Puritan ideas on religion and Native Americans The Puritan belief structure was built around the idea of treating one another as brothers, loving one another and having compassion. The Puritans also believed everyone should be virtuous to one another. The Puritans themselves did not treat the Native Americans this way. The Puritans look at themselves as the better group of people. It did not matter who someone was or what type of skin color one had, if one did not have the same beliefs as the Puritans he or she was considered an outcast in their society. The Puritans saw the Native Americans as savages and beasts. The Puritans’ relationship with the Native Americans was contrary to Puritan Christian doctrine. To understand how the Puritans viewed religion, one needs to look at how they understood their Christian God. The Puritans knew God though the bible and what their ministers preached. They did not believe that God would speak directly to mortals. The Puritan Minister Robert Cushman once stated, “Whereas God of the old [Testament] did call and summon our fathers by predictions, dreams, visions, and certain illuminations…. Now there is no such calling to be expected for any matter whatsoever.” In the Puritan’s time, if God was to speak directly with a mortal, it was thought to be the devil in disguise. One Puritan woman, Anne Hutchinson, was believed to have predictions from God. This infuriated the Puritans because they did not believe in the idea of God giving her visions and thoughts. They believed that Satan was the one giving her these visions and thoughts. Consequently, the Puritans then banished her into the wilderness outside of Massachusetts Bay. This shows that the Puritans treated anyone who did not totally agree with them as an outcast to their society. The religious beliefs and the rituals of the Indians of southern New England were in many ways how the Puritans thought the devil and witches to act. English observers Edward Winslow, Roger Williams, and other Puritans found out that the Indians believed that spirits would speak directly to mortals though dreams and visions. William Simmons stated, “A powerful spirit known as Hobbamock was said to enter certain persons and to remain in their bodies as a guardian and familiar.” Hobbamock was the Native American creator. The spirit Hobbamock was the “souls of the dead” that would take the shape of the human body and animals.
According to "Puritan Family Life: The Diary of Samuel Sewall," in the 16th century there was a religious group, the Puritans, that believed only in Christian faith and in God’s intervention in everyday life. Furthermore, their core values and beliefs were in original sin, predestination, and grace. Puritans also viewed nature as evil and the woods as the Devil’s playground. Contrastingly, Native Americans were very much in-tune with nature and lived in the woods. This dissimilarity is a conflicting factor between these two cultures that both Rowlandson and Smith experience.
Religion played a very important role in both Puritan and Native American society, though their ideologies differed greatly. According to Puritan beliefs, God had chosen a select number of people to join him in heaven as his elect. The Native Americans, on the other hand, believed that everyone was the same; no one was better than anyone else. As Sitting Bull once said, "Each man is good in [the Great Spirit's] sight. (Quotes from our Native Past). This theory was in direct conflict with the Puritan's view. The means through which the beliefs of these two groups were carried on also differed greatly. The Puritans had their Bible which detailed their entire religion and held the answers to all possible questions. The Native Americans on the other hand relied on oral transmission of their theology. Thus, while the Puritans had a constant place to turn to when they wanted to figure out what they believed, Native Americans were forced to fill in the blanks between stories they had heard when it came to their basic ideals. This aspect made them both unable to relate to one another. The most prominent difference between the two religions were their gods. The Puritans believed in one God and one God only. The Native Americans, though also worshipping their own almighty "Great Spirit," took further reverence for all living (and once living) things, worshipping the trees and their ancestors as well as their omnipotent Tirawa (or Wakan Tanka). The Puritans, holding all aspects of the Bible literal and as divine mandate, saw this worship of beings other than their God as idolatry (which was in clear violation of the first commandment). Therefore, the Puritans held the Native American society as a society wallowing in sin.
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.
The Puritans were also very superstitious. They believed that the devil would cause people to do bad things on earth by using the people who worshiped him. Witches sent out their specters and harmed others. Puritans believed by putting heavy chains on a witch, that it would hold down their specter. Puritans also believed that by hanging a witch, all the people the witch cast a spell on would be healed.
The Puritan period was a time of new beginnings, faith and spirituality. The three things that defined the Puritans was their belief in the bible as a sole source of God’s will, belief in original sin, and their belief in predestination. Because religion was such an important part of the Puritan lifestyle, lots of the Puritan people wrote poems or stories either about God or made allusions to God in their work. However, not everyone saw God in the same way. Both Anne Bradstreet, the author of “Upon the Burning of our House” and Jonathan Edwards, the author of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, focus on one all powerful, omnipotent being in their work. However, while Bradstreet illustrates God’s mercy and forgiveness, Edwards depicts a God filled with wrath and vengeance.
The puritans were very religious. They wanted to show everyone what happens if you are good and believe in god and the heavens. If you do bad things you would be punished or be killed. If you do good things you can be hand chosen to go to heaven.
The founding Puritans based their concept of divine providence on a special covenant with God. John Winthrop, in "A Modell of Christian Charity," expressed the belief that the Puritans were the chosen people of God. In 1630, when Winthrop spoke to Puritaii colonists sailing to the New Worl...
Puritans believed in the devil and his role as strong as they believed in God and his role. For many centuries, Puritans had the idea that the weakest individuals in society often committed diabolical acts and sins. Furthermore, Satan selected the most vulnerable individuals to do his bidding, among these individuals, women were often held responsible for many sins, including witchcraft. (Godbeer 12). According to Richard Godbeer, in his book, The Salem Witch Hunt, “it was Eve who first gave away to Satan and seduced Adam.” (Godbeer 12). In 1692, witchcraft became a panic among Puritan society. Even though both men and women were accused of witchcraft, women were seventy-six percent more likely to be accused in Salem than men. (Godbeer 12). Puritan society was a male dominate society and men looked down upon women. There were two particular reasons to why women were often accused of being witches. The first reason, was in due to the Puritan belief that women were the source of evil. The second reason was because of certain events that associated with accusations. These events were being of relatively low social status and income, being rich or financially independent and being a midwife or nurse.
“Jumping to conclusions is like playing with wet gun powder: both likely to go off in wrong direction.”-Charlie Chang. The puritans were a group of English Protestants who adhere to strict religious principles and oppose sensual enjoyment. The puritans had a strong belief that the Devil could be walking among them at anytime. Due to this belief, the puritans believed that people could sign there souls away to the devil. By signing their souls away to the devil, a person could become a witch or wizard. In Arthur Millers’ novel The Crucible, the puritans go on a hunt to rid their town of witches. The puritans also had a big emphasis on how one would act in society. For example, if one didn’t go to church often, the people would be very suspicious about that one. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, the puritans become suspicious of others because of a strange event. The strange events lead the puritans to mistrust and reject each other. In both of Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister Black Veil” and in Miller’s The Crucible, a strange event makes the puritans jump to conclusions of witchcraft.
Among the rumors was the idea that the natives were connected to the devil. People believed that the Indians were Satan-worshippers, and that not only were...
In the Puritan communities, religion was not just a belief, but a way of life. Puritans were god fearing. They spent a great deal of time reading the bible and going to church. Puritans believed they were the “chosen ones” and that God was responsible for all favorable activity. Mary Rowlandson demonstrates that she was a great Puritan, and that God had specifically chosen her. She praises God for any good fortune received or deed accepted by her from the Indians. During her fourteenth remove, it began to rain, and the Indians co...
Puritans believed in strict religious dedications, by trying to follow the holy commandment. “The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now.”(Hawthorne 9). They wanted to be considered the holiest of all people because they try to reflect a world of perfection in the sight of God. While they where trying to portray a holy life; however, they where also living a sinful life because they have been judgmental, slandering, uncompassionate, resentment, and forbearing, which are all sinful acts of the bible.
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Company set sail to the New World in hope of reforming the Church of England. While crossing the Atlantic, John Winthrop, the puritan leader of the great migration, delivered perhaps the most famous sermon aboard the Arbella, entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop’s sermon gave hope to puritan immigrants to reform the Church of England and set an example for future immigrants. The Puritan’s was a goal to get rid of the offensive features that Catholicism left behind when the Protestant Reformation took place. Under Puritanism, there was a constant strain to devote your life to God and your neighbors. Unlike the old England, they wanted to prove that New England was a community of love and individual worship to God. Therefore, they created a covenant with God and would live their lives according to the covenant. Because of the covenant, Puritans tried to abide by God’s law and got rid of anything that opposed their way of life. Between 1630 and the 18th century, the Puritans tried to create a new society in New England by creating a covenant with God and living your life according to God’s rule, but in the end failed to reform the Church of England. By the mid 1630’s, threats to the Puritans such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Thomas Hooker were being banned from the Puritan community for their divergent beliefs. 20 years later, another problem arose with the children of church members and if they were to be granted full membership to the church. Because of these children, a Halfway Covenant was developed to make them “halfway” church members. And even more of a threat to the Puritan society was their notion that they were failing God, because of the belief that witches existed in 1692.
The Puritans were Englishmen who chose to separate from the Church of England. Puritans believed that the Anglican Church or Church of England resembled the Roman Catholic Church too closely and was in dire need of reform. Furthermore, they were not free to follow their own religious beliefs without punishment. In the sixteenth century the Puritans settled in the New England area with the idea of regaining their principles of the Christi...
The Puritans didn't have all the luxuries we have today. They were told many things by preachers such as Jonathon Edwards, who lit a candle of fear in their minds. If I was alive to hear Edwards preach, I'd certainly have to question myself. He preached that God holds us in his hands and he can make or break us. If God decides it so, he will let us go and we will fall from his hands to nothing but Hell. Certainly no one wants to go to Hell. So, the Puritans tried to better their lives, and go by rules or "resolutions." They believed if they followed these resolutions, even though their fate was predetermined by God, they could live a life of good and maybe prove they are meant to go to Heaven.