Most important events leading to the creation of Puritanism and Separatism
Download 117.96 Kb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- LUTHER, MARTIN (1483-1546)
- HENRY VIII (1491-1547)
- EPISCOPAL CHURCH (PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH)
- ELIZABETH I (1533-1603)
- MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
- WINTHROP, JOHN (1588-1649)
- The set of ideas/values (“the Puritan Ethic”) inherited from the age of “Puritanism” These ideas/values were consciously, deliberately, and openly expressed by men of the time.
- Industry/ austerity (firmness, severity of manner or attitude): One must work diligently at whatever productive task he/she was called to
- Suspicion of merchants 5. Suspicion of prosperity
- SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS
| most important events leading to the creation of Puritanism and Separatism:
In order to find out who the Puritans/Pilgrims were, how they developed, and where they came from, let us now return to 16th century Europe. The Puritans and Pilgrims were Protestants, but in the year 1500, Protestantism did not exist. At that time, virtually every Christian living in Western Europe was a Roman Catholic – a faith whose forms of worship and doctrines did not allow for much individual religious interpretation. But during this era, the leadership of the Catholic Church was experiencing serious problems with corruption, and the Church had done little to correct them. 500 years ago, all the Christians in the western part of Europe were Roman Catholics. some Roman Catholics wanted to change their Church. \ These people became known as Protestants, and the changes they brought about came to be called the “Protestant Reformation.” PROTESTANT: A word that began to be used as a result of the protest which arose among Lutheran princes who were required by the Diet of Speyer in 1529 to tolerate Catholic minorities in their territories. The Protestants thought the Catholics were wrong about a lot of things. The first steps toward reform in what would later be called the “Protestant Reformation” were taken in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517 when a priest named Martin Luther posted his list of 95 criticisms of Catholic practices on the door of the castle church, and through this act of defiance, and others that followed it, Lutheranism, the first Protestant denomination, was born.
SACRAMENT: In Christianity, any of certain rites ordained by Jesus. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians recognize seven sacraments:
Penance
Extreme Unction Baptism
Confirmation Ordination the Holy Eucharist When Luther preached, his differences with Catholic doctrine were immediately obvious, for Luther taught that only the Bible, and not the pope, was a valid source of religious truth Catholics believed that their leader, the pope, could make important religious laws POPES: The powerful rulers of the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants do not believe in the religious powers of the popes. Luther also thought that priests should be replaced by a priesthood of all believers; and that salvation was possible by faith in God alone. INDULGENCE: In the Roman Catholic Church, a remission or elimination of the punishment still due for a sin after the guilt has been forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance. Indulgences are normally obtained by making large spiritual sacrifices, but in Luther’s time, they were sold for cash.
matters of faith or morals. INFALLIBLE: Incapable of error. IDOL: An image of a god used as an object of worship. IDOLATRY: The worship of idols.
Protestant Reformation. LUTHERANISM: A Protestant Christian faith based on the teachings of Martin Luther. Lutheranism is the world’s largest Protestant faith. many of Luther’s beliefs would find their way into the religious ideals of the New England colonists. John Calvin was most influential in terms of the Pilgrims and Puritans Puritans did not like most things about the Catholic faith, feeling it had strayed too far away from the ideas that Christ had in mind for those who followed his religion. Around 1534, the French theologian John Calvin published a book called “Institutes of the Christian Religion” that incorporated many of Martin Luther’s ideas and would later come to exert a powerful influence on many Europeans, including those who settled in New England. Calvin believed very strongly in the “inherited sinfulness” of mankind, and in God’s absolute power to rule over human beings, and in “Predestination” – Calvin’s belief that, even before birth, God already knows whether a person will go to heaven or to hell and that nothing, including living a good life, can influence God’s decision. PREDESTINATION: A doctrine preached by Calvin describing his belief that God chooses in advance which souls are to be saved and which are to be damned. PRESBYTERIANISM: A system of church government by presbyters, or elders, that dates from ancient and apostolic times and was revived by John Calvin during the Reformation .
Holland and Germany. The Puritans got many of their ideas on religion from the writings of John Calvin. CALVINISM: The religious system established by John Calvin, whose main doctrines were those of predestination, the absolute sovereignty of God, the inherited sinfulness of all people and the eternal doom which accompanies that sinfulness, and the salvation of the “chosen few.”
