What religious and social conditions in Europe encouraged many New England colonists to come to America?

Authors Avatar

McLoughlin

Robert McLoughlin

AP History Period 3

Mrs. Jerbassi-Russo

October 1, 2000

“What religious and social conditions in Europe encouraged many New England colonists to come to America?”

The late 16th century and early 17th century saw political and religious chaos all across Europe. No country was spared conflict either politically or militarily. This time period saw great change happening in Europe with advancements being made in all scientific and social areas. One of the most important areas where no advancements were made was in religious toleration. This lack of toleration caused great problems for all the major religions in Europe and hundreds of thousands of people throughout Europe died because of their religion. A modern day comparison would be what the Nazis did to the Jewish people in the Second World War, or the ongoing problems in Bosnia. This completely atrocious and what the people 400 years ago had to deal with is wrong. Probably the main reason why the New England colonists came to America was because of the lack of religious toleration and because of persecution.

        The first settlement in New England was created by a group of people forced to leave the mother country because of political and religious differences and then left a second country because of their unhappiness with the country. I am talking about the Pilgrims, their mother country was England and the second country they left was the Netherlands. The Pilgrims were a tiny minority of the Puritan movement who were expelled from England by the first King of England and Scotland, James I. They were also known as the ‘Separatists’. They are described as being “….pious people from humble backgrounds who concluded that the Church of England was too corrupt to be reformed from within” (History Channel 1). The Pilgrim group that eventually ended up settling in Plymouth, Massachusetts, fled Scrooby, England for the city of Leiden, Holland in 1608. In Holland, they found only low paying jobs and soon lost many of their group to other religions. Other reasons include their fear that there children were growing up Dutch and not English. These reasons created low morale in the remaining group and some of them decided to travel to North America, 88 of them did and landed in North America on December 11  1620. They were banished from England because of their outspoken views on the state of the Church of England and eventually they became outspoken critics of the English Government. King James I decided that he would rid the country of the Separatists and they were forced to leave between 1607 and 1609. It is likely that if they had refused to leave that they would been imprisoned, tortured and even executed because of their faith. This created a passion to leave England and find somewhere where they could practise their choice of religion, create their own government and not be worried about being persecuted. They also left England because “Many Puritans concluded that England was slipping toward the Apocalypse” (History Channel 2).

Join now!

“The Puritans who fled to America to escape the coming wrath that was about to overwhelm England and to create in America the kind of churches that god demanded” (L.E.P. 1)

This was one of the ideas that gave birth to the statement of “a city upon a hill” (America as a religious refuge 1).

        Another group of people that immigrated to British North America were the French Huguenots (French Protestants). They fled France because they feared for their lives. The religious troubles had begun in France about 100 years before the first Huguenots settled in North America. There were ...

This is a preview of the whole essay