Separatists
vs.
Puritans
Puritanism
Calvinism  Institutes of the Christian Religion
 Predestination.
• Good works could not save those predestined
for hell.
• No one could be certain of their spiritual
status.
• Gnawing doubts led to constantly seeking
signs of “conversion.”
Puritans:
 Want to totally reform [purify] the Church
of England.
 Grew impatient with the slow process of
Protestant Reformation back in England.
Separatists
Separatist Beliefs:
 Puritans who believed only “visible
saints” [those who could demonstrate in
front of their fellow Puritans their
elect status] should be admitted to
church membership.
 Because the Church of England enrolled
all the king’s subjects, Separatists felt
they had to share churches with the
“damned.”
 Therefore, they believed in a total
break from the Church of England.
Roman Catholic
Church
Episcopalians
Baptists
Protestants
Lutherans
Presbyterians
Church of
England
Puritans
Separatists
(Pilgrims)
Puritans – a group of English Protestants that tried
to simplify the Church of England in the 1600’s.
Sort: Catholics, Puritans, Pilgrims
(separatist), & Anglicans (Church of
England) on the spectrum below
1
I
3
I
Radicals
Liberals
5
I
7
I
9
I
____________________________________________________
Moderates
Conservatives
Reactionaries
Sources of Puritan Migration
The Mayflower
1620  a group of 102
people [half Separatists]
 Negotiated with the
Virginia Company to
settle in its
jurisdiction.
Plymouth Bay way
outside the domain of
the Virginia Company.
 Became squatters
without legal right to
land & specific authority
to establish a govt.
The Mayflower Compact
November 11, 1620
Text
• "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are
underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign
Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England,
France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, e&.
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and
Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our
King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the
northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly
and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another,
covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body
Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and
Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to
enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws,
Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to
time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the
General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all
due submission and obedience. In Witness whereof we
have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the
eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord,
King James of England, France and Ireland, the
eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini,
1620."
Written and signed
before the Pilgrims
disembarked from
the ship.
Not a constitution,
but an agreement to
form a crude govt.
and submit to
majority rule.
 Signed by 41
adult males.
Led to adult male
settlers meeting in
assemblies to make
laws in town
meetings.
The First Year….
Winter of 1620-1621
 Only 44 out of the original 102
survived.
None chose to leave in 1621 when the
Mayflower sailed back.
Native American Encounter- The
Wampanoags
Chief Massasoit and English speaking
Squanto
Peace for 41 years
Fall of 1621  First “Thanksgiving.”
Plymouth stayed small and economically
unimportant.
 1691  only 7,000 people
 Merged with Massachusetts Bay
Colony.
William Bradford
Chosen governor of
Plymouth 30 times in
yearly elections.
Wrote History of
Plymouth Plantation
Worried about
settlements of
non-Puritans
springing up nearby
and corrupting
Puritan society.
The Mass. Bay Colony (MBC)
1629  non-Separatists got a
royal charter to form the MA
Bay Co.
 Wanted to escape attacks by
conservatives in the Church
of England.
 They didn’t want to leave the
Church, just
its “impurities.”
1630  1,000 people set off
in 11 well-stocked ships
 Established a colony with
Boston as its hub.
First Seal of MA Bay
“Great Migration” of the
1630s
 Turmoil in England [leading to the English Civil
War] sent about 70,000 Puritans to America.
 Not all Puritans  20,000 came to MA.
John Winthrop
Became 1st governor
of Massachusetts,
elected 19 times.
 Believed that he
had a “calling” from
God to lead there.
Model for the rest
of the world to
follow
 We shall be as a
city on a hill..
Covenant Theology
“Covenant of Grace”:
 between Puritan communities and
God.
“Social Covenant”:
 Between members of Puritan
communities with each other.
 Required mutual watchfulness.
 No toleration of deviance or
disorder.
 No privacy.
Puritan (Protestant) Work
Ethic
• -Value
emphasizing the
necessity of
constant labor in
a person's life as
a sign of
personal
salvation.
• -Driving force in
settlement of
New England
Common New
England Town
Structure
• Compact population
density
• Farmers lived in towns
rather than on land
they farmed
• Sense of community
develops (to enforce
Social Covenant
theology)
• common fields
• Long row system
Characteristics of New England Settlements
Education
Mandatory to build public schools in the founding of
towns, Massachusetts School Laws of 1642 & 1647
“It being the chief project of the old deluder, Satan, to
keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in
former times keeping them in a foreign tongue (Latin), it
is therefore ordered that every township in this
jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them in number
to fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one
within their town to teach all such children to read and
write, and his wages shall be paid by either by the
parents, or the inhabitants in general.” -Massachusetts
General Court, 1647
Harvard-1st university in America, founded to train
ministers
Population Comparisons:
New England v. the Chesapeake
Low mortality  average
life expectancy was 70
years of age.