Majesty means greatness; the power of a king, so “The Terrible Majesty of God” means a king whose greatness is such as to strike terror in the hearts of human beings, because, according to Calvin’s doctrine of Predestination, God knows before birth whether a person goes to hell or to heaven, and even leading a good life will not save you if you are not one of God’s “Chosen Few.” Wherever Calvinism was embraced, members of Calvin’s “Reformed Church” tried to wipe out all traces of “pagan idolatry” they believed had crept into Christianity by smashing religious statues and destroying stained glass windows, for the Calvinist ideal was one of plainness, simplicity, and strict morality in all aspects of life. KNOX, JOHN (1505-72): A Scotsman who studied under Calvin. Knox returned to Scotland and drove out the Catholics in 1560. He founded the Protestant denomination called Presbyterianism. in the year 1534, a second Protestant denomination, called “The Church of England,” was born. That was the year that King Henry VIII became so outraged with the pope for denying an annulment to his marriage, that he declared himself to be the head of the English Church. HENRY VIII (1491-1547): Henry Tudor, King of England from 1509-1547. Founded the Church of England in 1534. However, because King Henry’s conflict was with the pope, not with Catholic dogma, the services and sacraments of the new “Church of England” were hard to distinguish from those of the Roman Catholic Church. For, instead of bringing theological changes, as Luther had done, Henry really just wanted to increase his power and wealth; so in 1536, he began dismantling all of the monasteries in England and taking their land and riches for himself. ACT OF SUPREMACY (1534): A law by which King Henry VIII declared himself to be the supreme head of the Church in England. DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES (1536-1539): The abolition of all the Roman Catholic monasteries in England, as ordered by King Henry VIII. ANGLICAN: Pertaining to the Church of England. EPISCOPAL CHURCH (PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH): The self-governing American branch of the Church of England. The fact that in England four centuries ago everyone was required to belong to the Church of England and to follow it’s practices. English Protestants belonged to the Church of England, and this religion was quite a bit like the old Roman Catholic faith. In the 1530s, around the same time that this man, King Henry VIII started the Church of England, a Frenchman named John Calvin was busy creating a third Protestant faith, and it was Calvin’s ideas on religion that had the most to do with shaping the beliefs of the Puritans and Pilgrims. John Calvin started what were called the “Reformed Churches,” and these churches were found only on the mainland of Europe, not in England. People who joined the Reformed Churches thought that the Roman Catholics were not following the plan that Christ had in mind for His believers. That was why they destroyed religious objects, such as statues, stained glass windows and altars, because they believed that Christ wanted His true religion to be plain, simple, and very strict. In England, certain people really liked Calvin’s ideas on religion, and they decided they wanted to follow his example and purify the Church of England by getting rid of all traces of the Catholic faith. This is the reason they started to be called “Puritans.” PURITANS: Members of a group in the Church of England during the 1500s and 1600s who wanted similar forms of worship and stricter morals. Most Puritans didn’t want to leave the Church of England; instead they hoped that by working as church members they could change all the things they found wrong with it, such as religious artwork, priests, and Catholic ceremonies.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: Along with Oxford University, Cambridge is a great and ancient university in England. During the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Rober Troublechurch Browne was an important early Separatist who preached violent sermons at Cambridge University in 1578 advocating that people break away from the Church of England to find religious freedom. He was jailed and later fled to Holland. BROWNISTS: The followers of Robert Browne; another word for “separatist” INDEPENDENTS: Another name for the Separatists. Many Separatists, including most of those who started the Plymouth Colony, in what is today the state of Massachusetts, came from a few tiny farming towns in the misty northern part of England about 150 miles to the north of London near the towns of Babworth, Gainsborough, Austerfield and Scrooby. In fact, William Brewster, the man who became the beloved elder of the Plymouth Colony, attended church in the tiny village of Scrooby fifty years before presiding over religious services in New England –services usually held on the ground floor of the colony’s fort in this simple room Leading religious elder of the Plymouth Colony. The main religious leader of the Plymouth Colony for many years. the man who was destined to become the second governor of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford (1621-1657), was baptized in this church in the nearby village of Austerfield. William Brewster and William Bradford came from the same area of England and lived only about 10 miles from one another. It was 100 miles to the south of these towns, here at the University of Cambridge, that Calvin’s ideas of religious freedom were being promoted during the 1570s and 80s, and it was while receiving an education here that William Brewster first became acquainted with Puritanism and its more extreme offshoot, Separatism. In 1553, after years of robust growth, Protestantism received a major setback when Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor, became Queen of England and reinstated Catholicism as the official religion of the land. MARY I (1516-1558): Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, wife of King Phillip II of Spain. As Queen from 1553-1558, Mary brought Catholicism back as the official religion of England. She burned 300 Protestants at the stake, thus earning the name “Bloody Mary.”
