Puritan Test | CA

Puritan

English Protestants who sought to purify the Church of England of remaining Catholic practices and believed everyday life was a constant spiritual struggle between God and Satan

English Liberty

The traditional rights and legal protections of English subjects, including protections against arbitrary government; in Virginia, these liberties were increasingly defined around white identity while African laborers were enslaved

Calvinism

A form of Reformed Protestantism emphasizing human depravity, predestination, and God’s absolute sovereignty; it taught that humans could not earn salvation through their own good works

Moral Liberty vs. Natural Liberty

John Winthrop’s distinction between two types of freedom: Natural Liberty is the freedom to do whatever one wants, including evil, while Moral Liberty is the freedom to do what is good and just under God’s authority

Massachusetts Bay Colony

A Puritan colony established in 1630 under John Winthrop with the goal of creating a godly Christian society that could serve as an example to the world, often described as a “city upon a hill”

John Winthrop

A leading Puritan and longtime governor of Massachusetts Bay who defended strict religious conformity, opposed dissenters, and wrote A Model of Christian Charity

Pilgrims

Radical English Separatists who believed the Church of England could not be sufficiently reformed, separated completely from it, and eventually established Plymouth Colony in 1620

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement signed by the Pilgrims and other Mayflower passengers to create a “Civil Body Politic” and govern themselves through just and equal laws

Squanto (Tisquantum)

A Patuxet Native American who learned English and became an important interpreter, guide, and teacher for the Plymouth colonists, helping them survive and establish relationships with local Native peoples

Great Migration

The migration of roughly 20,000 English Puritans to New England during the 1630s, largely seeking to establish communities where they could practice their religion

Church Membership

Full church membership in Puritan New England was generally limited to “visible saints,” people who could publicly demonstrate that they had experienced a genuine conversion to Christianity

Wampanoags

A Native American people of southern New England who initially formed an alliance with the Plymouth colonists under Massasoit but later fought English expansion during King Philip’s War

Pequot War

A 1637 conflict between English colonists and their Native allies against the Pequot people, ending in the destruction of much of the Pequot community after the attack at Mystic River

Rhode Island vs. Connecticut vs. New York (Religion)

Rhode Island promoted broad religious freedom and freedom of conscience; Connecticut maintained strict Congregationalism; New York developed greater religious pluralism partly because of its Dutch colonial background

Roger Williams

A Puritan minister who was banished from Massachusetts because of his religious and political views; he founded Rhode Island and advocated freedom of conscience and separation of church and government

Dissenters

People who refused to follow the officially established church or its religious practices, including groups such as Puritans in England and Quakers in New England

Anne Hutchinson

A well-known Puritan woman who challenged Massachusetts Bay’s religious authorities through her unorthodox beliefs and was eventually tried and banished from the colony

Half-Way Covenant

A 1662 policy that allowed the children of baptized Puritans to receive partial church membership and baptism even if their parents had not experienced the required conversion

Act Concerning Religion (Maryland Toleration Act)

A 1649 Maryland law that granted freedom of worship to Trinitarian Christians, providing limited religious toleration in the colony

English Civil War

A conflict from 1642–1651 between supporters of King Charles I and Parliament, in which Parliament’s Puritan supporters eventually defeated the king and temporarily abolished the English monarchy

Metacom (King Philip)

A Wampanoag sachem who organized Native resistance against English colonial expansion and led King Philip’s War from 1675–1676

Glorious Revolution

The 1688 overthrow of King James II that established a Protestant monarchy and strengthened the power of Parliament over the English king

English Bill of Rights

A 1689 document that limited the power of the English monarch and established important parliamentary rights and civil liberties, helping establish constitutional monarchy

Dominion of New England

A royal administrative union created in 1686 that combined several New England colonies with New York and New Jersey under the authority of royal governor Sir Edmund Andros

English Toleration Act

A 1689 law that allowed Protestant dissenters to worship publicly, although it did not provide complete religious equality for all groups

Bacon’s Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon involving poor colonists and laborers who opposed the colonial elite; afterward, Virginia increasingly relied on racial slavery and promoted a distinction between white and Black laborers

Mary Rowlandson

A Puritan woman captured by Native Americans during King Philip’s War who later wrote a famous captivity narrative describing her experience and interpreting events through the Puritan belief in God’s providence

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A 19th-century American author who explored themes of Puritanism, sin, guilt, hypocrisy, and hidden human desires, especially in his story Young Goodman Brown

Jonathan Edwards

A prominent preacher during the Great Awakening who delivered Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, emphasizing human sinfulness and the idea that salvation depended entirely on God’s mercy

William Bradford

A Pilgrim Separatist leader who served for many years as governor of Plymouth Colony, signed the Mayflower Compact, and wrote Of Plymouth Plantation about the Pilgrims’ experiences