The Impact of the New England Puritans and the Chesapeake Catholics on the Development of Colonial Society

Many times throughout history, a specific individual or a group comes along and shapes a society. Religious groups often arrive and settle on a new piece of land, and happen to shape that society, around their beliefs and religion. The New England Puritans and the Chesapeake Catholics are prime examples to show how religion shaped the development of a colonial society.

In 1624, the early 17th century, the religious group called the Puritans, settled for the first time in the New England territory. Once there, they chose to inhabit the Massachusetts area. The Puritans were a varied group of religious reformers who emerged within the Church of England during the middle of the sixteenth century, but didn’t come to the United States until decades later. They escaped the Catholic Church and shared a common Calvinist theology, common criticisms of the Anglican Church, English society and government. In 1632, John Warham, a Puritan minister from England, took with him, a great deal of followers to America, and once there, they settled in Massachusetts. They received and area that was assigned to them and they named it Dorchester. Once in Dorchester, which was located six miles south of Boston, a group of faithful Puritans built a crude church, assigned lots and farms and began to serve God in the wilderness of North America. Dorchester had game-filled forests, fish-filled streams, clear fields, and lush meadows for grazing stock. Even though, the winters were exceptionally inhospitable, the Puritans still thought Dorchester was their promise land. But, as many people noticed, the land was filled up with native people like pilgrims and Indians, and so people like John Mason thought they stood in the way of the Puritan “errand ...

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... Each group also built churches to honor God with their community’s money, and made many choices by consulting with God or a priest. The colonial society of both of these religions were influenced greatly by their religious beliefs, and used religion as their primary motif for settling in the colonies and for setting up their towns, communities, businesses, family, and anything else that was about their lives and society.

Religion in diverse colonial societies was the focal reason why numerous of the colonial society’s were created and formed. Different religious groups may have had various reasons that may have been equivalent for settling, but over and above all religion was the most important reason. Throughout history, religion was and will always be a way for people to shape and widen their lives, communities and in some places even entire nations.