In 1603, after Queen Elizabeth I died, the English people got a new ruler, King James I. ELIZABETH I (1533-1603): Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII. As Queen (1558-1603), she returned England to Protestantism and made life hard on the Catholics. Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII. As Queen (1558-1603) she returned England to Protestantism. JAMES I (1566-1625): James Stuart, King of England 1603-1625, also King James VI of Scotland. A firm believer in the divine right of kings and enemy of Puritans. His strict laws on religion made the Pilgrims leave England. Soon after his coronation, James banned all private religious services and religious books other than the Book of Common Prayer and Sacraments, Because of the strict policies of King James, the Separatists were forced to leave their churches and meet illegally in private homes. During the first decade of the 17th century, this large manor house was the center of Separatist activities in the town of Gainsborough. The house was owned by William Hickman, a Puritan merchant who had lived in Holland during the bloody reign of the Catholic queen, Mary Tudor. Some of the Mayflower pilgrims, including William Bradford and William Brewster, occasionally met in the rooms of Hickman’s house as well, but it was after being arrested in the village of Scrooby for conducting private religious services in his home, that Brewster’s Separatist group decided to sell off their land and go to Holland where they could freely practice their religion. Right after he was made King, James ordered all private religious services to stop and made it a crime not belong to the Church of England. Because the monarch was the head of the Church of England, any at tempts to change the Church were taken as affronts to royal power and were considered treasonous: This was why the Puritans and Separatists often ran afoul of the law birth of the Separatist movement in England: Puritans felt they could not accomplish their religious goals as members of the Church of England. The Puritans and Separatists begged the king to allow freedom of religion, but he swore he would drive them out of England if they didn’t obey his command. and when the religious non-conformists – the Puritans and Separatists– pleaded for freedom to worship as they saw fit, the king threatened to drive them out of England unless they conformed to his commands. Because of this, many Separatists were forced to leave their churches and meet secretly in houses after they got caught having an illegal religious service, many Separatists decided to sell off their homes and move to Holland, where they could worship God as they saw fit. So in 1607, the Pilgrims set off on foot across 60 miles of open countryside, beginning an amazing journey that finally ended up 13 years later in America. First they headed here to Boston on the English seacoast where a ship was supposed to take them across the North Sea to Calvinist Holland. But the ship’s master turned them over to the police. They were jailed in the Boston Guildhall, and their leaders were kept here for one month before being released. both Brewster and Bradford were forced to stay here for one month before being released. But the Pilgrims did not give up easily, so they tried again, and in 1608 made it to Holland. But they really never felt at home here, so after only nine years, in 1617, Brewster’s Pilgrims decided to move to England’s new American colony of Virginia, where they could have more freedom to follow their religious ideas, speak their own language, and have a chance to gain economic security. They compromised their principles and agreed to accept the king as the head of both church and state, and from here in London, the Separatists gained the backing of a company of merchant adventurers who guaranteed financial support for the undertaking in exchange for half of their assets after seven years time. soon the Pilgrims got a company of merchants from here in London to give them the money they needed to start their new community, but in return they had agree to give the company half of everything they made during their first seven years in America.
for half of everything they could produce in seven years time. Once everything was ready, the Pilgrims left Holland in their ship, the Speedwell, and headed back to England to meet up with a second ship, the Mayflower, that was supposed to carry other colonists, people who weren’t Separatists, to Virginia. SPEEDWELL: When the Pilgrims left Holland for America, they were supposed to make the Atlantic crossing on a ship called the “Speedwell.” But because the Speedwell leaked, the Pilgrims had to travel on another ship, the Mayflower, which originally was carrying other colonists who weren’t Separatists. But the Mayflower had to be specially prepared to carry both groups of colonists because the Speedwell leaked so badly it wasn’t safe. Finally all the work was done, and in September of 1620, the Mayflower was ready to lower her sails and head off from the port of Plymouth to America.
