In the American imagination , the Puritans are know as those buckle - hold out religious refugee who colonized New England and have intercourse nothing more than a six - hour church service followed by a goodwitch - burning .
But the existent history of the Puritans paints a picture of a complex and often misunderstood people who parade both the high moral value and the most common of human frailties . We spoke to two scholar of seventeenth - century American religious movements to hash out the fact from the fiction .
1. The Puritans and the Pilgrims Are One and the Same
The English settlers known as the Puritans and thePilgrimshave a lot in common , but only one of them arrived on the Mayflower and shared aThanksgivingmeal with the Wampanoag Indians . The other come later and waged war on the Native Americans .
From a religious standpoint , Puritans and Pilgrims are almost identical . Technically , they ’re both Puritans because they both wanted to " purify " or reform the Church of England , but they had different ways of going about it . The Puritans adjudicate to reform the Christian church from within , while the Pilgrims were known as " separatist " who conceive they had to go away it .
" The Pilgrims sail to America because they want to be left alone to do their own thing ; if England falls into the ocean , so be it , " say Sarah Crabtree , a history professor at San Francisco State University and generator of " Holy Nation : The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution . " " The Puritans are intent on setting up this model utopian companionship and to urge on England to purity . "
The Pilgrims got their name ( much later ) from a passage in William Bradford ’s " Of Plymouth Plantation " describing the grouping ’s tearful departure from the Netherlands : " So they allow for that goodly and pleasant city which had been their reside place near twelve years ; but they knew they were pilgrims , and looked not much on those things , but lift up their eyes to the heavens , their dearest country , and quieted their spirits . "
The Pilgrims arrive first on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth dependency in 1620 . Poor and unprepared , they lost almost one-half of their 102 settler to cold and famine before the Wampanoag came to their aid . The Puritans , mostly middle - class merchants , occur a decennary later on 17 ships and established the much larger and more golden Massachusetts Bay Colony .
Once in the New World , the theological distinction between the Pilgrims and Puritans — separatists versus non - separatists — became nonmeaningful , says Francis Bremer , prof emeritus of history at Millersville University of Pennsylvania and source of several books on the Puritans , include " Puritanism : A Very Short Introduction . " For model , the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony followed the Pilgrim ’s fresh method acting of establish a church far from England ’s soil , which was for a congregating of worshiper to agree to a concordat or contract among themselves .
" And that ’s what Massachusetts does , " says Bremer . " They abide by the example of the Pilgrims and there ’s really no note . "
Crabtree believes that the Puritans and Pilgrims secernate themselves in their discourse of the Native Americans they encountered .
" The Pilgrim Father have a work relationship with Wampanoag masses when they get along here , but the Puritans were n’t interested in that , " says Crabtree . " The Puritans show up in 1630 and by 1636 they ’re at war with Native Americans . "
2. The Puritans Brought Freedom of Religion to America
It ’s almost American gospel singing that the first English forebears crossed the Atlantic seeking a land of liberty where they could practice their religion freely . But while the Puritans certainly claimed the right to freely live their purified version of Christianity in America , they did n’t extend the same exemption to other religious sect .
Nathaniel Ward , a Puritan clergyman turned colonial drawing card , summed up the persist Puritan opinion on the " exemption " bask by other Christian denominations in Massachusetts Bay Colony :
Even dissenter within the Puritan rank were routinely judge for unorthodoxy and banished . The best - known cases wereRoger Williams , who argue for good treatment of the Native Americans and sharper detachment of church and state ; andAnne Hutchinson , a pop distaff healer and preacher who threatened the male pecking order .
The religious sect that really made the Puritans ' profligate boiling point were the Quakers . When other group were banished from the colony , they stayed banished , says Bremer . Not the Quakers .
" In the Puritan blue natural law , you could suffer last for giving a Quaker guidance for getting to the next town ; that ’s really how severe it was , " says Crabtree . " Five Quakers were put to last on Boston Commons after they had their ears and tongue switch off off . "
3. Puritans Hated Sex, Even Within Marriage
In forward-looking idiom , people who suppose sexual activity is inherently sinful and dirty are said to have " puritanical " beliefs . But were the Puritans as sexually repressed as we think ?
Not at all , pronounce Bremer , at least when the piece of tail took place between hubby and wife . Unlike other Christian sects , Puritans did n’t fix sex to procreation , but date it as an essential mode to deepen the marriage human relationship .
" Puritan clergy would advocate on what they ring the ' duty to desire , ' " state Bremer , and excommunicated at least one valet de chambre who withheld sex from his wife . " Intercourse between a husband and married woman should be channel ' willingly , often and cheerfully , ' but presumptively not compulsively . "
John Winthrop , the Puritan leader and first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony , evenwrote steamy lettersto his married woman Margaret back in England :
Crabtree and other assimilator also take down that Puritans did n’t take such a hard line of work against premarital sex . Take thecolorful English practice call ' roll up ' , in which betroth or courting couples spent the night together in the same bed , albeit pack in separate sleeping sack . The legal separation did n’t always give .
" An atrocious lot of children were conceived out of wedlock , but not that many were take over out of wedlock , " says Crabtree . " The true worry about bastardry in the compound earned run average is who is going to pay for the kids . There ’s not the entire stenosis on premarital sexual experimentation . "
Adultery was definitely a serious offense in Puritan society , though , as was homosexuality .
