Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break "the very neck of Schism and vile opinions." The "business" of the first settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, "was not Toleration, but [they] were professed enemies of it." Puritans expelled dissenters from their colonies, a fate that in 1636 befell Roger Williams and in 1638 Anne Hutchinson, America's first major female religious leader. Those who defied the Puritans by persistently returning to their jurisdictions risked capital punishment, a penalty imposed on four Quakers between 1659 and 1661. Reflecting on the seventeenth century's intolerance, Thomas Jefferson was unwilling to concede to Virginians any moral superiority to the Puritans. Beginning in 1659 Virginia enacted anti-Quaker laws, including the death penalty for refractory Quakers. Jefferson surmised that "if no capital execution took place here, as did in New England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church, or the spirit of the legislature." Show
The Bloudy Tenent of PersecutionExecution of QuakersMary Dyer led to execution on Boston Common, 1 June 1660. Color engraving. Copyprint Nineteenth Century. Courtesy of The Granger Collection, New York (20) Jews Find a Refuge in AmericaFor some decades Jews had flourished in Dutch-held areas of Brazil, but a Portuguese conquest of the area in 1654 confronted them with the prospect of the introduction of the Inquisition, which had already burned a Brazilian Jew at the stake in 1647. A shipload of twenty-three Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam (soon to become New York) in 1654. By the next year, this small community had established religious services in the city. By 1658 Jews had arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, also seeking religious liberty. Small numbers of Jews continued to come to the British North American colonies, settling mainly in the seaport towns. By the time of the Declaration of Independence, Jewish settlers had established several thriving synagogues. Torah BreastplateTorah Breastplate. Gilt silver. c. 1810. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island (24) Matza BoardMatza board. Wood. Eighteenth Century. Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island (25) The QuakersThe Quakers (or Religious Society of Friends) formed in England in 1652 around a charismatic leader, George Fox (1624-1691). Many scholars today consider Quakers as radical Puritans, because the Quakers carried to extremes many Puritan convictions. They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of "plainness." Theologically, they expanded the Puritan concept of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to the idea of the indwelling of the Spirit or the "Light of Christ" in every person. Such teaching struck many of the Quakers' contemporaries as dangerous heresy. Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England, and 243 had died of torture and mistreatment in the King's jails. This reign of terror impelled Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey in the 1670s, where they soon became well entrenched. In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania, many more Quakers were prepared to grasp the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely. By 1685 as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs and practices, they differed with them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society. William PennWilliam Penn (age 22), 1666. Oil on canvas Eighteenth-century copy of a seventeenth-century portrait, possibly by Sir Peter Lely. Historical Society of Pennsylvania (26) Penn's Frame of GovernmentQuaker MeetingPhiladelphia: Quäkerkirche. Wood engraving from Ernst von Hesse Wartegg, Nord-Amerika, seine Stadt und Naturwunder, das Land und seine Bewohner in Schilderung. Leipzig: 1888. General Collections, Library of Congress (28) Quaker Book of Discipline
The Pennsylvania GermansThe first group of Germans to settle in Pennsylvania arrived in Philadelphia in 1683 from Krefeld, Germany, and included Mennonites and possibly some Dutch Quakers. During the early years of German emigration to Pennsylvania, most of the emigrants were members of small sects that shared Quaker principles--Mennonites, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Moravians, and some German Baptist groups--and were fleeing religious persecution. Penn and his agents encouraged German and European emigration to Pennsylvania by circulating promotional literature touting the economic advantages of Pennsylvania as well as the religious liberty available there. The appearance in Pennsylvania of so many different religious groups made the province resemble "an asylum for banished sects." Beginning in the 1720s significantly larger numbers of German Lutherans and German Reformed arrived in Pennsylvania. Many were motivated by economic considerations. FootwashingPedilavium das Füsswaschen der Schwestern. Engraving from David Cranz, Kurze, Zuverlässige Nachricht, von der, unter den Namen der Böhmisch-Mährischen Brüder Bekannt, Kirche Unitas fratrum, Halle: 1757. The Library Company of Philadelphia (33) Roman Catholics in MarylandAlthough the Stuart kings of England did not hate the Roman Catholic Church, most of their subjects did, causing Catholics to be harassed and persecuted in England throughout the seventeenth century. Driven by "the sacred duty of finding a refuge for his Roman Catholic brethren," George Calvert (1580-1632) obtained a charter from Charles I in 1632 for the territory between Pennsylvania and Virginia. This Maryland charter offered no guidelines on religion, although it was assumed that Catholics would not be molested in the new colony. In 1634 two ships, the Ark and the Dove, brought the first settlers to Maryland. Aboard were approximately two hundred people. Among the passengers were two Catholic priests who had been forced to board