Background: Puritan Settlements in New England

The colonies known as New England included New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. By 1700, there were 130,000 people in this geographical area, with 7,000 in Boston and 2,600 in Newport. These settler-invaders' experiences greatly influenced the government and commerce of America for generations.

Settled largely by waves of Puritan families in the 1630s, New England had a religious orientation from the start. In England, reform-minded men and women had been calling for greater changes to the English national church since the 1580s. These reformers, who followed the teachings of John Calvin and other Protestant reformers, were called Puritans because of their insistence on “purifying” the Church of England of what they believed to be un-scriptural, especially Catholic elements that lingered in its institutions and practices.

The conflict generated by Puritanism had divided English society, because the Puritans demanded reforms that undermined the traditional festive culture. During the 1620s and 1630s, the conflict escalated to the point where the state church prohibited Puritan ministers from preaching. In the church’s view, Puritans represented a national security threat because their demands for cultural, social, and religious reforms undermined the king’s authority. 

Unwilling to conform to the Church of England, many Puritans sought refuge in the New World. Thousands of Puritans left their English homes not to establish a land of religious freedom, but to practice their own religion without persecution. Puritan New England offered them the opportunity to live as they believed the Bible demanded. In their “New” England, they set out to create a model of reformed Protestantism—a new English Israel. Yet those who emigrated to the Americas were not united; some called for a complete break with the Church of England, while others remained committed to reforming the national church.

Plymouth: The First Puritan Colony 

The first group of Puritans to make their way across the Atlantic was a small contingent known as the Pilgrims. Unlike other Puritans, they insisted on a complete separation from the Church of England and had first migrated to the Dutch Republic seeking religious freedom. Although they found they could worship without hindrance in the Netherlands, they grew concerned that they were losing their English culture as they saw their children begin to learn the Dutch language and adopt Dutch ways. In addition, the English Pilgrims (and others in Europe) feared another attack on the Dutch Republic by Catholic Spain. 

Therefore, in 1620, the Pilgrims moved on to found the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. The governor of Plymouth, William Bradford, was a separatist, a proponent of complete separation from the English state church. Bradford and the other Pilgrim separatists represented a major challenge to the prevailing vision of a unified English national church and empire. On board the Mayflower, which was bound for Virginia but landed on the tip of Cape Cod, Bradford and 40 other adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, which presented a religious (rather than an economic) rationale for colonization. The compact expressed a community ideal of working together and was notable for its bold assertion of the right to self-govern. When a larger exodus of Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, the Pilgrims at Plymouth welcomed them and the two colonies cooperated with each other.

The Mayflower Compact

The original Mayflower Compact no longer exists; only copies, such as this ca.1645 transcription by William Bradford, remain.

Different labor systems in Plymouth and other Puritan New England colonies distinguished them from the Chesapeake colonies to the south. Puritans expected young people to work diligently at their calling, and all members of their large families, including children, did the bulk of the work necessary to run homes, farms, and businesses. Very few migrants came to New England as laborers; in fact, New England towns protected their disciplined homegrown workforce by refusing to allow outsiders in, assuring their sons and daughters steady employment. New England’s labor system produced remarkable results, notably a powerful maritime-based economy with scores of oceangoing ships and the crews necessary to sail them. New England mariners sailing New England-made ships transported Virginian tobacco and West Indian sugar throughout the Atlantic World.

In their first winter in the new land, over half of the population of Plymouth died of scurvy and harsh conditions. However, the settlement survived, and the successful voyage of the Mayflower led to the great Puritan migration of the 1630s. 

Early Relations with American Indians 

Local American Indian tribes such as the Wampanoag were apprehensive about the Pilgrims. There had been previous unprovoked attacks by English sailors, as well as theft, abduction, and enforced slavery. In early interactions, however, the Puritans and American Indians were able to establish treaties of peace that ensured each people would not bring harm to the other. Several American Indians were crucial in helping the Pilgrims survive in the new land—teaching them how to farm and fertilize the soil. For the first few years of colonial life, the fur trade (buying furs from American Indians and selling to Europeans) was the dominant source of income beyond subsistence farming. While these early years saw relative peace between the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the people who had inhabited the land for centuries, this peace would not last.