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Essay on the puritans
The puritans in america
Essay on the puritans
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Puritans and Pilgrims The Puritans and the Pilgrims, both previous members of the Church of England, desired to make changes by purifying the church by establishing their own colonies and religious ideas in terms of worship. While both of these groups set out to accomplish the same goal, they still had their own individual ideas about how to do so. Their differences led to the Puritans being called non-Separatists and the Pilgrims being called Separatists. Even though they had different ideas, both groups are responsible for laying the groundwork on how we live today. We will discuss the differences between the Puritans and the Pilgrims focusing on religion, politics, and geographical location. Religion Both the Puritans and the Pilgrims felt that there needed to be changes made to the Church of England, but each group had different viewpoints. Puritans, which are known as non-Separatists, still remained …show more content…
The Puritans, who established their colony in Massachusetts Bay in 1629, were many in number and quickly made use of their environment to achieve their goals. They became a very powerful force in the merchant world as well, very much due to being near the Boston harbor (Schweikart & Allen, 2007, p. 28). The Pilgrims, on the other hand, landed in a much poorer location, Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in December of 1620, and because of the time of year were unable to plant any food for survival, and many perished (Pilgrims, 2015). Once they were able to barely overcome this setback, they still were unable to really get a foothold to be a real competitor for the Puritans. Even though the Puritans landed in American almost ten years later then the Pilgrims, they were in much better condition to establish their colony by being both more educated and financially
The severely different environments in the New England and Chesapeake area allowed for different economies to progress. The original reason for settlement of the gentry who claimed Jamestown in 1607 was due to expectations; settlers expected to find gold, riches and Native Americans who were willing to serve them and wait on them. The swampland they had settled on made it difficult to grow crops, but in 1616, tobacco had become the staple of exports in the Chesapeake region. To fuel this expanding economy, indentured servants were introduced to private plantations and in 1619, slaves began to be shipped from Africa. Rather than settle for wealth-related purposes, the Separatist Puritans wanted to separate from the Church of England, while maintaining their English culture; this led them to occupy Plymouth in 1620. The land was fertile and allowed for crop growth, which grew large economic activity in corn and cattle trade. Although land was an important factor in success, their will and desire to do hard work was the key factor and distinguished them from the gentry that settled the Chesapeake region. In 1628, the Mass Bay Company, who too were...
While Puritans believed that they should not separate themselves from the Church of England, church was still a major cornerstone in their new
Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England settled New England. They were a highly religious people. Document A, John Winthrop’s “ City on a hill” speech, shows how they lived according to God’s will and were very community oriented. Their towns were very planned out with a town/ church meetinghouse in the centre, and land plots for everyone in the community. This is shown in Document D, Articles of Agreement in Springfield Massachusetts 1636. Family was also very important. Since they were very religious and family is highly regarded in the Bible, marriage was advocated and adultery was a huge crime. Adulterers were made to wear the letter A on their clothing. Since they were a very close-knit people, they travelled as big families and sometimes as communities. This mass travel is depicted in document B that is a ship’s list of emigrants bound for New Engla...
Among the first English settlers were the pilgrims, a group of around 100 people who fled England in 1608 for Holland due to religious persecution (Henkin and McLennan, 54), but found it to be too tolerable (Lecture), and were concerned about the influence of the Dutch on their children (Henkin and McLennan, 54). With hopes of a “purer” society (Lecture, 9/21/16), they decided to emigrate to the New World, eventually landing at Plymouth Harbor. The Puritans emigrated because of concerns that “the English reformation had not fully purged itself of Catholic heresy,” (Henkin and McLennan,
In June 1630, John Winthrop and his fleet arrived in Salem, Massachusetts. This was not the ideal place for Winthrop’s ideal “citty”. So five days after land John and his men left Salem in search of better land. Charlestown was where the puritans set their roots. However, their start was not favorable due to disease, killing many of the settlers and making the survivors weak. They were unable to bring shipped goods to their encampment and the only resolution was to divide and conquer. Onc...
The Puritans were "Christians," in that they believed in Jesus Christ yet some may argue that they did not lead "Christian" lives. These fanatics seemed to obssess over a major tenet of their religion, that being "Pre Destination." That is, God Himself chose those destined for eternal salvation in the beginning of time, long before our conception and birth. This pre-ordained number is considerably miniscule, which, at times, the Puritans seemed to ignore.
