2.4 New England

First need to understand religious controversies

→ Puritans: Protestant religious group

• thinks Church of England has not carried reformation far enough

• think Church is too hierarchical

• “purification” of Church of England

• Controversy among Puritans on how it should be achieved:

  • Non-conformists: advocate staying in Church of England

  • Separatists: Break of Church of England

→ New England Puritans

Aspects of Puritan worldview:

• congregationalism (rejection of hierarchy and centralism in church)

• covenant theology (especially covenant of grace): tension between principle what god promised vs. predestination)

• predestination

• providence/providential history (everything that happens is planned by god) → can also be used as justification

Plymouth

• Ship Mayflower sailed to New England in 1620

• Group of separatists called now “Pilgrim fathers”

• e.g. John Carver and William Bradford

→Mayflower Compact:

• arrival off coast of Massachusetts/Cape Cod in November 1620

• In area with no rules / government → So they wrote the Mayflower Compact aboard November 11, 1620

• Seen as

  • symbolic and legal act of self-construction

  • foundation for Plymouth colony

  • marking roots of democracy

• Then moving to Plymouth on December 21, 1620 → Patuxet land (Wampanoag)

→ Mayflower Compact: WIlliam Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

→ Seen as American beginning, but just one white, male perspective

Cultural and historical siginifcance of Plymouth Plantation → A beginning from eurocentric perspective

Massachusetts Bay

→ 1630 Winthrop fleet sailed to New England and found Massachusetts Bay Colony

• 11 ships with 700 people

• John winthrop with “Model of Christian Charity”

  • written 1630 in middle of Atlantic

  • sermon

  • based on justice, mercy and community → Everyone has to contribute

  • New version of England, no alteration

  • America and them as superior (God has chosen them)

• In Boston in June 1630