Comparing Liberty, Moral, And The Puritans In The United States

“ We give food to starving settlers so that they can survive the winter, settlers end up taking all the good land and let the natives starve to death.” Two hundred years before the Puritans arrived in America the European settlers came over to America accidently. Christopher Columbus was trying to find a new route to India, but landed on an Island we now know as America. When Christopher Columbus landed on the island, strange, unknown, people came up to him. He called them Indians because he thought he had landed in India. While getting to learn more about Columbus the Indians learn they have different values than the European settlers and the Puritans, once they arrive two hundred years later. Getting to know the European settlers and the Puritans, the Indians realized their outlooks on Faith, Loyalty, And Laws are vastly different and similar.

[H]e which would have suer peace and joye in Christianitye, must not ayme at a condition retyred from the world and free from temptations, but to knowe that the life which is most exercised with tryalls and temptations is the sweetest, and will prove the safeste. For such tryalls as fall within compasse of our callinges, it is better to arme and withstande them than to avoide and shunne them. -John Winthrop

The Puritans arrived in the New World in the hopes of “purifying” the Church of England. They practiced certain principles that they believed in and that centered around the idea of God. The main purpose of their journey to New England was to set an example to others how the Church should be, and so their motive for settlement was solely related to religion. The Puritans positively influenced the political, economic, and social development of the New England colonies from 1630 through the 1660s because they were a “city upon a hill” that served as an example to other parts of the world as a result of their strong belief in God.

This mentality of a Puritan was very important back then because that was the work ethic they had. Eventhough this mentality existed thousands of years ago, it is still relevant today and seen in today’s society. Successful people will talk about how they worked hard to get to reach their dreams. In addition, throughout my years in school, teachers have taught me the importance of hard work and I’ve been able to experience my effort pay off and have great rewards to it.

Puritanism forbade tyranny and oppression primarily because the Puritans had been oppressed throughout Europe, especially in England. Even though they frequently pushed their religion and beliefs onto others, as traditional Christianity of the 1600s was forced upon them, Puritans still preached the principle of freedom. America?s founders declared war with England particularly to establish freedom and independence. Throughout the years, as the United States gained strength, it also promoted freedom and democracy in North and South America, Asia, Africa, and most recently the Middle East. The majority of Americans believe in freedom from oppression and tyranny, and the entire origin of the country is a result of this conviction.

The decades surged by and thoughts other than religion began to crowd the minds of the American people. The smoldering ideas of independence, enlightenment, and innovation elicited a new mentality in America. Puritan ideals were not held as high, for other religious sects had taken their place. The stringencies of the Puritan lifestyle wafted away as America grew in its diversity, but the Puritan mindset was rooted in the soil and could not be torn away. The words that John Winthrop had spoken on the Arabella were held at the base of the country, “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.”

Early Great Britain’s influence on the New World gave way for developing colonies. Being supportive of laws, the British passed on their methods of freedom to the Americas. The British believed that a crucial part of freedom was to obey a specific structure of laws, to be free was to be under government rule. Therefore, “British freedom celebrated the rule of the law, the right to live under legislation”. Furthermore, religion, specifically Christianity, also played an important role in the birth of America’s definition of freedom. Looking at freedom through a religious lens “ The Puritan settlers of colonial Massachusetts...believed their colony the embodiment of true Christianty, planted this spiritual definition of freedom on American soil”. The American definition of freedom was inspired by both these interpretations, the Puritan and the British.

Puritans and Pilgrims settled in the New England colonies of Massachusetts, Rode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. The Puritans came to seek religious freedom and new settlements and to escape the religious persecution they were facing in England. The colonies in New England had sandy coasts with assessable ports, forest hills, and flat woodlands. The soil was thin and rocky which was bad for farming. Lumbering, trading, shipbuilding, fishing, and whaling were all common occupations in the New England colonies. Slavery was allowed In the New England colonies, however very few people had slaves. The soil made it difficult to grow crops, so most colonist had small independent farms they could care for on their own, the colonist only grew enough food to feed their families and didn't' have enough to feed slaves. (https://prezi.com/vnfchvubifzb/the-new-england-middle-and-southern-colonies/) The New England colonist was self-governed. The government was highly influenced by religion. When New England sailed over, they found a developed region with a lot of Native Americans. The English and Native Americans didn't get along very well. The English people thought Native Americans were inferior on how they lived. The English people got farming and other skills from the Native people. The four Middle Colonies were New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. English Quakers originally settled in the Middle Colonies. People from France, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Finland,

Seventeenth century Puritans had several aspirations, successes, and failures when it came to creating a model society. They had many successes in their society, some examples are their education system, their advancements in equality for women, and the way they created a tight knit close society. Although they had many achievements, the Puritans also did fall short in many aspects of their society. They ultimately did fail at their perfect society, and that is a very important aspect since that was their main goal. They also were very strict about their policies regarding the church. Once the generations progressed, they had to create new rules to allow people basic religious rights such as baptism. They also fused church and state, which was necessary in a society such as this, but it ultimately hindered progression such as allowing non church members to vote. As the years progressed more and more non Puritans entered the Puritan society, this hindered society because eventually the small majority was making the most riveting decisions. Ultimately the Puritans had both failures and successes when attempting a model society, but the weight of the failures simply outweighed the successes.

The Puritans were a group of people with strong beliefs, ideas and values in the 1630’s to the 1660’s. Their ideas influenced society in multiple ways during this time including politically, economically, and socially. Politically, they believed in having a theocratic government , economically, they used the value of hard work to run the economy and stimulate prosperity and also, socially the influence of the religion and the need for a tight knit communtiy influenced New England in many more ways than one. All of these influences were part of the ideological belief of the Puritans to attain a “City Upon a Hill” society where they would have the perfect community and established ethos for other communities to later follow in their footsteps.

When the Puritans came to New England, they came to settle with a clear society in mind. Not only would this society be free from the persecution that they endured in Old England; it would be free to create what the leader of the religion referred to as a "perfect" society. In their attempt to escape the persecution they had come so accustomed to, they set up their own rigid belief system based on the inclusion of the human soul and the exclusion of everything else as being unimportant (Wolff 14). The belief system of the Puritans allowed for several different types of theologies, two of which are the Covenant theology and the Paradise theology.

Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Puritan community defined sin as anything that “deviated from the highest aspirations of the Puritan founders” (“Reading the American Past” 68). The Puritans attempted to create a godly community by trying to diminish what they considered sins. They most certainly failed at creating this type of society.

Liberty would be defined in one’s own words as, the power to act as one pleases, and being free within the society in which one stays. The society and the mindset of the majority of the early American colonists were based around liberty and the whole meaning behind it, and they wanted to make a society based upon the idea of it. A River View High School teacher says, the society of this period in time was as close to anarchy as possible (Justice 2016).This, in other words, is saying they had their own voice in the way they chose to live and pursue their own happiness. The American colonists and the founding fathers never let anything get in the way of their beliefs, hence the reason they were lead into so many wars and battles. The colonists

Living life through a blink of an eye. In the early 17th century there were a group of people who called themselves Puritans. Puritan was a highly well known religious group. Puritan thought of themselves

With regards to their convictions that each zone of life ought to be shaped by Christian standards, the Puritans saw all noteworthy work as a method for commending God. All of life was God's, and there was no qualification in the middle of mainstream and consecrated work. God calls every individual to a specific employment or occupation, and the Christian ought to go about as a cautious steward of the abilities and blessings God has given him. Working in one's calling or business was a method for serving God and men. Absence of movement was viewed as an extraordinary sin; tirelessness in one's calling was an