the Pilgrims belonged to a group called the “Separatists” who felt they needed to “separate” themselves from the Church of England to worship God as they saw fit. As “Separatists,” the pilgrims belonged to a small group of religious exiles whose strict beliefs had caused them to break away from England’s established church. It was stormy crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It took two months, and because the ship sailed further north than planned, the first land the Pilgrims saw was not Virginia at all, but Cape Cod in New England. When they realized they had come to a place where English laws were not obeyed, they decided to establish their own government and make their own laws. It was while anchored not far from here in Cape Cod Bay, that 41 men on the ship signed what we now call "The Mayflower Compact.” MAYFLOWER COMPACT: A document signed by 41 male passengers of the Mayflower on November 21, 1620 before they landed in New England. Through this document they agreed to make and abide by certain laws in their new colony. Through this document, they bound themselves to form a “body politick” and agreed to abide by certain laws. Because it foreshadowed the idea of government by consent, it is considered one of the basic American documents. regarded as a cornerstone of American democracy, in which they pledged to obey all decisions made for the common good, thereby establishing a simple form of democratic self-government. In it, for the first time in the history of America, people agreed to a simple kind of democratic self-government. In the Compact they signed before ever going ashore, they agreed to make and obey “just and equal” laws that would be in the overall best interest of the Plymouth Colony. the village of New Plymouth was established by the Pilgrims in 1620. PLYMOUTH COLONY: The first successful New England colony founded on December 21, 1620. The Plymouth Colony was made up of Cape Cod and lands to the west in Massachusetts. It became part of the much larger Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691. Because the colonists landed in November, it was too cold to plant crops right away, and during that first winter, half of them died because of poor living conditions.
corn and how to fertilize the seeds with small fish they caught in the bay. A year later, the colonists celebrated their first harvest with a feast, even though half of them had died the winter before; and so, the American holiday of Thanksgiving was born. In the autumn of 1621, the Plymouth colonists celebrated their excellent crops and the colony’s great progress with a three-day festival, including games and a feast. Such harvest feasts were nothing new to the Plymouth colonists, for when they were farmers back in England, they always celebrated “Harvest Home” festivals after the year’s crops were in. English harvest festivals that often lasted for several days. During these festivals, farmers celebrated their harvests with feasts and games. this was where the idea for our modern-day holiday of Thanksgiving came from. Today we think of the Thanksgiving meal as having turkey as it’s main course, and while it’s true that the Pilgrims ate turkey at their first harvest feast, they also served up ducks, geese, and seafood from the bay, such as clams, eels and fish, plus deer meat brought by the native people who attended the feast; and from the corn they had just harvested, they made cornbread. 168 years later, President George Washington passed a law that made November 26th a day of national Thanksgiving, partly to honor the memory of the Plymouth Pilgrims. The Plymouth colonists built houses that looked a lot like those they had known back home in England. Over the next few years, other Separatists arrived, and they worked hard to create a community that was healthy both spiritually and economically. New Plymouth’s little houses had a decidedly English appearance, with thatched roofs made from reeds that they cut from the marshes and then laid out carefully to dry, and walls made from boards fashioned from the hardwood trees that grew all around the village. On the inside, the houses were cozy and reasonably comfortable. The Plymouth colonists raised crops and fertilized them using fish which they caught in the Bay. Pickled eels were a popular food in England. The Plymouth Pilgrims ate eels at their first harvest feast and also exported large amounts of them back to England. They kept cattle, raised sheep, they grew vegetables in their gardens, and thus, the residents of New Plymouth came to be fairly self-sufficient. Logs cut from the forests nearby were carefully measured and shaped into strong wooden beams for the frames of the houses, while other logs were pried apart to make the boards used for the walls of the houses, that helped keep the rain and snow away. Their houses had thatched roofs made from reeds that the colonists cut from the marshes and laid out carefully to dry. On the inside, their houses were cozy and fairly comfortable, but very small. New Plymouth was well defended, for all the houses were built behind tall walls of sharpened logs. Overlooking the town, this building, a combination fort and meetinghouse, held cannons ready to defend the colony from attack, while its first floor was simply one big room where town meetings, trials, and religious services were held. At Plymouth, the Sabbath was a day of “humiliation and thanksgiving.” Sunday was the Sabbath day to the Plymouth Pilgrims (a day of rest) At the Plymouth Colony, the Sabbath was a day for thanksgiving and humiliation and no work (even the cooking of food) was allowed. Everyone, had to attend religious services, which were about eight hours long and could be held anywhere, but were usually held on the first floor of the town’s fort. Services one to two hours of preaching followed by prayers the deacon’s explanation of a reading from the Bible singing from the Psalms Singing the Psalms was part of the religious service at Plymouth Colony. Psalms were Sacred hymns of praise from the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament of the Bible. making prophesies, public discipline of sinners the giving of alms (donations to the poor). Just seven years after the Mayflower landed on what is now the Massachusetts shore, the results of the colonists' efforts were easy to see, for by now a fine little village called New Plymouth, with a population of 180 souls, stood alongside the bay. Ten years after the Pilgrims started the Plymouth Colony in New England, the Pilgrims were joined in America by another religious group called the Puritans.
