The Puritans

The Puritans:

The ideology of Puritanism is not a simple one. There were many different ways of being a Puritan and they changed often during the 100 years of their existence in England. These differences were exported to New England with the early settlers,where discussions and argument over the use of authority took place.Roger Williams was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because he thought the government still had too much control.He went on to found Providence, Rhode Island, a haven for religious freedom. There is a certain irony in the fact that while England the basic tenets of Puritanism eventually lost out to the Church of England, in America their impact has remained strong.

The concepts of freedom, religion, expression and congregaionalism, as well as salvation and the related Calvinist movement, took hold in the New World. Whereas the Church of England has never taken a strong foothold ( punto d'appoggio) in America, the Puritan heritage ( patrimonio) is part of their everyday life. Many of the American thoughts and belief today are an indirect result of the Puritan beliefs of the " Pilgrims".