MYTH NO. 1: Puritans came to America to establish freedom of religion
Fact No. 1: The Puritans didn’t leave England to found a society where all religions would be tolerated. That is, they did not come to North America “in search of religious freedom.” They came here so they could practice their own religion freely, which is a very different thing.
The Massachusetts colony promised the Puritans the possibility of a godly state where their “true” religion could be preserved. It was therefore crucial to them that in New England only their style of reformed Anglican worship, which came to be called Congregationalism, be practiced unopposed.
The Puritans’ ability to enforce a single religion in their colonies was short-lived. Not only did Quakers, Baptists and other non-Puritans move in (with mixed results), but when Charles II came to the throne in 1660 he turned his attention on Congregationalism, and that spelled the eventual end of its religious domination in New England.
Fact No. 1: The Puritans didn’t leave England to found a society where all religions would be tolerated. That is, they did not come to North America “in search of religious freedom.” They came here so they could practice their own religion freely, which is a very different thing.
The Massachusetts colony promised the Puritans the possibility of a godly state where their “true” religion could be preserved. It was therefore crucial to them that in New England only their style of reformed Anglican worship, which came to be called Congregationalism, be practiced unopposed.
The Puritans’ ability to enforce a single religion in their colonies was short-lived. Not only did Quakers, Baptists and other non-Puritans move in (with mixed results), but when Charles II came to the throne in 1660 he turned his attention on Congregationalism, and that spelled the eventual end of its religious domination in New England.