History of the Puritans in North America
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In the early 17th century, thousands of
Puritans played the leading roles in establishing the
Background (1533–1630)
Puritanism was a
During the reign of James I, most Puritans were no longer willing to wait for further church reforms and separated from the Church of England. Since the law required everyone to attend parish services, these Separatists were vulnerable to criminal prosecution, and some such as Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood were executed. To escape persecution and worship freely, some Separatists migrated to the Netherlands. Nevertheless, most Puritans remained within the Church of England.[4]
Under Charles I, Calvinist teachings were undermined, and bishops became less tolerant of Puritan views and more willing to enforce the use of controversial ceremonies. Controls were placed on Puritan preaching, and some ministers were suspended or removed from their livings. Increasingly, many Puritans concluded that they had no choice but to emigrate.[5]
Migration to America (1620–1640)
In 1620, a group of Separatists known as the Pilgrims settled in New England and established the Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims originated as a dissenting congregation in Scrooby led by Richard Clyfton, John Robinson and William Brewster. This congregation was subject to persecution with members being imprisoned or having property seized. Fearing greater persecution, the group left England and settled in the Dutch city of Leiden. In 1620, after receiving a patent from the London Company, the Pilgrims left for New England on board the Mayflower, landing at Plymouth Rock.[6][7] The Pilgrims are remembered for creating the Mayflower Compact, a social contract based on Puritan political theory and in imitation of the church covenant they had made at the church in Scrooby.[8]
Two of the Pilgrim settlers in Plymouth Colony—Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow—believed that Cape Ann would be a profitable location for a settlement. They therefore organized a company named the Dorchester Company and in 1622 sailed to England seeking a patent from the London Company giving them permission to settle there. They were successful and were granted the Sheffield Patent (named after Edmund, Lord Sheffield, the member of the Plymouth Company who granted the patent). On the basis of this patent, Roger Conant led a group of fishermen from the area later called Gloucester to found Salem in 1626, being replaced as governor by John Endecott in 1628 or 1629.[9]
Other Puritans were convinced that New England could provide a religious refuge, and the enterprise was reorganized as the Massachusetts Bay Company. In March 1629, it succeeded in obtaining from King Charles a royal charter for the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1630, the first ships of the Great Puritan Migration sailed to the New World, led by John Winthrop.[10][11]
During the crossing, Winthrop preached a sermon entitled "A Model of Christian Charity", in which he told his followers that they had entered a covenant with God according to which he would cause them to prosper if they maintained their commitment to God. In doing so, their new colony would become a "City upon a Hill", meaning that they would be a model to all the nations of Europe as to what a properly reformed Christian commonwealth should look like.[12]
Most of the Puritans who emigrated settled in the New England area. However, the Great Migration of Puritans was relatively short-lived and very large. It began in earnest in 1629 with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and ended in 1642 with the start of the English Civil War when King Charles I effectively shut off emigration to the colonies. Emigration was officially restricted to conforming churchmen in December 1634 by his Privy Council.[13] From 1629 through 1643, approximately 21,000 Puritans immigrated to New England.
The immigration was primarily an exodus of families. Between 1630 and 1640, over 13,000 men, women, and children sailed to Massachusetts. The religious and political factors behind the Great Migration influenced the demographics of the emigrants. Groups of young men seeking economic success predominated the Virginia colonies, whereas Puritan ships were laden with "ordinary" people, old and young, families as well as individuals. Just a quarter of the emigrants were in their twenties when they boarded ships in the 1630s, making young adults a minority in New England settlements. The New World Puritan population was more of a cross-section in the age of the English population than those of other colonies. This meant that the Massachusetts Bay Colony retained a relatively normal population composition. In the colony of Virginia, the ratio of colonist men to women was 4:1 in the early decades and at least 2:1 in later decades, and only limited intermarriage took place with Native women. By contrast, nearly half of the Puritan immigrants to the New World were women, and there was very little intermarriage with Native Americans. The majority of families who traveled to Massachusetts Bay were families in progress, with parents who were not yet through with their reproductive years and whose continued fertility made New England's population growth possible. The women who emigrated were critical agents in the success of the establishment and maintenance of the Puritan colonies in North America. Success in the early colonial economy depended largely on labor, which was conducted by members of Puritan families.
