Chapter 4, Section 1

Puritans in Massachusetts  Puritans: wanted to reform the Church of England  John Winthrop; Puritan leader  Different from the Pilgrims that wanted to separate entirely from the England church  Called for simpler forms of worship  Do away with practices borrowed from the Catholic Church  Organ music and special clothes for priests

Reasons for leaving England  Charles I became King in 1625 disliked the Puritans  Took away Puritan business charters  Expelled them from Universities  Few were jailed

Reasons for leaving England  Massachusetts Bay Company: plan was to build a new society in New England  Based on the law of God as they appeared in the Bible  Some people joined colonist for economic reasons not because of religious persecution  In England the oldest son inherited the family land  Younger sons had little hope of owning land  Massachusetts Bay offered cheap land or a chance to start their own business

Settling in  John Winthrop was chosen as the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony  He worked as hard as everyone else  Built a home, cleared land, plant crops

Voters elect as assembly  Winthrop and other stockholders granted the right to vote to all men who were members of the church  Determined to keep non-Puritans out of government  General Court: elected representatives  more than 20,000 me, women, and children journeyed from England to Massachusetts known as the Great Migration  Many settled in Boston which grew into the colony’s largest town

Settling Connecticut  Thomas Hooker and about 100 settlers left Massachusetts Bay and settled near the Connecticut River in a town they name Hartford  Left because he believed the governor and other officials had too much power  Wanted a colony in Connecticut with laws that set strict limits on government

Settling Connecticut  Fundamental orders of Connecticut: plan of government  Much like government of Massachusetts  2 important differences  1. Gave voting rights to all men who were property owners (including non church members)  2. Limited the governor’s power

Settling Connecticut  towns were thriving along the Connecticut River  Became a separate colony with a charted granted by the king of England

Toleration in Rhode Island  Roger Williams believed that the Puritan church had too much power in Massachusetts  Believed the business of church and state should be kept separate  State should not support a particular church  Toleration: a willingness to let others practices their own beliefs

Toleration in Rhode Island  1635 Massachusetts General Court ordered Williams to leave the colony  Fearing the court would send him back to England he fled to Narrragansett  He spent the winter there with Indians  They sold him land for a settlement  After several years it became the colony of Rhode Island

Toleration in Rhode Island  Williams allowed complete freedom of religion for all Protestant, Jews, and Catholics  Did not require settlers to attend church  Gave all white men the right to vote  Settlers who disliked the strict Puritan rule of Massachusetts flocked to Rhode Island

The Trial of Anne Hutchinson  Anne Hutchinson lived in Massachusetts.  She had 14 children  Worked as a midwife helping deliver babies

Forbidden Message  Hutchinson often held Bible readings in her home  After church she and her friends gathered to discuss the ministers message  Sometimes as many as 50 or 60 people flocked to her home  Hutchinson started expressing her own views on what the minister had said  Seeming to criticize

Forbidden Message  Puritan leaders grew angry  Hutchinson opinions were full of religious errors  Women did not have the right to explain god’s law

On trial  After two days of questioning Hutchison told the court that god directly spoke to her  Puritans believed that god spoke only through the bible not directly to individuals  Court ordered her out of the colony

Relations with Native Americans  In 1680 King of England made costal settlements into a separate colony named New Hampshire  As more colonists settled in New England fighting broke out between white settlers and Indian nations  1675 Wampanoag Indians led by chief Metacom attacked colonial villages throughout New England

Fighting lasted 15 months  In the end Metacom was captured and killed  His family and about 1000 other Indians were sold into slavery in the West Indies

A Life of Hard Work; Farms, forests, and seas  New England’s rocky soil was poor for farming  Settlers learned to grow Native American crops  Corn, beans squash, pumpkins

A Life of Hard Work; Farms, forests, and seas  Forest were full of riches  Hunted wild turkey and deer  In spring they collected sweet sap from maple trees  Settlers cut trees and floated them to port cities where shipbuilding centers grew  Fished for cod and halibut; oysters and lobsters  Hunted whales  Supplied them with oil and ivory

Tightly knit towns and village  Puritans believed people should worship and take care of local matters as a community  Became very close  On Sundays no one was allowed to play games, joke, talk or drink,  All citizens were required to attend church services  Women sat on one side, men sat on the other  Blacks and Indians stood in the balcony  Children had separate pews

Tightly knit towns and village  Children had separate pews  Punished if they played made faces or laughed  Lawbreakers faced severe punishment  One crime punishable by death was witchcraft  1692 Puritans executed 20 men and women as witches in Salem Village Massachusetts