LESSON 8

Preface to the film, The Crucible.  Background information.  This information will be used on a
test on:
                        ENGLISH COLONIZATION AND RELIGIOUS DISSENT

It is ironic that religious sects from England sought religious freedom in the New World since persecutions within each sect created less freedom.
Conflicts over religious doctrine had raged in England since King Henry XIII broke with the Catholic Church to form the Church of England. The Pilgrims were "Separatists," because they broke with the Anglican Church (Church of England). The Pilgrims were the most radical of the Puritans, Protestants who wished to "purify" the Anglican Church of all Catholic rituals and traditions. The Pilgrims left England for more tolerant lands such as the Netherlands and eventually, America.
The effects of being blown off course to their destination - Virginia, landed them in Massachussetts. A document called the Mayflower Compact was drawn up to establish a self-governing colony based on majority rule of male church members.
Like Jamestown, the Massachussets colony owed its survival to the native Americans.
To escape both religious persecution and economic ruin, 60,000 Puritans decided to move to the colonies in America around 1630.
Puritan colonists eventually left Massachussets because they questioned Puritan ways. One of the progressive members, Minister Roger Williams, believed in strict separation of church and state. His beliefs angered the Puritans to point where he was ostracized and settleded in Rhode Island. Another dissident Puritan, Anne Hutchinson, found refuge in Rhode Island. Hutchinson expressed ideas that opposed the established clergy's teachings. Fearing a growing rebellion, officials arrested Hutchinson in 1637 and charged her with weakening the authority of the church. The fact that she was a woman added to the authorities' displeasure. Governor Winthrop told her, that she was "not tolerable . . . in the sight of God nor fitting of your sex." The clergy (ministers) found that Hutchinson was particularly dangerous because she claimed that she received her insights from God. After Hutchinson was killed in an Indian attack in 1643, Massachussets ministers declared her death, "the just vengeance of God."
By 1690 about 24 people had been accused of witchcraft in Massachussetts. In 1692, several girls in Salem village were stricken with seizures. The girls had become fascinated with stories of magic told to them by an enslaved African woman named Tituba. The local minister attributed the girls' seizures to witchcraft. As the girls named those supposedly responsible for their afflictions, other residents of Salem Village testified that they were victims of witchcraft. They claimed other villagers used demonic powers to kill their children, sicken their farm animals, and otherwise harm their families and property.
By June hundreds of people, mainly older women but also some men, had been accused of witchcraft. Dozens were tried, and 20 were hanged. Many of the colony's inhabitants continued to believe that the witches were a punishment for their sins.
People from Massachusetts also founded other colonies. In 1636 Thomas Hooker set out for the rolling hills and forests of Connecticut. In the 1630's other settlers from Massachusetts moved into New Hampshire and Maine. Upon settling into these colonies, they met "Indians," whom colonists regarded as "inferior." Struggle and fighting with Indians continued far beyond the colonial period.
Soon the Dutch moved in the Middle colonies during this colonial period. Pennsylavania was founded on the efforts of a Protestant sect called the Society of Friends (Quakers).
The English carved three more colonies - North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The word Carolina is derived from Carolus, meaning Charles from King Charles of England. Finally, it was James Oglethorpe who believed that debtors who were held prisoners in unhealthy jails, founded the colony of Georgia to give these prisoners a new start in life in 1733.