. To start off, who are and what are Puritans? The Puritans were a group of people who grew up in the Church of England and worked towards religious and morals.

The State of Massachusetts he says has two separate governments of Puritan emigrants, the original being the first Puritan to set foot on the land while the second was from the American government and it aimed at differentiating the masses to have more people from the colony of the Pilgrim fathers. The Pilgrim Fathers were considerate to the Indian inhabitants of America. The Puritans, however, were hostile, and they treated the Indians harshly. The manner in which the Pilgrims entered the North region was legal, and it would have allowed them to make a political body if at all they settled as they had intended as per the stipulations of Northern Virginia

Almost every Sunday morning you could find most of the population of Salem village in church. By 1692 denominations such as Presbyterians, Baptist, Quakers, Huguenots, and Anglicans had come to Massachusetts, but most of the people in Salem attended a Congregational service and called themselves Puritans. The Puritans, also known as Nonconformists, held a service each Sunday and were very traditional and set in their ways. The meeting house was set up with a pulpit at the front where the minister gave a sermon to the congregation each Sunday. The ministers of these churches were expected to be well educated and were paid with tax money in most of the cities in Massachusetts.

Puritans disagreed with the people who followed Church of England which made them secede and practice on their own. Although, leaving the church made Puritans victimized. Puritans that separated, Separatists, strayed away from the Church of England and made a pact with the Virginia Company of London to voyage the May Flower to Virginia. The Separatists, also referred as Pilgrims, landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims did not believe they were under jurisdiction of the Virginia Company of London so they created the Mayflower Compact which was an agreement of majority rule and a promise to defend any other member of the group if ejected.

The Puritan community was split up into two section: Separatist Puritans and non-Separatist Puritans. The Separatist Puritans were different than the English society. Disillusioned with the Anglican Church and by the King’s challenge to their beliefs, they arrive to the New World in the early seventeenth century. They created what they felt like was a great ideal for the Christian communities at Plymouth, Salem, Dover, and Portsmouth.

While the Puritans acted in inhumane ways, the Puritans ' actions towards others reflected their beliefs because of the Puritans ' reasoning to the idea of slavery, the Puritans ' engagement of war, and the Puritans ' brutal acts towards the Indians. The Puritans believed that as long as their actions were supported by the English understanding of religion and morality and were within the bounds of law, these actions were justified. The treatment of people in the 1600s may not have been seen as something peaceful, but during the time it supported the Puritan belief. First, the Puritans ' actions towards others reflected their beliefs because of the Puritans ' reasoning to the idea of slavery. As it has been noted by historians, specifically

The Puritans are a Christian religious group that originated in England but ended up in America. The Puritan religious is not commonly practiced now and might even be extinct. Thought they are either sparse or gone the Puritans have effects how we today worship. The Puritans had great effect on the way America was set up, but actually originated in England.

Question 5 The topic of immigration is closely related to oppression and persecution. Groups of people globally are often caused to immigrate to other areas of the state, sometimes other countries to escape in pursuit in of fortified asylum. This topic correlates directly with the case of the Puritans in 1630 when they set sail for America in search for religious reform.

“for wee must consider that wee shall be as a City upon a Hill, that the eies of all people are upon us,” ( Winthrop “City Upon the Hill” 11 ) such was the foundation for the Puritans model religious city in the New World. In 1629 the British Parliament, composed heavily of Puritans, was dissolved when King Charles II decided that he had the right to rule through a concept known as divine right. Angered by this decision along with tensions that had been building over many years pushed around nine hundred Puritans to the New World with the goal of creating a perfect religious haven. While the Puritans beliefs did influence America in various ways including culture and political bases America has moved far from John Winthrops perfect utopia. This movement, however, should not be viewed as a bad development for the nation.

The New England colonies were best known for being the place where Puritan religious reformers and their followers settled. The Puritans were a Protestant Christian group that believed in strict moral and religious codes and the reform of the Church of England. Due to the strict laws put into place in England, the Puritans were unable to follow through their efforts to reform the Church and many faced oppression and discrimination during that time. The Puritans saw an irredeemably corrupt Church of England so many followed John Winthrop to Massachusetts to establish their own community. On the other hand, New France was known for its fur trading and missionary work.

The Puritans had a huge impact on New England and their way of living. Once the Puritans colonized New England, they had a huge positive influence on the political, economic, and social development of New England through their ideas. Politically, they established the form of government we have today. Economically, the Puritans helped to develop the art of shipbuilding in New England. Socially, the Puritans had certain ideals that related to the community coming together as a close family.