The Puritans wanted the Church of England to be purer and simpler than it was, but they didn’t want to separate from it. The Puritans sought to do away with bishops and church hierarchy, for they put their faith strictly in the teachings of the Bible. Puritans believed strongly in Calvin’s notion of predestination also wanted only plain services held in buildings that had no religious art The Puritan notion of a church differed from that of the Church of England in another important way, because the Puritans did not welcome sinners, whereas the established church considered anyone born in England to be a member automatically. While most Puritans had no desire to abandon the Church of England, seeking only to simplify and purify it from within, a more extreme faction among them, called the “Separatists,” felt that they could not attain their religious goals as members of the established Church. 1629: a new king, Charles I, ruled England until 1649. Charles Stuart was an unpopular King In 1625, just five years after the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, a new king, Charles I, was ruling England. Charles, like his father King James before him, insisted on absolute royal power. He was contemptuous of his parliament and supported an extreme anti-Puritan element within the English Church. In 1629, Charles entered an 11-year period during which he ruled over England without the aid of parliament – an action that turned many people against him. He did not like the Puritans, but still he allowed them to start a second colony just to the north of New Plymouth, along the wooded shore of Massachusetts Bay. Although King Charles didn't like Puritans he allowed them to start the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
WINTHROP, JOHN (1588-1649): Puritan colonist and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. shaped the theocratic policy of the colony. King Charles I granted a charter to the Puritans to start the Massachusetts Bay Company.
by which the monarch or state grants and acknowledges certain rights, liberties, or powers to a colony or group of people. Soon a great migration of Puritans began. They poured into New England hoping to find freedom to follow their religious ideas and to build a model community for all the world to see. In the meantime, back in England during the early 1640’s, insurrection was brewing, and this man, a Puritan named Oliver Cromwell, was about to play a leading role in what would soon erupt into a full-blown civil war. ENGLISH CIVIL WAR (1642-1652): A war between supporters of the parliament and the supporters of the king. ROUNDHEADS: A member or supporter of the Parliamentary or Puritan Party during the English Civil War. This term was derisive and was adopted because most Puritans had short hair, whereas most Royalists or Cavaliers wore their hair long. CROMWELL, OLIVER (1599-1658): English general and Puritan statesman who ruled England from 1653-1658 as its Lord Protector. Cromwell was a Puritan whose beliefs had been fostered inside the walls of Sydney Sussex College here at the University of Cambridge, for this particular college was a stronghold of Puritanism during his student years. During the first part of the civil war, Cromwell lived in this house in the town of Ely, not far from Cambridge, and no doubt its kitchen was a good place for him to think over the difficult problems that confronted him until his duties as a military leader finally took him away. Cromwell’s parliamentary forces captured London and its royal fortress early in the war, so for four years time, the court of the king was based here at Oxford. But eventually, in 1649, King Charles was tried for treason, sentenced to death, and then beheaded. Thereafter, the monarchy was abolished and Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan, assumed the title of “Lord Protector” and ruled over England for five years time. Charles was executed in 1649, then parliament did away with the monarchy. After that, England was ruled by a Puritan for a few years. THE PROTECTORATE (1653-1659): The period during which Oliver Cromwell was protector of England. Oliver Cromwell acquired the sugar-producing island of Jamaica from Spain to be another new colony in England’s rapidly-expanding overseas empire.
began to decline, and by the end of the 17th century, Puritanism was waning in the American colonies as well.
The Puritans and the Separatist Pilgrims had many of the same ideas about religion, but they were also different from one another. Still, both groups were very important to the history of the United States because their ideas and ways of doing things helped shape how our country developed. The ideals and religious vision of the Puritans and Separatists The Puritans and the Separatist Pilgrims made important contributions to American history and culture. concepts the Puritans brought to American democracy freedom of opinion freedom of religion right to dissent the principle of fair and open debate the practice of electing governments the idea of havinga written document establishing the rules and regulations of government AUSTERE: Simple, plain, rigid. This word is often used to describe the ideals of the Puritans. For those who settled in the Puritan colonies, life was bound by strict moral codes, ministers held positions of political power, and their interpretations of the Bible often were taken as law. The Puritans were very strict in their morals and religion. On Sunday, everyone had to attend religious services. They sat in front of this pulpit and listened to sermons. Services could last up to eight hours, and on the “Lord's Day” the village was very quiet as all activities, even cooking, stopped (“Pew joke”) The Pilgrim’s strict beliefs did not even allow them to celebrate Christmas. The Plymouth colonists did not have a Christmas celebration because they thought it had too many Catholic religious ideas connected with it. But, except for Sundays, New Plymouth was a busy place.
Peoples’ lives were watched over very closely by strict ministers, and, if they did something sinful, the ministers served as judges as well. And, believing it was a sign that God’s grace was with them, the Puritan and Separatist colonists worked harder than most other people, and this helped make their colonies strong. 
The set of ideas/values (“the Puritan Ethic”) inherited from the age of “Puritanism” These ideas/values were consciously, deliberately, and openly expressed by men of the time. The following constitute various ideas as the Puritans defined and explained them:
3. Thrift and frugality  
4. Suspicion of merchants 
5. Suspicion of prosperity 
Jeremiad: in literature: a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes; a prophesy of doom 
History has proven that great empires fell because of a loss of the same virtues that God demanded be followed in New England and the influence of vice (e.g. whereas Rome prospered while its citizens worked at their callings and led lives of simplicity/frugality, it fell due to the emergence of luxury, extravagance, excessive relaxation/idleness, indolence, etc.)
Summary:
Some Plymouth Pilgrim names: Resolved White Experience Mitchell Fear Brewster Love Brewster Wrestling Brewster Patience Prence Desire Howland Remember Allerton Humility Cooper At Saugus, just outside of Boston, the Puritans started the first factory in America that made things out of iron. SAGUS IRON WORKS: An ironworks started by the Puritan John Winthrop, Jr. (1606-1676), son the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During the 1650s, its operation depended heavily on Scottish indentured servants captured as prisoners of war by Cromwell’s forces at the Civil War Battle of Dunbar. Today these iron works near Boston, Massachusetts have been rebuilt and are a United States National Monument. The Saugus Iron Works used water power to keep the fires, needed to melt the iron, burning as hot as possible, and water power was also used to lift the huge hammer they used to pound the iron into special shapes.
pickled eels As time went by, Puritanism’s power got weaker and weaker, but in Salem, Massachusetts, in the year 1692, it’s strict laws were still strong enough to bring about the hanging deaths of 19 women Puritan judges had convicted of being witches. You may wonder what ever happened to the Separatists and Puritans. Many Congregational churches in New England were once Puritan meeting houses. CONGREGATIONALISM: A form of church government in which each church is free to govern itself without any outside influences. The fact is, over the next few centuries they changed and their religion, that was now called Congregationalism, got a lot less strict, and it is interesting to know that many of the beautiful, white-steepled, Congregational churches found in New England towns today can trace their beginnings back to a time when they were Separatist and Puritan meetinghouses. In 1640, the Plymouth Colony had a population of 2500. The Massachusetts Bay Colony had a population of 20,000. By 1650, the colonies of Connecticut, New Haven, and Rhode Island had sprouted up in New England as well. But a lasting reminder of its severity can be seen today in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, where carved stones commemorate the deaths of 19 women who, in 1692, were ordered to be hung by Puritan judges who believed them to be witches. SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS: Because of these trials that were held in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, Puritan judges condemned 19 people to be hung for practicing witchcraft. Directory: nhhs -> socialstudies -> dduerring -> files -> 2011 2011 -> The Balkan Wars The First Balkan War 2011 -> American History II – Honors 9 Week Study Guide English Colonization 2011 -> America in the 20th Century: America Becomes a World Power Discussion Questions 2011 -> Characteristics of Ancient Civilizations 2011 -> Fundamental Orders of Connecticut 2011 -> According to the historian Eric Foner, what thrived in the Reconstruction South? 2011 -> A republic, If You Want It” Reading Comprehension Questions Download 117.96 Kb. Share with your friends:
|
