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Puritans impact on society
The puritans good and bad impact
Puritans impact on society
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Puritans impact on society
The puritans good and bad impact
Puritans impact on society
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Recommended: Puritans impact on society
Religion was very important to the Puritans in the 1600s. John Winthrop a member of the Puritans gentry, wrote to his wife the ‘I am verily persuaded God will bring some heavy affliction upon this land.” A year later he went and lead a group of a group of puritans to New England. By the 1630s another twenty thousand Puritans would come to America. When John became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he told immigrants that will have to guide people toward this holy ideal or they were not welcomed.
The Puritans sought to create a society that was more pure and righteous than the corrupt society they believed existed in England. The Massachusetts colonies were founded by Puritan separatists who left England in search of religious freedom. They believed that the Church of England was too hierarchical and corrupt, and they wanted to establish a society that was more focused on individual piety and a direct relationship with God. The Puritans emphasized education and literacy, and they believed that all members of the community should be able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.
Liberty was the key issue for the Puritans. It was liberty, or the lack of, that pushed men to find safe haven, and it was freedom that enticed them to create a new society that never put state and the church hand in hand. By having a taste of liberty, they were introduced to ideas of equality and democracy which became an important part of the community they built and to the future nation that they will create. The foundation of Puritan principles such as piety, democracy and republican freedom, spread its influence over all the colonies, enlightening the “whole American world”.
They wanted to create pure, moral Christian society based on moral living. By hard working, integration of religion in politics, and social development of certain lifestyle practices, Puritans had a large influence on the development of the New England colonies from 1630s through the 1660s. Puritans believed in hard work as the pathway of success since they thought they were favored by God to succeed (Doc I). They tried to shun idleness and believed that being lazy is not profitable (Doc C).
The Puritans created a religiously repressive society that greatly influenced the overall development of New England. Although their society revolved around the church, were all of their beliefs detrimental to the evolution of the colony? Regarding New England’s social development, the Puritans’ stress on community, family and education was advantageous because it caused the region to thrive with more families and small towns. Therefore, since Puritans were more likely to come to the New World’s families instead of individuals, New England had significantly more families settle there than in other regions of colonization. Additionally, Puritans emphasized the importance of a community living together and sustaining its members, which resulted in New England being marked by the development of
The Puritan’s voyage to the New World was recorded in “Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford. The Puritans made this voyage to escape the persecution they were facing in Europe and in hopes of starting a new life that would exert their right to religious freedom. The Puritans believed God’s active and persistent “hand” was present in all aspects of their lives. It was the grace of God that was the sole explanation of every daily occurrence or event. God created everything and therefore he played a significant role in the lives of the Puritans.
New England was founded by Puritans who wished to further the Puritan way. According to Foner (2014), Puritans believed they had the right to, “worship and govern themselves in what they deemed a truly Christian manner” (65). Thus, leaving them to establish a colony based on puritan values. Puritans believed in a male dominated society. Thus, causing the women to have limited rights both legal and economic.
Seeking to reform and purify the Church of England, the Puritans migrated to New England to build an ideal Christian colony. In the beginning of the Puritan colonization in America, John Winthrop confronted many challenges. With difficult problems repeatedly arising, Winthrop was able to overcome them, as governor and leader, by approval of many. Migrating as families to New England, the Puritans felt compelled to battle the world’s impurities. Winthrop knew England was under the shadow of God’s wrath with all of the corruption of the government.
The Puritan colonists were bound by laws of morality with judgments with sentences that were the base of fear. The laws were centered on the basics of not going to church daily to practicing witchcraft, adultery, even not having regular sex to procreate. There were many laws of the time with cause and effect that harmed many people. Through the seventeenth century, laws were connected to morality, reflected in the ways Puritans used religious beliefs in the process of rendering judgment and assigning punishments to keep colonists from leaving their colony and gaining freedoms of their own. Puritan Religion ~
New England’s economy would also be influenced by the British tax later that would cause Americans to revolt many of which trusted in their faith to guide them The Puritans who settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 were also motivated by religious beliefs. They believed in the idea of a "city upon a hill," a vision of a holy community that would serve as an example to the rest of the world (American YAWP, 2.6). This belief led to a strict social order and a commitment to the moral and spiritual purity of the community. It also led to conflicts with other religious groups, such as the Quakers, who were seen as a threat to the Puritan social order.
From then on, Puritans’ unique culture spread to the New England and they remained one of the dominant cultures until 19th century. Their lives had essential influence on the economic growth, religion culture and education of new colonies and early American culture. By 1629, fearing the punishment by God to the church of English, a group of rich Puritans got together and established Massachusetts Bay Company. And then they transported more Puritans through this joint stock company to their new colony——Massachusetts Bay Colony. Later on, the money that Massachusetts Bay Company gained became capital to create new lives in New English and as simulation of economics to all colonies.
The ideas constructed by the Puritans were not simply a principal starting point for American culture because they were the first in the country, but because they offered distinct ways of thinking that are still deep-seated in our culture today. Although many of the ideas of Puritans have evolved or vanished over time, it is important to give credit to the Puritan writers and thinkers such as John Winthrop and John Cotton who offered ideas that were new at the time and that stayed with the American consciousness—culturally, socially, and politically. “John Winthrop's legacy can be seen primarily in the fields of government, commerce, and religion. It was religion that would most impact John's life; his religion would ultimately impact the
More than 80% of Americans have Puritan ancestors who emigrated to Colonial America on the Mayflower, and other ships, in the 1630’s (“Puritanism”). Puritanism had an early start due to strong main beliefs that, when challenged, caused major conflict like the Salem Witch Trials. Puritanism had an extremely rocky beginning, starting with a separation from the Roman Catholic Church. Starting in 1606, a group of villagers in Scrooby, England left the church of England and formed a congregation called the Separatist Church, and the members were called The puritans (“Pilgrims”).
Unlike the Middle and Southern, the New England Puritans did not allow religious freedom. Climate played a major role in trade and economic
The Puritans created the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1620s because they wanted to establish a christian utopia in the New World, free from persecution(Doc A). While the colonists ultimately failed this goal, they still left their mark on New England society, as seen in Document E. In this Document, the Puritans are calling for the regulation of wages in Connecticut . This is because they were against excess, and believed everything should be in moderation. The idea of regulating wages so that they weren’t too big would have been ludicrous to the Virginians.