Other destinations
The struggle between the assertive Church of England and various
Emigration resumed under the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s but not in large numbers as there was no longer any need to escape persecution in England. Some Puritans returned to England during the English Civil War. They were on the winning side and remained under Cromwell's Puritanical rule.[15]
Life in the New World
Puritan dominance in the New World lasted until the early 18th century. That era can be broken down into three parts: the generation of John Cotton and Richard Mather (1630–62) from the founding to the Restoration, years of virtual independence and nearly autonomous development; the generation of Increase Mather (1662–89) from the Restoration and the Halfway Covenant to the Glorious Revolution, years of struggle with the British crown; and the generation of Cotton Mather (1689–1728) from the overthrow of Edmund Andros (in which Cotton Mather played a part) and the new charter, mediated by Increase Mather, to the death of Cotton Mather.[16]
Religion
Once in New England, the Puritans established
The
For church offices, Puritans imitated the model developed in
The essential Puritan belief was that people are
Puritans believed churches should be composed of "visible saints" or the
Church and state
For Puritans, the people of society were bound together by a
The Puritans also believed they were in a national covenant with God. They believed they were chosen by God to help redeem the world by their total obedience to his will. If they were true to the covenant, they would be blessed; if not, they would fail.[29] Within this worldview, it was the government's responsibility to enforce moral standards and ensure true religious worship was established and maintained.[30] In the Puritan colonies, the Congregational church functioned as a state religion. In Massachusetts, no new church could be established without the permission of the colony's existing Congregational churches and the government.[31] Likewise, Connecticut allowed only one church per town or parish, which had to be Congregational.[32]
All residents in Massachusetts and Connecticut were required to pay taxes for the support of the Congregational churches, even if they were religious dissenters.[33] The franchise was limited to Congregational church members in Massachusetts and New Haven, but voting rights were more extensive in Connecticut and Plymouth.[34][35] In Connecticut, church attendance on Sundays was mandatory (for both church members and non-members), and those who failed to attend were fined.[36]
There was a greater separation of church and state in the Puritan commonwealths than existed anywhere in Europe at the time. In England, the king was head of both church and state, bishops sat in Parliament and the Privy Council, and church officials exercised many secular functions. In New England, secular matters were handled only by civil authorities, and those who held offices in the church were barred from holding positions in the civil government.[37] When dealing with unorthodox persons, Puritans believed that the church, as a spiritual organization, was limited to "attempting to persuade the individual of his error, to warn him of the dangers he faced if he publicly persisted in it, and—as a last resort—to expel him from the spiritual society by ex-communication."[38] Citizens who lost church membership by excommunication retained the right to vote in civil affairs.[39]
Religious toleration
The Puritans did not come to America to establish a theocracy, but neither did they institute religious freedom.[40] Puritans believed that the state was obligated to protect society from heresy, and it was empowered to use corporal punishment, banishment, and execution. New England magistrates did not investigate private views, but they did take action against public dissent from the religious establishment. Puritan sentiments were expressed by Nathaniel Ward in The Simple Cobbler of Agawam: "all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other Enthusiasts shall have free Liberty to keep away from us, and such as will come [shall have liberty] to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better."[38]
The period 1658–1692 saw the
Family life
For Puritans, the family was the "locus of spiritual and civic development and protection",[43] and marriage was the foundation of the family and, therefore, society. Unlike in England, where people were married by ministers in the church according to the Book of Common Prayer, Puritans saw no biblical justification for church weddings or the exchange of wedding rings. While marriage held great religious significance for Puritans—they saw it as a covenant relationship freely entered into by both man and wife—the wedding was viewed as a private, contractual event officiated by a civil magistrate either in the home of the magistrate or a member of the bridal party.[44] Massachusetts ministers were not legally permitted to solemnize marriages until 1686 after the colony had been placed under royal control, but by 1726 it had become the accepted tradition.[45]
According to scholars Gerald Moran and Maris Vinovskis, some historians argue that Puritan child-rearing was repressive. Central to this argument is the views of John Robinson, the Pilgrims' first pastor, who wrote in a 1625 treatise "Of Children and Their Education", "And surely there is in all children, though not alike, a stubbornness, and stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first place, be broken and beaten down."[46] Moran and Vinovskis, however, argue that Robinson's views were not representative of 17th-century Puritans. They write that Puritan parents "exercised an authoritative, not an authoritarian, mode of child-rearing" that aimed to cultivate godly affections and reason, with corporal punishment used as a last resort.[47]
Education
