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The economies of the Chesapeake and New England colonies
Puritan influence on american culture
The economies of the Chesapeake and New England colonies
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The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants with iconic moral beliefs and values that remain widely recognized even today. The inception of the Puritans branch back to Marian exiles after the dethroning of Elizabeth I of England in 1558- they migrated to New England in 1620, bringing stern religious and educational footholds to the New World. Puritan values and ideology defined and impacted the political, social, and economic development of the New England colonies from 1630 to the 1660s.
The Puritans were known primarily for their concentrated and rigid religious beliefs in the early years of their settlement in New England. They placed utmost emphasis on their God and religious teachings- however, they were also not externally excepting of outside religions and beliefs before 1637 when the Pequot’s Mystic River village was consumed by conflagration. The neighboring colonists attacked and destroyed the village in totality. The immense physical and psychological impact of this incident is exemplified in William Bradford’s account; “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same...” This ungodly happening was caused by a blatant and ignorant lack of religious acceptance- the Puritans were not able to coexist with any forms of foreign religion and worship, and were duly punished. This physical attack shook the Puritans to reality, and the causative effect was a greater degree of religious tolerance. The change in acceptance was exemplified in Nathaniel Ward’s The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, written in 1647, after the attack. “That state that will give liberty of conscience in matters of religion, must give liberty of conscience and conversation in their ...
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...n the Town Map of Colonial New England- there is only one church, one town hall, and houses are all immediately next to one another.
The Puritans were an unprecedented, iconic group of people, bound together by infallible religious, educational, and familial beliefs- unsurprisingly, their beliefs and moral and ethical values had an omnipresent influence in the political, economic, and social aspects of society in the New England colonies from 1630 to the 1660s and beyond. Their harshly apprehended religious tolerance, stark aggrandizement of education, and inseparable concept of societal unity all played omnipotent parts in the development of New England. In conclusion, the Puritans were an indispensible influence in the New World, and their ideas, concepts, and beliefs will live on transcendently forevermore through the ages in the very fabric of human thinking.
The puritans traveled from England on the Arabella in January of 1630 to escape to a place where they could instill their own religious and political values into their society; Stephen Foster writes about the puritans in the narrative entitled Puritanism and Democracy: A mixed Legacy. Stephen grants the puritans with creating a society based off of religious freedom and reformation of the English church. Their social constructs consisted of hierarchies and accepted inequality. The puritans are credited with laying the foundation to the democratic system of America along with early aspects of political and social constructs found in current day America.
In the 1700’s the Puritans left England for the fear of being persecuted. They moved to America for religious freedom. The Puritans lived from God’s laws. They did not depend as much on material things, and they had a simpler and conservative life. More than a hundred years later, the Puritan’s belief toward their church started to fade away. Some Puritans were not able to recognize their religion any longer, they felt that their congregations had grown too self-satisfied. They left their congregations, and their devotion to God gradually faded away. To rekindle the fervor that the early Puritans had, Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan ministers led a religious revival through New England. Edwards preached intense sermons that awakened his congregation to an awareness of their sins. With Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” he persuades the Puritans to convert back to Puritanism, by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, imagery, loaded diction, and a threatening and fearful tone.
Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England settled New England. They were a highly religious people. Document A, John Winthrop’s “ City on a hill” speech, shows how they lived according to God’s will and were very community oriented. Their towns were very planned out with a town/ church meetinghouse in the centre, and land plots for everyone in the community. This is shown in Document D, Articles of Agreement in Springfield Massachusetts 1636. Family was also very important. Since they were very religious and family is highly regarded in the Bible, marriage was advocated and adultery was a huge crime. Adulterers were made to wear the letter A on their clothing. Since they were a very close-knit people, they travelled as big families and sometimes as communities. This mass travel is depicted in document B that is a ship’s list of emigrants bound for New Engla...
8.Puritans— ‘Followers' of Puritanism, a movement for reform in the Church of England that had a profound influence on the social, political, ethical, and theological ideas in England and America. In America the early New England settlements were Puritan in origin and theocratic in nature. The spirit of Puritanism long persisted there, and the idea of congregational democratic government was carried into the political life of the state as one source of modern democracy.
Edmund S. Morgan's book, "The Puritan Dilemma", is an account of the events encountered by John Winthrop's mission of creating a city on a hill. Winthrop leads and directs the Massachusetts Bay Company, to the new world, while trying to find a solution to the Puritan dilemma, which was how they were going to live in the world while trying to live up to the ideals in the Bible. These ideals lead John Winthrop to propose the creation of a “city on a hill”. His proposition involves reforming the Church of England, in the new world, by purifying the church of all its flaws. It would create a citadel of God’s chosen people, the kind of society that God demanded of all His servants. According to Winthrop, "They should be purified of their unregenerate members, their heretical clergymen, their unwarranted ceremonies, their bishops, and archbishops, but they were nevertheless churches and must be embraced as churches". (Morgan, 27) Winthrop continues to emphasize that they have been selected by God, like Israel of old, to serve as a model society to others; they would be a “city on a hill” for everyone to see and observe.
