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Religion in colonial America
Essay on religion in colonial america
Religion in American colonies
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William Bradford - Pilgrim and first governor of Plymouth who was chosen 30 times. patroonship - Dutch land in the Hudson River Bay that was granted to promoters who agreed to settle 50 people on them. predestination - The idea that God has already determined who is going to heaven and to hell
Bible Commonwealth - Political economy such as that in Massachusetts Bay and New Haven where religion dominated. Religious officials had special privileges and laws were based off the Bible.
Quakers - Religious dissenters in England during the mid-1600s. They believed in equality of all people, resisted the military, and refused to support the Church of England with taxes. They had very good relations with the Indians.
Calvinism - Founded by John Calvin. It stressed
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William Penn - English Quaker who founded Pennsylvania in 1681. Pennsylvania was heavily advertised. He was not well liked due to his friendliness towards James II.
Separatists - A group of dedicated Puritans who vowed to break away entirely from the Church of England. They sailed to New England on the Mayflower, and founded Plymouth. doctrine of a calling - Belief that saved individuals have a religious obligation to engage in worldly work.
“visible saints” - Someone who has gone through a religious revival. Part of Calvinist beliefs. conversion - A spiritual enlightenment causing a person to lead a new life.
Great Puritan Migration - Large migration of Puritans from England to North America and the West Indies, especially Barbados, during the 1630s-1640s.
Dominion of New England - Created in 1686 to increase defense against Indians and tie the colonies closer to Britain. It enforced the Navigation Acts. The head of the Dominion was Sir Edmund Andros. It ended in 1688 after the Glorious Revolution removed James II from the throne.
Institutes of the Christian Religion - Written by John Calvin, it outlined the beliefs of
In 1608, a group of Christian separatists from the Church of England fled to the Netherlands and then to the "New World" in search of the freedom to practice their fundamentalist form of Christianity (dubbed Puritanism). The group of people known as the Native Americans (or American Indians) are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Northern and Southern American continents who are believed to have migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia around 30,000 years ago. When these two societies collided, years of enforced ideology, oppression and guerrilla warfare were begun. The great barriers of religion, ethics and world-views are the three largest factors which lead to the culture clash between the Puritans and the Native Americans.
When all things are considered, one can see the colonies didn't always agree with the way England handled things, in the area of religion, economics, politics, and social structure. Through their determination to obtain a better life for themselves, they ventured away from England and created their own nation over time.
Religious freedom in Pennsylvania could best be described by the word tolerance. This word describes the liberal attitudes held by members of other religious groups and an acceptance of an inherent right to hold differing beliefs. Religious diversity in the new colony was not an obstacle to overcome but an essential facet of society. Even with this inclusive attitude toward differing beliefs, many provincial Pennsylvanians continued to indentify and distinguish themselves upon religious lines. This religious categorization continued in the majority throughout the colonial
Many colonies were founded for religious purposes. While religion was involved with all of the colonies, Massachusetts, New Haven, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were established exclusively for religious purposes.
During the seventeenth century a group of Christians split off from the Anglican Church of England and formed their own theology know as Puritanism. The Puritans were made up of the middle-class teachers, lawyers, merchants, clergy, and parliament members. Joshua Miller explains how the Puritans, "equated the church with the body of Christ;" and further states that, "to admit everyone, even open and unrepentant sinners, to the church was to pollute Christ's body" (Miller 59). The Church of England corruption of this body was the main reason for the great "Puritan Migration" during the seventeenth centry, along with the fact that the King refused to convene parliament at the time causing an uprising against the Throne of England. [1] The Puritans were cast out by King Charles of England and sent to the Americas to start a new colony of their own. The Puritans came to the Americas with a set idea of union between church and state. In the patent given to the Puritans by the King a selct few men were given the power to make laws without consent of the commonwealth and allowed to confiscate lands from the natives. Roger Williams a man who openly opposed these kinds of injustices committed by Puritan leaders like John Cotton and John Winthrop. A Puritan that had turned Separatist, Roger Williams wanted no part of the tainted Church of England. Separatists completely severed ties with the Anglican Church and formed their own denomination with their own theology and system of beliefs. Williams' separatist views did not sit well with the Puritans and as a result he paid the price for his open rebellion against the Puritan acts in New England. The Puritan church and government banis...
William Penn was a great individual who contributed tremendously to this nation. John Moretta’s “William Penn and the Quaker Legacy” talks about the courageous efforts by Penn and his perspectives on things. Penn was a spiritual human being who believed in god and wanted a peaceful society for one to live in. He was a brave individual who wanted everyone to be equal and was democratic. Religious tolerance alleged by Penn changed the views of many individuals who lived in that era. The importance of Penn’s background, Quakerism and the development of his society due to his view on religious tolerance will be discussed in this paper.
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...
...ter returning from a trip to England, however, Penn found that a Quaker had been embezzling money. After a brief argument and difficulty, the problem was settled.
of Quakers” helped in the runaway of one of his personal slaves. The Society of Quakers was
America was just colonies in this era, and were under England’s rule completely. Jamestown was the first English Colony on American land and was established by John Smith in 1607.
The puritans were a group of settlers that came to America in the 1620’s from the Netherlands. They had previously immigrated from England to the Netherlands to escape their idea of religious intolerance and the form of Protestantism that was practiced. They also believed that England was a place of sin and was damaging their children. The Puritans left the Netherlands for Virginia for the same reasons and to reform the Church of England a little over a decade later. Slowly more and more members made their way to America in search of purification of the church. Although the main reason for coming to the New World was to escape religious rigidity of England and to create a utopian society based on the true teachings of the bible, the puritans had created a society that was just as unrelenting as the religious and political practices that they had left. The Puritans wanted to be a society that would set an example to others by honoring god and living a moral life, and while they did create a society that flourished economically and politically, their religious views lead to that of intolerance and inequality.
The Quakers are a religion that originated in England in protest of the Anglican Church's practices. The man in charge of this religious revolution was George Fox.1 He believed that God didn't live in churches as much as he lived in people's hearts.2 In that state of mind, he went out into the world in search of his true religion. He argued with priests, slept in fields, and spent days and nights trying to find followers. His first followers were mostly young people and women.
The social upheaval ignited by the seventeenth-century English Civil War spawned many different religious groups, one of these were The Society of Friends. Founded by George Fox in the 1640's The Society of Friends came to be known as the Quakers, a term that was derived from the physical shaking and trembling of the believer when experiencing a union with God (p.14).
George Fox had already met with opposition and indeed with imprisonment. However the group had a steadfastness which eventually enabled the Quakers to survive as a group. They were full of confidence that they possessed the "Truth of God" and were not slow to point out that others were in the darkness. Above all, they refused to give in to violent treatment; a response which always brings out the worst from those in power. The early Quakers encountered a lot of hatred and brutality, they encountered it from the magistrates and from the judges, from the prison wardens and in a less physical manner from many of the clergy. The crimes they were charged with were such things as blasphemy and disturbing the peace, but their offences were really agai...
So they travelled by ship to New England in the early 17th century. The New England region became the center for Puritanism. To controll most of the colonies' activity they held a strong connection between church and state. This strong controll could be hold up until the end of the 17th century.