surreptitiously to escape the reach of English anti-Catholic laws. Upon landing in Maryland the Catholics, led spiritually by the Jesuits, were transported by a profound reverence, similar to that experienced by John Winthrop and the Puritans when they set foot in New England. Catholic fortunes fluctuated in Maryland during the rest of the seventeenth century, as they became an increasingly smaller minority of the population. After the Glorious Revolution of 1689 in England, the Church of England was legally established in the colony and English penal laws, which deprived Catholics of the right to vote, hold office, or worship publicly, were enforced. Until the American Revolution, Catholics in Maryland were dissenters in their own country, living at times under a state of siege, but keeping loyal to their convictions, a faithful remnant, awaiting better times. Father Andrew WhiteFather Andrew White. Engraving by G.G. Heinsch, 1655, in Mathias Tanner, Societas Jesu apostolorum imitatrix Prague: Typis Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae, 1694. Special Collections Division, Georgetown University Library (39) Piscataway PrayersCatechism in Piscataway Indian Language. [right page] [left page] Father Andrew White, from Manuale Sacerdotum, 1610. Special Collections Division, Georgetown University Library (40) Communion OstensoriumOstensorium. Silver gilt, glass, metal, c. 1700. Georgetown University Art Collection, Washington, D.C. (38) Maryland Act Concerning ReligionMaryland Governour and Council (Proceedings) May 1647- February 1651, including "An Act Concerning Religion," Manuscript volume. [page two] - [page three] Department of Special Collections, Maryland Archives, Annapolis (35) Cecil CalvertCecil Calvert presenting to Lycurgus his Act Concerning Religion. Engraving by James Barry (1741-1806), 1793. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (34) Catholic Church at St. Mary's City, MarylandCatholic Church at St. Mary's City, Maryland, c.1670. [exterior] - [interior] Gouache on paper by Leslie Barker. Copyprint, 1997. Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland (36e-f) Catholic Religious MedalsCatholic religious medals. [left] - [right] Metal, Seventeenth century. Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland (36 a-d) Virgin Mary at St. Mary's CityA Head of the Madonna. Clay, Seventeenth century, Historic St. Mary's City, Maryland (37) VirginiaVirginia was settled by businessmen--operating through a joint-stock company, the Virginia Company of London--who wanted to get rich. They also wanted the Church to flourish in their colony and kept it well supplied with ministers. Some early governors sent by the Virginia Company acted in the spirit of crusaders. Sir Thomas Dale (d. 1619) considered himself engaged in "religious warfare" and expected no reward "but from him on whose vineyard I labor whose church with greedy appetite I desire to erect." During Dale's tenure, religion was spread at the point of the sword. Everyone was required to attend church and be catechized by a minister. Those who refused could be executed or sent to the galleys. When a popular assembly, the House of Burgesses, was established in 1619, it enacted religious laws that "were a match for anything to be found in the Puritan societies." Unlike the colonies to the north, where the Church of England was regarded with suspicion throughout the colonial period, Virginia was a bastion of Anglicanism. Her House of Burgesses passed a law in 1632 requiring that there be a "uniformitie throughout this colony both in substance and circumstance to the cannons and constitution of the Church of England." The church in Virginia faced problems unlike those confronted in other colonies--such as enormous parishes, some sixty miles long, and the inability to ordain ministers locally--but it continued to command the loyalty and affection of the colonists. In 1656, a prospective minister was advised that he "would find an assisting, an embracing, a comforting people" in the colony. At the end of the seventeenth century the church in Virginia, according to a recent authority, was prospering; it was "active and growing" and was "well attended by the young and old alike." The Book of Common Prayer
Official Instructions on ReligionBaptism of Pocahontas
Anglican Religious CredentialsLicense and ordination papers of Anglican priest with special carrying case. Vellum and metal, 1773. Washington National Cathedral, Rare Book Library (46) How were Puritans different from other people?Puritans thought civil authorities should enforce religion
As dissidents, they sought religious freedom and economic opportunities in distant lands. They were religious people with a strong piety and a desire to establish a holy commonwealth of people who would carry out God's will on earth.
What made the Puritans different?These reformers, who followed the teachings of John Calvin and other Protestant reformers, were called Puritans because of their insistence on purifying the Church of England of what they believed to be unscriptural, Catholic elements that lingered in its institutions and practices.
What made Puritans different from the earlier Pilgrims?Whereas 102 Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower, 1,000 Puritans came to Boston. Unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans had an official charter from the King of England to establish a colony and had not separated from the Church of England.
What was the main difference between the Puritans and the Pilgrims when it came to their religious beliefs?Pilgrim separatists rejected the Church of England and the remnants of Catholicism that the Church of England represented. Puritan non-separatists, while equally fervent in their religious convictions, were committed to reformation of the Church of England and restoration of early Christian society.
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