Although at first glance the arrival of the Puritans in America seemed solely for religious freedom, it actually was deeply embedded in economic trading opportunities. In 1629, the English crown authorized the colonization of a large area of New England by the Massachusetts Bay Company, which was a joint stock trading company. The company was taken over by a group of wealthy Puritans, and they successfully established the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of John Winthrop in the New World. The Puritans brought the company’s charter with them, which allowed them to bend the charter to their own purposes, transforming the company into a commonwealth.
The Puritans were mainly artisans and middling farmers by trade and in the wake of the reformation of the Church of England, left for the colonies to better devout themselves to God because they saw the Church of England as a corrupt institution where salvation was able to be bought and sold, and with absolutely no success in further reforming the Church, set off for the colonies. English Puritans believed in an all-powerful God who, at the moment of Creation, determined which humans would be saved and which would be damned (Goldfield 45).
The puritans were very religious. They wanted to show everyone what happens if you are good and believe in god and the heavens. If you do bad things you would be punished or be killed. If you do good things you can be hand chosen to go to heaven.
While I'm sitting here at my computer, in my air conditioned home, with the radio blaring and the t.v. on downstairs, I try to imagine how life was as a young Puritan. To be honest, I don't think I could live a week the way they do. I could try but it would be excruciatingly difficult.
In distinction to the early eighteenth century, the small groups of integral Puritans families dominated the economic, military, and political leadership of New England. The Puritans agreed that the church composed many families and wasn’t isolated people. The Puritan family was the major unit of production in the economic system each family member expected an economically useful benefit and the older children worked in some family industries, trending gardens, forcing animals, rotating wool, and protecting their younger brothers and sisters. Wives needed to supervise servants and apprentices to keep their financial accounts, enlightened crops, and to display goods. The Puritans had faith in the larger community that had a compelling duty to secure the families and to see their functions.
Religion was the foundation of the early Colonial American Puritan writings. Many of the early settlements were comprised of men and women who fled Europe in the face of persecution to come to a new land and worship according to their own will. Their beliefs were stalwartly rooted in the fact that God should be involved with all facets of their lives and constantly worshiped. These Puritans writings focused on their religious foundations related to their exodus from Europe and religions role in their life on the new continent. Their literature helped to proselytize the message of God and focused on hard work and strict adherence to religious principles, thus avoiding eternal damnation. These main themes are evident in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mathers, and John Winthrop. This paper will explore the writings of these three men and how their religious views shaped their literary works, styles, and their historical and political views.
The church and Christian beliefs had a very large impact on the Puritan religion and lifestyle. According to discovery education, “Church was the cornerstone of the mainly Puritan society of the 17th century.”( Douglas 4). Puritan laws were intensively rigid and people in society were expected to follow a moral strict code. And because of Puritans and their strict moral codes, any act that was considered to go against this code was considered a sin and deserved to be punished. In Puritan theology, God h...
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Company set sail to the New World in hope of reforming the Church of England. While crossing the Atlantic, John Winthrop, the puritan leader of the great migration, delivered perhaps the most famous sermon aboard the Arbella, entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop’s sermon gave hope to puritan immigrants to reform the Church of England and set an example for future immigrants. The Puritan’s was a goal to get rid of the offensive features that Catholicism left behind when the Protestant Reformation took place. Under Puritanism, there was a constant strain to devote your life to God and your neighbors. Unlike the old England, they wanted to prove that New England was a community of love and individual worship to God. Therefore, they created a covenant with God and would live their lives according to the covenant. Because of the covenant, Puritans tried to abide by God’s law and got rid of anything that opposed their way of life. Between 1630 and the 18th century, the Puritans tried to create a new society in New England by creating a covenant with God and living your life according to God’s rule, but in the end failed to reform the Church of England. By the mid 1630’s, threats to the Puritans such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Thomas Hooker were being banned from the Puritan community for their divergent beliefs. 20 years later, another problem arose with the children of church members and if they were to be granted full membership to the church. Because of these children, a Halfway Covenant was developed to make them “halfway” church members. And even more of a threat to the Puritan society was their notion that they were failing God, because of the belief that witches existed in 1692.
...ty men and women had been accused of being witches. Of those, nineteen of them plead innocent and were hung. One man refused to acknowledge the accusation and refused to enter a plea. He was legally crushed to death. Of the ones who plead guilty and were sent to jail, many contracted illnesses and later died. The outbreak of hysteria caused many to suffer and die, families to break apart, and a society to succumb to the whims of children. In the Puritans quest to create a perfect society based on pure beliefs only created a society ripped apart by tension, anxiety and fear.
Puritanism as a religion declined, both by diluting its core beliefs and by losing its members. This phenomenon was at work even in colonial days, at the religion’s height, because it contained destructive characteristics. It devolved into something barely recognizable in the course of a few generations. We can observe that the decline of Puritanism occurred because it bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction.