New England Colonies: Summary And Analysis

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Since the beginning of colonization religion has played a large part in shaping the United States. One of the reasons people immigrated to America was in hope religious freedom. The first people to come to America were Puritans who had been isolated in England and had already moved to the Netherlands (Butler, 2006, 53). Religion built the colonies, shaped society, and influenced politics.
America was a religious refuge. When the colonies first began to form religion was a determining factor in what group settled in the area. The New England colonies were explicitly set up for religious purposes. New England colonists were largely Puritans whose reformation of the Church of England was ignored in England. In about thirty years, over 5,000 Puritans had arrived in the colonies (Butler, 2006, 53). Connecticut and Rhode Island were established for colonists who felt the Puritans beliefs were too harsh. Maryland was used as a safe haven for prosecuted Catholics. William Penn was granted a charter for Pennsylvania, which he turned into a refuge for Quakers (Jones,
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The middle colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey were home to a diverse range of religions such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers, Anglicans, Mennonites, Baptists and more (Butler,,2006). A fellow New Jersey Quaker man by the name of John Woolman questioned that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity, this led him to write Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes. After four years of his writings circulating, the Quakers decided to outlaw slavery among the members (Jones, 98, 2014). However, to those of other faiths, religion was not a deciding factor in a slave’s legal status. Many African slaves were converted into Christianity which led to the formation of many African-American churches in the 19th century. Religion influenced how some people’s ideas of slavery and diversified the