PURITANS

The Puritans were members of a religious movement that began in England during the 1500s and lasted into the first half of the 1600s, when it spread to America. Influenced by the teachings of religious reformer John Calvin (1509–1564), the Puritans were so named because they wanted to purify the Anglican Church (also called the Church of England). They believed that too much power rested with the church hierarchy (its priests, bishops, and cardinals), and that the people (called the laity or lay members) should have more involvement in church matters. Ceremonies should, the Puritans believed, be simplified to stress Bible reading and individual prayer. They defied the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church, believing that each church congregation should control its own affairs through a council (called a presbytery) of lay members. The Puritans also had strong feelings about government. They maintained that people can only be governed by contract (such as a constitution), which limits the power of a ruler.

When King James I (1566–1625; ruled 1603–1625) ascended the throne of England in 1603, he was the first ruler of the house (royal family) of Stuart. The Stuart monarchs were Anglican or Catholic, but faced with the challenge of radical Puritanism, they tried to enforce national adherence to the Anglican Church, which stressed the ceremonial and traditional elements of worship. Further, the Stuart kings viewed the Puritan agitators as a threat to their authority.

Persecuted by the throne, groups of Puritans fled England for the New World. One group was granted a corporate charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629). Unlike other such contracts, which provided the framework for establishing colonies in America, this one did not require the stockholders to hold their meetings in England. What is striking about the organization of the Puritan colony is the fact that their organization combined economic, political, and religious levels of meaning. Stockholders who made the voyage across the Atlantic would become voting citizens in their own settlements; the board of directors would form the legislative assembly; and the company president, Puritan leader John Winthrop (1588–1649) would become the governor. In 1630 the group settled in what is today Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, establishing a Puritan Commonwealth. By 1643, more than 20,000 Puritans had arrived in Massachusetts, in what is called the Great Migration. Puritans also settled Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Virginia during this period.

Puritans founded the Congregational Church. They also established grammar schools and colleges (including Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth) in New England.

See also: Connecticut, Colonies (Corporate), Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia