Puritan Life in New England
Successful Settlements in North
America
History of Puritanism
• A group of Calvinists who
opposed both Catholics
and Anglicans in England.
• What they want:
– Limited congregational
membership to those
who had undergone
some sort of conversion
experience.
– Opposed the Catholic /
Anglican church
hierarchy where priests
and bishops controlled
the local congregation.
Calvinists: protestant Christians
who based their religious practices
on the writings of John Calvin.
Calvin taught that Christians must
know God and know themselves.
Calvin taught that discipline and
adherence to God’s teachings were
paramount to being a “Godly”
person.
Who Were the Puritans?
• Puritanism appealed
primarily to middle class
people in English society:
– Merchants
– Small-scale farmers
– Shopkeepers
– Intellectuals / Educated
clergy
Puritans in North America
Puritans in North America
• The first settlement of Puritans in North
America was the Plymouth Colony in 1620.
• Twenty-four families, about ½ of them
Separatist Puritans sailed for America aboard
the Mayflower.
• Roughly one half of the 102 immigrants died
during the first winter, those that survived did
so mainly due to help from Native Americans
in the area.
Puritans in New England
• Following the success of the colony at
Plymouth, other Puritans soon joined them in
North America.
• 1629 – Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony
– Like Plymouth it would be Puritan dominated and
self governing as opposed to controlled by the
crown or stockholders in England.
• Other Puritan colonies: Connecticut, New
Haven, and Rhode Island.
Organizing a Puritan Colony
• Governor John
Winthrop’s “A Model
of Christian Charity”
described the area
as “a city upon a hill,
the eyes of all people
are upon us.”
•
Winthrop expected these Puritan
colonies to be shining examples to the
rest of the world.
Organizing a Puritan Colony
• In the colonies of New England, as opposed to
those in the Chesapeake and South, most of
the immigrants to Massachusetts and
Plymouth were landowning farm families of
modest means.
• There were very few indentured servants and
almost NO slaves.
• By 1642, there were nearly 15,000 colonists in
New England.
Organizing a Puritan Colony
• Church Organization:
– Congregations of Puritans were relatively independent and selfgoverning.
– Control lay in the hands of the male “saints” in the
congregation.
– Election of ministers, a board of elders, and recognition as saints
were performed by a simple majority vote.
• Government Organization:
– While supporting the concept of an official church in the New
England colonies, the Puritans maintained that theocracy was
not their goal.
– However the colony did require all adults to attend services and
pay taxes to support the local congregation.
– In many places, voting was limited to church membership.
Educating a Puritan Colony
• In order to have an educated and
involved population, in 1647
Massachusetts Bay ordered every
town of more than 50 households to
appoint a teacher who would instruct
all children.
• Towns of more than 100 households
had to construct and support a
grammar school.
• Likewise in 1636, Massachusetts
founded Harvard to help maintain a
supply of properly trained ministers.
Organizing Puritan Life
• Most Puritans in colonial New England lived in nuclear
families.
– Single men and women, the children of the poor, recent
immigrants, and convicts were often compelled by a city’s
selectmen to live within “well governed families” to
prevent problems from arising.
• Likewise a person’s social standing was determined not
by his own deeds, but by his family.
• Prior to the law of 1647 establishing schools, Puritan
heads of households were required to lead their
households in prayer, scripture readings, teach
children, servants, and apprentices to read.
Organizing a Puritan Life
• Maintaining Social Order
– “Tithing men”: appointed by selectmen to oversee
ten – twelve households, ensuring that the marital
relationships were harmonious and unruly children
were properly disciplined.
– Failure to discipline children – they could be removed
from the home
– Men who neglected or failed to support their families
- would be punished by the court
– Fornication outside of marriage – fines or whippings
– Adultery – whippings, brandings, or wearing the letter
A, and in at least three cases DEATH.
Puritan Family Life
Not all marriages were happy or even
peaceful. Records indicate that 16301699, 128 men were tried for spousal
abuse, including one man who beat his
wife with a club for refusing to feed a pig.
A woman was punished for beating and
reviling her husband and encouraging her
children to help her!
A woman’s duties in her household would often
include: cooking, sewing, milking, washing,
spinning, cleaning, and gardening. Some women
would also be excepted to brew beer, churn butter,
make cheese, harvest and preserve fruit, boil
laundry, stitch shirts & petticoats, etc.
The “Oddballs?”
• Those that upset the social order, who don’t fit
into the structure of society that the Puritans are
constructing were a problem.
– “Spinster” or unmarried women
– Widows
– Lifelong bachelors
• For this reason, marriage was encouraged, it was
rare that a person would never marry in Puritan
New England.
Witchcraft in America
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
Problems in Salem
• Salem in the late 17th
Century was the second
largest port in
Massachusetts.
• Wealth brought by trade
created a sharp distinction
between the citizens.
• In Salem Village, the eastern
portion was the seat of
power; better soils,
proximity to Salem Town
and the port made them
much wealthier than those
on the western side of the
village.
How might social expectations play into the
witchcraft accusations?
How might economics play into the
witchcraft accusation?
Problems in Salem
• The Accused:
– In Salem, the women who
were accused of witchcraft
were often middle-aged
wives or widows who had
or would inherit more than
the usual portion of their
husband’s property.
– These women would be
financially independent
and a threat to the existing
social order.
• The Accusers:
– In Salem, the accusers
were most often women
between the ages of 11
and 20.
– Many were servants in
others households due to
displacement or death
from recent conflicts in
Maine.
– These girls gained power
and influence through their
accusations that they
would never have had
otherwise.
Salem Witch Trials
• Over the course of the
hysteria in Salem, 19 men
and women were hanged
for witchcraft.
• Another (over 80 years
old) was pressed to death
for failing to admit his
guilt.
• Numbers vary, but as
many as 13 others died in
prison. Some sources say
only 4 died in prison.
Salem Witch Trials… a video
Legacy
• Within a generation, the strict adherence to Puritan
values had nearly vanished in New England.
• The strong roots did continue to bear fruit in the form of
strong self-discipline and forceful convictions, however
the church no longer served as the center of life in New
England.
• The pursuit of material wealth became much more
important.
• In the years that followed, religious thinking would shift
from a focus on the congregational approach to the
personal relationship. This signaled the end of
Puritanism in America.