According to historian Bruce C. Daniels, the Puritans were "[o]ne of the most literate groups in the early modern world", with about 60 percent of New England able to read.[48] At a time when the literacy rate in England was less than 30 percent, the Puritan leaders of colonial New England believed children should be educated for both religious and civil reasons, and they worked to achieve universal literacy. In 1642, Massachusetts required heads of households to teach their wives, children, and servants basic reading and writing so that they could read the Bible and understand colonial laws. In 1647, the government required all towns with 50 or more households to hire a teacher and towns of 100 or more households to hire a grammar school instructor to prepare promising boys for college. Boys interested in the ministry were often sent to colleges such as Harvard (founded in 1636) or Yale (founded in 1707).[49][50]
The Puritans anticipated the educational theories of
The Puritans, almost immediately after arriving in America in 1630, set up schools for their sons. They also set up what were called dame schools for their daughters and in other cases taught their daughters at home how to read. As a result, Americans were the most literate people in the world. By the time of the American Revolution, there were 40 newspapers in the United States (at a time when there were only two cities—New York and Philadelphia—with as many as 20,000 people in them).[55][56][57][58]
The Puritans set up a college (Harvard University) only six years after arriving in the United States. By the time of the Revolution, the United States had 10 colleges (while England had only two).[59][60]
Recreation and leisure
Puritans did not celebrate traditional holidays such as Christmas, Easter, or May Day. They also did not observe personal annual holidays, such as birthdays or anniversaries. They did, however, celebrate special occasions such as military victories, harvests, ordinations, weddings, and births. These celebrations consisted of food and conversation. Beyond special occasions, the tavern was an important place for people to gather for fellowship on a regular basis.[48]
Increase Mather wrote that dancing was "a natural expression of joy; so that there is no more sin in it than in laughter." Puritans generally discouraged mixed or "promiscuous" dancing between men and women, which according to Mather would lead to "unchaste touches and gesticulations. .. [that] have a palpable tendency to that which is evil." Some ministers, including John Cotton, thought that mixed dancing was appropriate under special circumstances, but all agreed it was a practice not to be encouraged. Dancing was also discouraged at weddings or on holidays (especially dancing around a maypole) and was illegal in taverns.[61]
Puritans had no theological objections to sports and games as long as they did not involve gambling (which eliminated activities such as billiards, shuffleboard, horse racing, bowling, and cards). They also opposed
Only a few activities were completely condemned by Puritans. They were most opposed to the theater. According to historian Bruce Daniels, plays were seen as "false recreations because they exhausted rather than relaxed the audience and actors" and also "wasted labor, led to wantonness and homosexuality, and invariably were represented by Puritans as a foreign—particularly French or Italian—disease of a similar enervating nature as syphilis."[63] All forms of gambling were illegal. Not only were card-playing, dice throwing and other forms of gambling seen as contrary to the values of "family, work, and honesty", they were religiously offensive because gamblers implicitly asked God to intervene in trivial matters, violating the Third Commandment against taking the Lord's name in vain.[64]
Slavery
Slavery was legal in colonial New England; however, the slave population was less than three percent of the labor force.[65] Most Puritan clergy accepted the existence of slavery since it was a practice recognized in the Bible. They also acknowledged that all people—whether white, black or Native American—were persons with souls who might receive saving grace. For this reason, slaves and free black people were eligible for full church membership, though meetinghouses and burial grounds were racially segregated. The Puritan influence over society meant that slaves were treated better in New England than in the Southern Colonies. In Massachusetts, the law gave slaves "all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel doth morally require".[66] As a result, slaves received the same protections against mistreatment as white servants. Slave marriages were legally recognized, and slaves were entitled to a trial by jury, even if accused of a crime by their master.[66]
The first voices in favor of the abolition of slavery were Puritans. For example, in 1700, Massachusetts judge and Puritan Samuel Sewall published "The Selling of Joseph," the first antislavery tract written in America.[67] In it, Sewall condemns slavery and the slave trade and refutes many of the era's typical justifications for slavery.[68][69]
The Puritan influence on slavery was still strong at the time of the American Revolution and beyond. In the decades leading up to the American Civil War, abolitionists such as Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Frederick Douglass repeatedly used the Puritan heritage of the country to bolster their cause. The most radical anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, invoked the Puritans and Puritan values over a thousand times. Parker, in urging New England Congressmen to support the abolition of slavery, writes "The son of the Puritan ... is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right ..."[70][71]
Controversies
Roger Williams
Roger Williams, a Separating Puritan minister, arrived in Boston in 1631. He was immediately invited to become the teacher at the Boston church, but he refused the invitation on the grounds that the congregation had not separated from the Church of England. He then was invited to become the teacher of the church at Salem but was blocked by Boston political leaders, who objected to his separatism. He thus spent two years with his fellow Separatists in the Plymouth Colony but ultimately came into conflict with them and returned to Salem, where he became the unofficial assistant pastor to Samuel Skelton.[72]
Williams held many controversial views that irritated the colony's political and religious leaders. He criticized the Puritan clergy's practice of meeting regularly for consultation, seeing in this a drift toward Presbyterianism.[72] Williams' concern for the purity of the church led him to oppose the mixing of the elect and the unregenerate for worship and prayer, even when the unregenerate were family members of the elect.[73] He also believed that Massachusetts rightfully belonged to the Native Americans and that the king had no authority to give it to the Puritans.[72] Because he feared that government interference in religion would corrupt the church, Williams rejected the government's authority to punish violations of the first four Ten Commandments and believed that magistrates should not tender oaths to unconverted persons, which would have effectively abolished civil oaths.[73]
In 1634 Skelton died, and the Salem congregation called Williams to be its pastor.[72] In July 1635, however, he was brought before the General Court to answer for his views on oaths. Williams refused to back down, and the General Court warned Salem not to install him in any official position. In response, Williams decided that he could not maintain communion with the other churches in the colony nor with the Salem church unless they joined him in severing ties with the other churches.[73] Caught between Williams and the General Court, the Salem congregation rejected Williams' extreme views.[74]
In October, Williams was once again called before the General Court and refused to change his opinions. Williams was ordered to leave the colony and given until spring to do so, provided he ceased spreading his views. Unwilling to do so, the government issued orders for his immediate return to England in January 1636, but John Winthrop warned Williams, allowing him to escape.[74] In 1636, the exiled Williams founded the colony of Providence Plantation. He was one of the first Puritans to advocate separation of church and state, and Providence Plantation was one of the first places in the Christian world to recognize freedom of religion.[citation needed]
Antinomian Controversy
Anne Hutchinson and her family moved from Boston, Lincolnshire, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, following their Puritan minister John Cotton. Cotton became the teacher of the Boston church, working alongside its pastor John Wilson, and Hutchinson joined the congregation.[74] In 1635, Hutchinson began holding meetings in her home to summarize the previous week's sermons for women who had been absent. Such gatherings were not unusual.[75]
In October 1635, Wilson returned from a trip to England, and his preaching began to concern Hutchinson. Like most of the clergy in Massachusetts, Wilson taught preparationism, the belief that human actions were "a means of preparation for God's grant of saving grace and ... evidence of sanctification."[76] Cotton's preaching, however, emphasized the inevitability of God's will rather than human preparatory action. These two positions were a matter of emphases, as neither Cotton nor Wilson believed that good works could save a person. For Hutchinson, however, the difference was significant, and she began to criticize Wilson in her private meetings.[76]
In the summer of 1636, Hutchinson's meetings were attracting powerful men such as William Aspinwall, William Coddington, John Coggeshall, and the colony's governor, Henry Vane. The group's credibility was increased by the perceived support of Cotton and the definite support of Hutchinson's brother-in-law, the minister John Wheelwright.[77] By this time, Hutchinson was criticizing all the ministers in the colony, with the exception of Cotton and Wheelwright, for teaching legalism and preaching a "covenant of works" rather than a "covenant of grace".[78] While denouncing the Puritan clergy as Arminians, Hutchinson maintained "that assurance of salvation was conveyed not by action but by an essentially mystical experience of grace—an inward conviction of the coming of the Spirit to the individual that bore no relationship to moral conduct."[77] By rejecting adherence to the moral law, Hutchinson was teaching antinomianism, according to her clerical opponents.[77]
Tensions continued to increase in the Boston church between Wilson and Hutchinson's followers, who formed a majority of the members. In January 1637, they were nearly successful in censuring him, and in the months that followed they left the meeting house whenever Wilson began to preach.[79] The General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer to help calm tensions, but Wheelwright preached a sermon on that day that further inflamed tensions, for which he was found guilty of sedition. Because Governor Vane was one of Hutchinson's followers, the general election of 1637 became a battlefront in the controversy, and Winthrop was elected to replace Vane.[80]
A synod of New England clergy was held in August 1637. The ministers defined 82 errors attributed to Hutchinson and her followers. It also discouraged private religious meetings and criticizing the clergy. In November, Wheelwright was banished from the colony. Hutchinson was called before the General Court where she ably defended herself. Nevertheless, she was ultimately convicted and sentenced to banishment from the colony for her claims of receiving direct personal revelations from God. Other supporters were disenfranchised or forbidden from bearing arms unless they admitted their errors.[80] Hutchinson received a church trial in March 1638 in which the Boston congregation switched sides and unanimously voted for Hutchinson's excommunication. This effectively ended the controversy.[81]
While often described as a struggle for religious liberty, historian Francis Bremer states that this is a misunderstanding. Bremer writes, "Anne Hutchinson was every bit as intolerant as her enemies. The struggle was over which of two competing views would be crowned and enforced as New England orthodoxy. As a consequence of the crisis she precipitated, the range of views that were tolerated in the Bay actually narrowed."[77]
In the aftermath of the crisis, ministers realized the need for greater communication between churches and the standardization of preaching. As a consequence, nonbinding ministerial conferences to discuss theological questions and address conflicts became more frequent in the following years.
Witchcraft in Colonial America
As time passes and different perspectives arise within the scholarship of witchcraft in Puritan New England, many scholars have contributed to what we know about this subject. For instance, diverse perspectives involving the witch trials have been argued involving gender, race, economics, religion, and the social oppression that Puritans lived through that explain in a more in-depth way how Puritanism contributed to the trials and executions.
Puritan fears, beliefs, and institutions were the perfect storm that fueled the witch craze in towns such as Salem from an interdisciplinary and anthropological approach.[84] From a gendered approach, offered by Carol Karlsen and Elizabeth Reis, the question of why witches were primarily women did not fully surface until after the second wave of feminism in the 1980s. Some believe that women who were gaining economic or social power, specifically in the form of land inheritance, were at a higher risk of being tried as witches.[85] Others maintain that females were more susceptible to being witches as the Puritans believed that the weak body was a pathway to the soul which both God and the Devil fought for. Because Puritans believed that female bodies "lacked the strength and vitality" compared to male bodies, females were more susceptible to make a choice to enter a covenant with Satan as their fragile bodies could not protect their souls.[86]
From a racial perspective, Puritans believed that African Americans and Native Americans living within the colonies were viewed as "true witches" from an anthropological sense as Blacks were considered "inherently evil creatures, unable to control their connection to Satanic wickedness."[87] Another contribution made to scholarship includes the religious perspective that historians attempt to understand its effect on the witch trials. J.P. Demos, a major scholar in the field of Puritan witchcraft studies, maintains that the intense and oppressive nature of Puritan religion can be viewed as the main culprit in the Colonial witch trials.[88]
Decline of power and influence
The decline of the Puritans and the Congregational churches was brought about first through practices such as the
- "[New Englanders'] religious and political agenda had so fundamentally changed that it doesn't make sense to call them Puritans any longer."[91]
Denominations that are directly descended from the Puritan churches of New England include the
See also
Notes
- ^ Kopelson
- ^ Bremer 2009, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Bremer 2009, pp. 7, 10.
- ^ Bremer 2009, p. 12.
- ^ Bremer 2009, p. 15.
- ^ Bremer 1995, pp. 31–33.
- ^ Ahlstrom 2004, pp. 135–136.
- ^ Ahlstrom 2004, p. 137.
- ^ Mayo 1936, p. 22.
- ^ Bremer 2009, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Zakai
- ^ Bremer 2009, p. 18.
- ^ Gardiner, pp 167, 172
- ^ Kopelson
- ^ see
- ^ Carpenter, p. 41
- ^ Youngs 1998, p. 52.
- ^ Bremer 2009, p. 20.
- ^ Cooper 1999, p. 13.
- ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 24, 26.
- ^ a b Youngs 1998, p. 88.
- ^ Youngs 1998, p. 41.
- ^ a b Youngs 1998, pp. 40–41.
- ^ Youngs 1998, p. 50.
- ^ Walker 1894, p. 170.
- ^ Dunning 1894, p. 171.
- ^ Dunning 1894, p. 150.
- ^ Dunning 1894, p. 151.
- ^ a b Bremer 1995, p. 89.
- ^ Bremer 1995, pp. 91–92.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 61.
- ^ Hull & Moran 1999, p. 167.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 226.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 86.
- ^ Langdon 1963, p. 514.
- ^ Hull & Moran 1999, p. 168.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 91–94.
- ^ a b Bremer 1995, p. 92.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 94.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 91.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 154.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 155.
- ^ Hochstetler 2013, p. 489.
- ^ Hochstetler 2013, p. 490.
- ^ Hochstetler 2013, pp. 494–495.
- ^ Moran & Vinovskis 1985, p. 26.
- ^ a b Moran & Vinovskis 1985, p. 29.
- ^ a b Daniels 1993, p. 130.
- ^ Bremer 2009, pp. 81–82.
- ^ Fischer pp. 132-134
- ^ Axtell
- ^ McCullough, p 223
- ^ Bremer, pp 81–82.
- ^ Fischer, pp. 132-134
- ^ Copeland, p viii
- ^ Burns, pp 6–7.
- ^ Wroth, pp 230–236.
- ^ Fischer, pp. 132-134
- ^ Rudolph, p 3.
- ^ Fischer, pp. 132-134
- ^ Daniels 1993, pp. 128–129.
- ^ Daniels 1993, p. 129.
- ^ Daniels 1993, p. 126.
- ^ Daniels 1993, p. 127.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 206.
- ^ a b Bremer 1995, p. 207.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 208.
- ^ Sewall, pp. 1-3.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 132-133.
- ^ Gradert, pp. 1-3, 14-15, 24, 29-30.
- ^ Commager, pp. 206-210.
- ^ a b c d Bremer 1995, p. 63.
- ^ a b c Bremer 1995, p. 64.
- ^ a b c Bremer 1995, p. 65.
- ^ Youngs 1998, pp. 42–43.
- ^ a b Bremer 1995, p. 66.
- ^ a b c d Bremer 1995, p. 67.
- ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 47–49.
- ^ Bremer 1995, p. 68.
- ^ a b Bremer 1995, p. 69.
- ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 50–52.
- ^ Cooper 1999, pp. 55–56.
- ^ Cooper 1999, p. 57.
- ^ Reed 2007.
- ^ Karlsen 1998.
- ^ Reis 1995.
- ^ McMillan 1994.
- ^ Demos 2004.
- ^ Lucas 1972, p. 129.
- ^ Noll 2002, p. 21.
- ^ Kidd 2005.
- ^ Queen, p 818
- ^ Queen, p 818
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- Wroth, Lawrence C. The Colonial Printer, pp 230–236, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, New York, 1965. ISBN 0-486-28294-5.
- Youngs, J. William T. (1998). The Congregationalists. Denominations in America. Vol. 4 (Student ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-96441-2.
- Zakai, Avihu. (2002). Exile and Kingdom: History and apocalypse in the Puritan migration to America, Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- Boorstin, Daniel J. (1958). "A city upon a hill: The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay". In Boorstin, D.J. (ed.). The Americans: The colonial experience. pp. 3–31 and bibliography pp 379–383 – via Archive.org.
- Breen, T. H. (1982). Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195032079.
- Bross, Kristina; van Engen, Abram, eds. (2020). A History of American Puritan Literature. Cambridge University Press.
- Daniels, Bruce C. (Spring 1993). "Sober mirth and pleasant poisons: Puritan ambivalence toward leisure and recreation in colonial New England". American Studies. 34 (1): 121–137. JSTOR 40642499.
- Hammer, Dean C. (2019). "Cultural theory and historical change: The development of town and church in Puritan New England". Politics, Policy, and Culture. Routledge. pp. 137–156.
- Kim, Do Hoon. (2021). John Eliot's Puritan Ministry to New England "Indians", Wipf and Stock Publishers.
- McKenna, George. (2007). The Puritan origins of American patriotism online
- Manchester, Margaret Murányi. (2019). Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World: Being "Much afflicted with conscience", Routledge.
- Morgan, Edmund S. (1958). The Puritan dilemma: The story of John Winthrop online
- Morgan, Edmund S. (1963). Visible saints : The history of a Puritan ideaonline
- Morgan, Edmund S. ed. (1965). Puritan political ideas, 1558–1794 online
- Morgan, Edmund S. (1966). The Puritan family : Religion & domestic relations in seventeenth-century New England online
- Morgan, Edmund S. (1967). "The Puritan ethic and the American Revolution". The William and Mary Quarterly. 24 (1): 4–43. JSTOR 1920560.
- Stille, Darlene R. (2006). Anne Hutchinson: Puritan protester — for middle and secondary schools. online
- Winship, Michael P. (2001). "Were there any Puritans in New England?". New England Quarterly, 74 (1) pp 118–138 online
- Winship, Michael P. (2018). Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America, Yale University Press — a major scholarly history. excertpt