Puritans And Native Americans

Unlike their Spanish and French counterparts, the New England colonists did not interact with or form good relations with their Native neighbors. They refused to intermarry, and regarded the American Indians as devil worshipping heathens. William Bradford wrote “(God) Who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies into their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud, insulting, and blasphemous an enemy.” (Doc D). Written just after the colonists attack on the Praying town of Mystic, Bradford glorifies the murder of the Pequot Natives, despite the fact that they were trying to convert to Christianity. His words reflect the Puritan belief that the Natives were inherently enemies of god, and could have no standing within their society. This common and bigoted belief created a wedge between the New England colonists and the Natives that lead to additional conflicts, such as Powhatans war. Ultimately, Puritan faith and the value placed on education greatly impacted the social structure of the New England

The Pequot war was a bloody conflict that demonstrated the hatred and distrust between the the Puritans and the Pequot Tribe. Both sides were deeply suspicious of each other” (10). The Puritans viewed the Native Americans as “godless savages” (19) while the Native Americans viewed the Puritans as invaders. Rather than trying to coexist, the English firmly believed “there would be no assimilation of Indian culture” (24) which lead to even more tensions that eventually manifested in the form of the Pequot war.

In early 1600's, Puritans followed the Pilgrims to America then they landed in Massachusetts bay. The Puritans started the colony because they wanted to escape religious persecution. The only religion was the Puritans.In the early 1600's of, Massachusetts there was only one Indian tribe,and that was the Wampanoag. Puritans tried to purify the Anglican church because they wanted to make services simpler and taking ranks of authority

The Native Americans’ goal was to live in peace and to live in nature. While the Native Americans tried to also make political alliances with the all the colonists, the Europeans were more interested in taking as much land as fast as they humanly could. The puritans and the Native Americans had a very complicated relationship with each other because it was a fight for the land. Puritans and the Native Americans had a culture-conflicted relationship with each other because of their different religious beliefs, ethics, and their views on the world, which also made the relationship between the two even more complicated than it was before.

A second reason for the religious prevalence in Colonial America was the evil that people faced. “The providence of God was ‘wonder-working’ in making manifest the reach of his sovereignty; such acts of ‘special providence’ represented God’s clearer and more explicit than usual intervention into the affairs of man. But he was not alone in having supernatural power. The events

Butler, J. (2007). . In New Worl Faiths: Religion in Colonial America. [ebrary book]. Retrieved from http://lrps>wgu.edu/provision/17908228

In the trial of Anne Hutchinson, we meet a well intentioned yet lost people described and labelled as the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. These self governing Puritans, once a people who sought God to set them on their way, settled only to be found as a people who simply lost their way. This journey to lost began when first motivated by a desire for religious reform and separation from the liturgy, ceremonies and practices of the Church of England. Once they banned together, they set on their way and traveled in groups to the New World. With the Word of God as their ultimate authority and the desire for a personal relationship with God, these people landed in Boston in 1630 united to self govern the newly founded Massachussets Bay Colony. Unfortunatly, this self rule resulted in a government of intolerance, fear and a liturgy not much different from what was once found in the Church of England. A system designed to set apart outward morality, or sanctification, to strengthen the authority of the Church only worked to neglect the place of true piety purposed to strengthen the spiritual lives of the people it served.

In 1675, the Algonquian Indians rose up in fury against the Puritan Colonists, sparking a violent conflict that engulfed all of Southern New England. From this conflict ensued the most merciless and blood stricken war in American history, tearing flesh from the Puritan doctrine, revealing deep down the bright and incisive fact that anger and violence brings man to a Godless level when faced with the threat of pain and total destruction. In the summer of 1676, as the violence dispersed and a clearing between the hatred and torment was visible, thousands were dead.(Lepore xxi) Indian and English men, women, and children, along with many of the young villages of New England were no more; casualties of a conflict that

Within the colony of Massachusetts, religion played an important role in shaping the community’s people and interests. The reason for the Puritans move to North America was to escape the convictions the Christians of England were placing on them (Divine, 89). Winthrop and his followers believed that in this new land they must create a place where they could come together as a people and build the perfect religious society (Divine, 90). In a speech about his vision for the land, John Winthrop said, “We must delight in each

Puritan and Native American societies have societal aspects that mold and define a person's individual beliefs and actions. In the Puritan and Native American societies, religion and family structure play a role in the life of an early American individual by establishing a set rules and guidelines for behavior and creating pressure to be part of society. In the Puritan and Native American societies religion played a role in the life of early American by establishing a set rules and guidelines for behavior.

Due to conflicting belief systems, the Quakers were seen as a threat to the Puritans because they opposed some of the Puritans greatest values. In addition to challenging traditional beliefs, they also challenged authority and posed a threat to, “religion, the family, the social hierarchy-that the Puritans believed the Quakers wanted to destroy” (Pestana, 329). As a result of their conflicting views, they were subjected to mistreatment. In order to support her assertion, the author presents several different points that explain the origins of the conflict, and she supports the points with evidence from a variety of sources that she embedded into her work. She uses both primary and secondary sources to offer more valuable insight from the perspective of people who were present at the time of the conflict. To reach her conclusions, Pestana starts with explaining where both groups came from and the conflict’s origin. This is useful for when she dives deeper into their opposing views because, “in order to understand the initial confrontation between English Quakerism and New England Puritanism, these fears

A religious group wanted to break away from England to practice and relish in their religion their own way. They were call the puritans and set sailed out to America for their religious reasons. With what little they had they believed strongly in God that he will help them out through everything they need. Religion being taken seriously as if it was a law was noticeable in two texts, William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, where religion over the years help the colonists and so forth help shape America’s identity.

The Puritans viewed themselves as God's special people. Nowhere do the dangers of this assumption become clearer than in the Puritans' treatment of the Native Americans. Since the Puritans considered themselves God's chosen people, they concluded that they had the right to take the land from the heathen Indians. The American Indians were the "new Canaanites" in America's "Promised Land." The fruit of Puritan theology was brutal. They saw their mission as convert these "Canaanites" to Christianity; failing that, it was acceptable to slaughter them in the name of Christ. There were many conflicts between settlers and natives throughout the colonial period. Religion played a very important role in both Puritan and Native American society, though

Thomas Morton and William Bradford lives started off very differently, which may indeed be the reason why they have very different views on the Natives and Puritans. Looking into these differences there is a definite reason why they choose the path they did. Morton taking interest in the Natives and disliking the Puritans happened due to his beliefs and his interest in new things. Bradford for intense was a Puritan, and came to dislike the Natives due to the fact that they had a different God and did not follow the Puritan beliefs. Due to their differences Morton and Bradford came into conflict with each other, which ended with Morton being banished from the property he built in New England. With their differences toward these two groups it shows how their beliefs interact with their views of them.

The Puritans were the first of the Europeans to settle in the Americas. While their traditions have left a profound mark on American culture, their strict ways are rather peculiar. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller critiques Puritan society as close-minded and obsessed about maintaining conformity. “The parochial snobbery of these people was partly responsible for their failure to convert the Indians. Probably they also preferred to take land from heathens rather than from fellow Christians” (140). The Puritans revolved their culture around religion,