The Puritans and New England
English Puritans, frustrated with a half-reformed Church of England, cross the Atlantic to build godly communities in New England.
- A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada — Mark A. Noll, Eerdmans (1992)
- Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World — Alec Ryrie, Viking (2017)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
“Puritans” were English Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England of its remaining Catholic ceremonies and bishops. In 1620 a small group of Separatists, the Pilgrims, sailed on the Mayflower and founded Plymouth colony; from 1630 a much larger Puritan migration founded Massachusetts Bay, where Governor John Winthrop told the settlers they would be “as a city upon a hill”.
- A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada — Mark A. Noll, Eerdmans (1992)
- Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World — Alec Ryrie, Viking (2017)
New England became one of the most literate societies in the world, founding Harvard in 1636 to train ministers. But dissent was punished: Roger Williams, banished in 1635–36, founded Rhode Island on the principle of religious liberty and helped start America’s first Baptist church. The Salem witch trials of 1692, in which nineteen people were hanged, marked the end of the Puritan commonwealth’s confidence.
- A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada — Mark A. Noll, Eerdmans (1992)
The Pilgrims and Puritans were seekers of religious freedom and covenant community, whose ideals of education, self-government and moral seriousness helped shape American democracy.
- A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada — Mark A. Noll, Eerdmans (1992)
The Puritans sought freedom for their own faith, not for others: they banished dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, hanged Quakers, and took Native land, waging a devastating war in 1675–76.
- A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada — Mark A. Noll, Eerdmans (1992)
- Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World — Alec Ryrie, Viking (2017)
Why it matters today
The Puritans gave America its sense of being a "city upon a hill" with a mission, a habit of reading national life through the Bible, and a tradition of local, self-governing congregations. They also left a darker legacy, from the Salem witch trials to the dispossession of Native peoples, which American Protestants still wrestle with.