Massachusetts's inhabitants were Puritans who believed in predestination and the ideal that God is perfect. Many Puritans in England were persecuted for their nihilist beliefs in England because they felt that the Church of England, led by the Kind, did not enforce a literal enough interpretation of the Bible. Persecution punishment included jail and even execution. To seek refuge, they separated to go to Holland because of its proximity, lower cost, and safer passage. However, their lives in Holland were much different than that of England. The Separatists did not rebel against but rather preferred the English culture. They did not want their children to be raised Dutch. Also, they felt that Holland was too liberal. Although they enjoyed the freedom of religion, they decided to leave for America. Pilgrims, or sojourners, left for America on The Mayflower and landed in Cape Cod in 1626. They had missed their destination, Jamestown. Although the climate was extremely rocky, they did not want to move south because of their Puritan beliefs. They thought that everything was predestined, and that they must have landed on this rocky place for a reason. They moved slightly north to Plymouth Rock in order to survive more comfortably. Also because of their Puritan beliefs, they had good relations with the Native Americans. Their pacifist nature led the Indians to help with their crops. In thanks, the Pilgrims celebrated the first thanksgiving in 1621. A second group of Puritans in England, the Massachusetts Bay Company, came to Massachusetts for more economically motivated purposes due to their non-minimalist beliefs.
In England, the Puritans were a group of Protestants, who during the 1600 wanted to continue to purify the Church of England of the practices that were not found in scripture . They wanted to leave from being persecuted for not being protestants. The Separatists were people who advocated complete separation from the Church of England and make their own churches. Both the Puritans and the Separatists wanted to and did leave Europe in hope to be able to have religious freedom in North America. While they were in North America the Puritans were in charge. They kept a very controlled and disciplined lifestyle. They slept in tents and dug out then later learned how to make huts from the Swedish.
The Puritans came to the New World in hopes of establishing their religion as the only accepted faith. In my opinion, they became exactly like those that they fled from in England. Their closed minded views kept them from spreading the word of God and closed themselves off from saving others. Their persecution and intolerance of other religions bound their hands and communities.
The Pilgrims and Puritans are extremely similar in most of their practices and beliefs. They both came to America looking for religious freedom. Both Pilgrims and Puritans strongly opposed the Catholic church. They both believed that The Anglican Church, the Church of England should ultimately make more reforms and get rid of any and all traces of the Roman Catholic Church. Pilgrims and
...te apparent in the differences and very few similarities in the way they view God and His Word. Deist believe that God created the universe and left it up to mankind to decided how it will be run while the Puritan congregation depended entirely on God to decided how Earth will be run and hoped for His love, grace and salvation. Although these particular individuals originated from the same areas around the same time, their ideas of God are on two different extremes. They were all exposed to the same religious teachings, but the presence of numerous interpretations of God let them each to a different understanding about Him and His Word. These different beliefs led these people to live different ways and worship God diversely. The existence of copious interpretations caused them all to view their role and importance of the world in God’s eyes in very different ways.
They agreed that they weren’t going to be prudes or prohibitionist or live like drabs. Which was a great decision to do which develops the society and way of living instead of being ignorant and living by the old rules in England. They were looking forward to new things that better themselves in their community and becoming a paragon for others. Although, since they were still Puritans they had to attend church every sunday, tried to punish every sin in Massachusetts and was obligated to live with a family if you did not have any in the New World.(Morgan, 64) These rules were unneccessary to make, instead of making these rules on how to live your life, they should have shifted their focus on duties that had to be done to actually have a successful society. The Puritans had the people to run a community but weren’t brillant thinkers. They didn’t open their minds to a sense where they should have people working on different tasks such as someone working the farm, plant crops, hunting and making reasonable laws. Also, the Puritans were close minded and ignorant when it came to God. No one was allowed to worship any religion and couldn’t belive in God differently or think about God differently. Which lead to conflicts because there were several people who were smart enough to think differently than the Puritans. The people wanted to do things their way and each of them thought
In the early 17th century, England suffered great turmoil. The country suffered from a severe economic depression and the election of a new king, Charles 1. King Charles’ most known quality was being sympathetic to the Roman Catholics, which greatly upset the religious group known as the Puritans. This upset them so deeply that some of them, known as the separatists, wanted to separate from the Church of England while others, known as the non separatists, wanted to reform the Church of England from within. The separatists decided that they would leave England all together and sail to America. The Puritans believed that they were the “New Israelites”, sailing towards their holy land. They decided that they would make a covenant with God while
There were a myriad of differences between Great Britain and her American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but these differences can be divided into three basic categories: economic, social, and political. The original American settlers came to the colonies for varied reasons, but a common trait among these settlers was that they still considered themselves British subjects. However, as time passed, the colonists grew disenfranchised from England. Separated from the king by three thousand miles and living in a primitive environment where obtaining simple necessities was a struggle, pragmatism became the common thread throughout all daily life in the colonies. It was this pragmatism that led the colonists to create their own society with a unique culture and system of economics and politics.
The Puritans first became a sect in England, where they became dissatisfied with the Church of England and sought reform. They led a civil war but their victory was short-lived and they came to North America to escape persecution. “The Puritans believed that the Bible was God’s true law and that it provided a plan for living.” They wanted to live according to this belief and that is what brought the separation between them and the Church of England. For the Puritans, God was to be the motivation of all their actions (Kizer, Kay). They believed in piousness, righteousness, and hard work. (Campbell, Douglas).