Many extended families.
Average 6 children per
family.
Average age at marriage:
 Women – 22 years old
 Men – 27 years old.
Patriarchy
Ministers and
magistrates
controlled
church
congregations
and household
patriarchs.
• New England Women
– Defined gender roles in Puritan society—
woman restricted to domestic work
– Significant legal barriers for women,
could still own property when their
husband's died, went back to a man
when remarried
– Only in churches did Puritan woman
command semi-equal standing with men
– Made up the majority of many
congregations
– Salem Witch Trials (1692)
– Anne Hutchinson
Puritan “Rebels”
Young, popular minister in
Salem.
 Argued for a full break
with the Anglican Church.
 Condemned MA Bay
Charter.
•
Did not give fair
compensation to Indians.
 “Liberty of Conscience”-
Denied authority of civil
Roger Williams
govt. to regulate religious
behavior. No man should be forced to go to
church
1635  found guilty of preaching new &
dangerous opinions and was exiled.
Rhode Island
1636  Roger Williams fled there.
 MA Bay Puritans had wanted to exile him to
England to prevent him from founding a
competing colony.
 Remarkable political freedom in Providence, RI
• Universal manhood suffrage  later restricted
by a property qualification.
•
Opposed to special privilege of any kind 
freedom of opportunity for all.
RI becomes known as the “Sewer” because
it is seen by the Puritans as a dumping
ground for unbelievers and religious
dissenters  More liberal than any other
colony!
Puritan “Rebels”
Intelligent, strong-willed,
well-spoken woman.
Threatened patriarchal
control.
Antinomianism— The
theological belief that the Gospel frees Christians
from obedience to any law, whether scriptural,
moral, or civil and that salvation is attained solely
from Gods divine grace, not good works.
 Carried to logical extremes
Puritan doctrine of predestination.
Anne
Hutchinson
 Truly saved didn’t need to obey the law of
either God or man, including Puritan leaders.
Anne Hutchinson’s Trial
1638  she confounded the Puritan leaders
for days.
Eventually bragged that she had received
her beliefs DIRECTLY from God.
Direct revelation was even more serious
than the heresy of antinomianism. WHY??
Puritan leaders banished her  she & her
family traveled to RI and later to NY.
 She and all but one member of her family
were killed in an Indian attack in Westchester
County.
 John Winthrop saw God’s hand in this!
New England Spreads Out
New England Colonies, 1650
Decline of Puritanism
• Dispersed settlement patterns
• Wave of dissenters: Williams and
Hutchinson caused less conversions
• 2nd generation Puritans had trouble
getting their conversions authenticated
• Halfway Covenant- 1662, sought to
increase membership by allowing partial
membership to the unconverted and
their children baptism
• Salem Witch Trials- 1692, embarrass
Puritan clergy
• Overall, Puritans traded purity for wider
religious participation, morphed into the
Congregationalists
Salem Witch Trials- 1692
• Example of Puritan intolerance,
Fundamentalism
Puritans vs. Native Americans
Indians especially weak in New England 
epidemics wiped out ¾ of the native popul.
Wampanoags [near Plymouth] befriended
the settlers.
 Cooperation between the two
helped by Squanto.
1621  Chief Massasoit signed
treaty with the settlers.
 Autumn, 1621  both groups
celebrated the First Thanksgiving.
The First Thanksgiving?
In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed
Thanksgiving an official US holiday.
The Pequot Wars:
Pequots  very
powerful tribe
in CT river valley.
1636-1637
1637  Pequot
War
 Whites, with
Narragansett
Indian allies,
attacked Pequot
village on Mystic
River.
 Whites set fire
to homes & shot fleeing survivors!
 Set precedent of total war compared to how Indians
fought limited war.
 Pequot tribe virtually annihilated an uneasy peace
lasted for 40 years.
A Pequot Village
Destroyed, 1637
New England Confederation
created to deal with the War
King Philip’s War
(1675-1676}
Only hope for Native
Americans to resist
white settlers was to
UNITE.
Metacom [King Philip to
white settlers]
 Massasoit’s son united
Indians and staged
coordinated attacks
on white settlements throughout New England.
 Frontier settlements forced to retreat to
Boston.
King Philip’s War
(1675-1676}
The war ended in failure for the Indians
 Metacom beheaded and drawn and quartered.
 His son and wife sold into slavery.
 Final Expulsion of Indians from N.E.
 Happened the same time as Bacon’s Rebellion in the South,
unrest in Colonial America
Population of the New
England Colonies
The End
Colonizing New England