" You do have fornicator who were made to stand up at the origin or who had to fag out a badge like Hester Prynne , " say Bremer , referring to the booster of " The Scarlet Letter , " Nathaniel Hawthorne ’s 1850 novel in which a colonial woman is publicly shamed for her alleged sin .
4. The Puritans Were the Original Party Poopers
In 1925 , the witty diary keeper H.L. Mencken offer his concise definition of Puritanism : " The haunting fear that someone , somewhere , may be happy . "
Bremer says that Puritans do n’t deserve their reputation as hopeless killjoys . They were n’t any more repressed or judgmental than other Christian sects of their sidereal day , but when nineteenth - century Europeans and Americans start out rebel against the legitimately inhibitory mores of the puritanical Era , they tried to immobilise it on the Puritans .
" By the early 20th one C , there was this general stereotype of Puritans as narrow - given , prudish , bigoted , unendurable the great unwashed with dreadful fashion sense , " says Bremer .
Crabtree is n’t even convinced that the Puritans were peculiarly religious as a whole . In the 1660s , for example , the colony approved a new law called the Half - Way Covenant , " because the children of these initial father were n’t croak to church and they had to figure out why . "
The notorious jeremiads , six - hour " fire and native sulfur " sermons deliver by Puritan sermoniser , were only necessary because the Puritan say-so fear that the faithful were lose their religion .
" doubtless some Puritans are very devout , but for the absolute majority of them , sometimes it ’s convenient to go to church building , sometimes it ’s not , " says Crabtree . " Sometimes you like the rector . Sometimes you do n’t . I think we overstate the devotion of Puritans . "
5. Winthrop’s ‘City on a Hill’ Was a Sign of American Exceptionalism
Before the Puritans shore in Massachusetts Bay , their loss leader John Winthropdelivered a stirring sermonaboard the Arbella . Centuries by and by , his words would become shorthand for a vision of America as a beacon light of democracy to the creation .
Ronald Reagan , among other U.S. Chief Executive and politicians , latched onto the estimation of Winthrop ’s " metropolis on a pitcher’s mound " as a vision ofAmerican exceptionalism — everything that made America the greatest nation on Earth . In hisfarewell addressin 1989 , Reagan explained it that he saw the shining city on the hill as " a tall , lofty city built on rocks stronger than oceans , air current - swept , God - blessed , and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmoniousness and peace ; a city with free port that hummed with commerce and creativity . "
But scholars like Bremer and Crabtree see a very different meaning in Winthrop ’s sermon . Before invoking the " city on a hill , " a idiom borrowed from theGospel of Matthew , Winthrop delivered a plea for unity and Christian generosity : " For this end , we must be knit together , in this work , as one man . We must entertain each other in fraternal heart . We must be uncoerced to foreshorten ourselves of our superfluities , for the supply of others ' necessities . We must uphold a familiar DoC together in all meekness , softness , longanimity and liberality . "
" The written document is really exalted and beautiful , " says Crabtree . " John Winthrop sound to enceinte pains to say , ' If my pal is thirsty , I ’m hungry . If my crony is unclothed , I ’m unclothed . ' There ’s this real sense that we ’re all in it together . That ’s not commonly what Americans take from it . "
And to Winthrop , being a " city on a hill " was n’t a sign of greatness already achieved , but a shaky view that reveal you to the judgment of God and human being .
6. Pilgrims Wore All Black With Big Buckles
The Halloween costume rendering of Puritan and Pilgrim dress is a opprobrious coat and knickers for men , a broad white collar for the women , and a prominent whang buckle for everyone . While this might have been something that the loaded Massachusetts Bay colonists wore to church , it does n’t closely represent the semblance and multifariousness of everyday Puritan dress .
" sinister fabric was very expensive at the metre , a color reserved for the elite group , " says Bremer . " reverend or regulator might bust that . In worldwide terms , the Puritan inventories reveal that upper - class extremity of the community had a press not dissimilar to what you might see at Margaret Court of Queen Elizabeth and King Kames : gentlemen ’s suits of yellow fink satin and ruddy cardinal silk . "
While the former - money Puritan elite were allowed to wear down showy colors and fabrics , the working classes were involve by legal philosophy todress plainly in woolen clothesdyed in earthly concern tones like green , browned and brick red . They were also the most practical clothing for working the fields or tending the hearth fire .
Crabtree suppose that Puritans were also obsess with social rank and status , and made sure that the new - money strivers were kept in their place beneath the honest-to-god guard .
" In the 1650s , you begin to see sumptuary practice of law , which attempt to regulate what you could put on in term of ornament and jewelry , " read Bremer . " If you attempt to look more or better than you are by overspend , then that ’s sinful . "
7. The Puritans Were Fanatical Witch Hunters
The Puritans dead believed in the existence of hag and witchery , as did everyone else in the early modern world , enounce Bremer . In the sixteenth and 17th centuries , thousands of man and women in England and across Europe were accused and convicted of witchery or murdered by vigilante mobs without a test .
But no witchery trial is remotely as famous as the cataclysm that took place in Salem in the 1690s , when hundreds of men , cleaning woman and children were accused of witchery and 19 were execute . By this business relationship alone , it would seem the Puritans were hysterical witch hunters .
The verity is that Salem , although absolutely horrific , was an outlier . Bremer reports that from 1620 to 1692 , there were only 61 known pursuance of witches in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies and only 16 convictions .
" Witchcraft was a crime with a high standard of evidence , " tell Bremer . " You had to prove that there was indeed a concordat with the the Tempter , and you had to have two witnesses . "
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