WelfareQueen
Diamond Member
The
The Puritans did not found English America nor were they representative of most of the first waves of English settlers. Please read about Jamestown and it's influence. They would never have been a Massachusetts Colony were it not for Virginia preceding it a generation before.
There is an excellent book The River of Pearl and Gold: A Story of Jamestown you should read.
#1. We will start with the Puritans
The first group of “Mayflower” Christians to set foot on what was to become Massachusetts’s soil were separatists meaning they left the Church of England behind. Those separatists were eventually absorbed into the following groups of non-separatist Puritans who under Congregationalist Churches maintained a loyal relationship with the Church of England until the revolt against King Charles in 1776 was declared.
In no way should the early separatist Puritans be confused with the Revolutionary War Separatists. Many of the 1776 separatists were not Christian in a Puritan/Calvinistic sense at all. They were more philosophically aligned with the modern liberal mindset of the times when the Declaration of Independence was signed.
“So who, then, were the Puritans? While the Separatists believed that the only way to live according to Biblical precepts was to leave the Church of England entirely, the Puritans thought they could reform the church from within. Sometimes called non-separating Puritans, this less radical group shared a lot in common with the Separatists, particularly a form of worship and self-organization called “the congregational way.” What’s the Difference Between Puritans and Pilgrims?
The Puritans did not found English America nor were they representative of most of the first waves of English settlers. Please read about Jamestown and it's influence. They would never have been a Massachusetts Colony were it not for Virginia preceding it a generation before.
There is an excellent book The River of Pearl and Gold: A Story of Jamestown you should read.