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Why Did Puritans Come To Practice Religion In Early America?

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Puritans are typically the first thought that comes to mind when thinking of America’s earliest settlers. Although, the Puritans are known for coming to the New World for strictly religious reasons, there were other draws to the New World, not only to practice religion. In the Book, the Norton Anthology – American Literature, Beginnings to 1820, provides evidence through reading short stories, poems, and letters, which proves early American settlers has also came to the New World for secular reasons as well. Not that those came to the New World were not religious, there were other draws that influenced to them to take the risky voyage. In early America the religious and secular, non-religious, issues were intertwined, but conflict when …show more content…

Work and survival was. John Smith taught the settles how to hunt, to cut down trees to make growing fields for corn and other necessary crops and etc. Wanting to make America, the new world, more established John Smith came up with the American Dream. “rags to riches”, meaning that if you come to America, you can make a fortune from having nothing, have the freedom to work the amount of time you want to make the money you want to and become rich. John Smith called it “easy money”. “Where man, woman and child, with a small hook and line, by angling may take diverse sorts of excellent fish, at their pleasures? And it is not pretty sport, to pill up two pence, six pence and twelve pence, as fast as you can haul and veer line?” (Smith 124) Stated by John Smith, he grabbed the attention of those who want to make easy money, an audience that works long and difficult hours. “He is a very bad fisher [that] cannot kill in one day with his hook and line, one, two or three hundred cods… if they be sold there for ten shillings the hundred (though in England they will give more than twenty) my not both the servant, the master, and the merchant, be well content with this gain? If man work three days in seven, he may get more than he can spend, unless he will be excessive” (Smith

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Throughout the seventeenth century, religious freedom was essentially a key to the new forming colonies. Many pursued the “New World” looking to gain individual rights for their own personal beliefs- which we understand today as religious freedom. The main group seeking this freedom was the Puritans who came to the New World from England. When the Puritans had reached the land where they wished to settle they called it the Massachusetts’s Bay Colony. The colony was said to be a place where one could express their beliefs freely.

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Besides English settlers there were numerous other representatives of the European countries settling in the new land. And as the Puritans came to practice their own believes so did other nationalities, as explained in the study material. In my own interpretation America represents change and the believe system as well as the way religion was previously practiced was now changing. This change was greatly influenced by the intellectual movement called Enlightenment, which started in Europe and this influence had bearing on the Great Awakening. Besides Puritans now there were Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Episcopal Church in the southern states.

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The first Puritan separatists who arrived in the New England colonies fled to Holland in 1608 in order escape the religious abuse in England. Believing in a pure Christian church with no trace of Catholic worship, Puritans developed a strict religion. “Church attendance was mandatory”, and for those keeping from the God’s work they felt they were

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Oppression in Europe and the Settlement of America The authors want us to know that English Pilgrims and Puritans came generally from among the middling merchants, artisans, yeomen, and husbandmen, usually free and often successful, but barred based on their religious beliefs from advancing through the social and political hierarchies of the day. Puritan religious and secular leaders worked with Puritan parliamentary leaders to open an English society. Space, Diversity, and Dissent in Colonial America The authors want us to know that in England, there was often orthodoxy, but in America there were huge spaces between pockets of orthodoxy in which its influence was barely felt. As a result, when Roger Williams ran afoul of the orthodoxy of John Winthrop and John Cotton in Massachusetts, they could simply banish him, as they did, and he could simply flee south with his followers into what is now Rhode Island, which he

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Although all the colonists all came from England, the community development, purpose, and societal make-up caused a distinct difference between two distinct societies in New England and the Chesapeake region. The distinctions were obvious, whether it be the volume of religious drive, the need or lack of community, families versus single settlers, the decision on minimal wage, whether or not articles of agreements were drawn for and titles as well as other social matters were drawn, as well as where loyalties lay in leaders. New England was, overall, more religious than the Chesapeake region. Settlers in New England were searching relief for religious persecution in Europe. Puritans, Quakers, and Catholics were coming in droves to America searching for an opportunity to have religious freedom.

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“ In time, the Pilgrims replicate the humble little farm communities they had known in England” (Brands et al., 37). The Puritans became fisherman, farmers, artisans, and even developed trade (Lecture, “Economies of Early British Colonies”). The

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The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.

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Christian settlers back then according to Wikipedia Christianity was introduces to North America as it was colonized by Europeans in the 16th and 17th century. However for the Pilgrims there purpose was to try and escape the religious persecution and by doing that they would have to separate themselves from the church their leader was William Bradburd. Where on the other hand the Puritans purpose to escape the religious persecutions by purifying the church. One wants to separate while the one just want purity, there leader was John Winthrop.

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Chapter 3 Outline: • 3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism • 3.2 The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth • 3.3 The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth • 3.4 Building the Bay Colony • 3.5 Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth • 3.6 The Rhode Island “Sewer” • 3.7 New England Spreads Out • 3.8 Puritans Versus Indians • 3.9 Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence • 3.10 Andros Promotes the First American Revolution • 3.11 Old Netherlanders at New Netherlanders • 3.12 Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors • 3.13 Dutch Residues in New York • 3.14 Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania • 3.15 Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors • 3.16 The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies   3.1 The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

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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

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During the colonial period many settlers came to the New World to escape persecution for their Puritan beliefs. Writers such as William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, and Mary Rowlandson all shared their experiences and religious devotion throughout their literature that ultimately inspired and influenced settlers to follow. This essay will discuss the similarities in Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson’s work as they both describe their experiences as signs from God. Anne Bradstreet came to the New World as a devoted Puritan as she repeatedly talked about it in her poetry. In her poems she discusses many tragedies that happened in her life such as; the burning of her house and the death of her two grandchildren all of which she thinks were signs from God.

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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”).

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The arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas is dramatically captured through the many writers who attempted to communicate what they saw, experienced and felt. What is more, the very purposes of their treacherous travel and colonization are clearly seen in their writings; whether it is poetry, history or sermons. Of the many literary pieces available today, William Bradford and John Winthrop’s writings, even though vary because the first is a historical account and the second is a sermon, stand out as presenting a clear trust in God, the rules that would govern them and the reason they have arrived in the Americas. First of all, William Bradford provides an in-depth look into the first moment when the Puritans arrived in the Americas. In fact, he chronicles the hardships they face on their way to Plymouth, yet he includes God’s provision every step of the way.

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This enables the society to be interdependent through production and consumption. Everyone’s labour, whether immediate or in the long run, can play a role in making a better place by serving the needs of others. Smith, in his writing, concludes that, “among men, … the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another; the different produces of their respective talents, by the general disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, being brought, as it were, into a common stock, where every man may purchase whatever part of the produce of other men's talents he has occasion for.” (Book1, Chap2, para 5). Unlike selfishness, which causes oneself to strive to be ahead of others or being too obsessed in accumulating wealth for his own purposes, men should instead work together creatively, utilizing their personal gifts and talents in building the community encourage collaborations through specialisation.

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To illustrate how he infers individual actions and their expectedness he employs the example of a hunter gatherer society. One person in the community "may excel in making the frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses" and, relating back to Smith basic premise of self-interest, finds it is in his interest "to dedicate himself entirely to this employment" because by specializing in this one task he can create a surplus. And consequently trade the "produce of his own labour" for the produce of other people's labour who "reward him in the same manner with cattle." This desire for one's best interests creates specializations because in being able to create surplus through specifying, an individual can barter his produce of labour for another's produce of labour that he wishes for. This is a predictable pattern in all societies and trade, hence creating a civilization in which everyone now relies on one another for different products.

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