Free Response: Puritans Development in New England

John Higginson stated,"My fathers and Brethren, this is never to be forgotten that New England is originally a plantation of religion, not a plantation of trade." John Higginson like many other puritans came to America with the idea of an ideal and perfect christian society. The puritans determination to create this faultless god fearing society led them to make decisions were doing god's will was their priority. Their priority sometimes caused a lot of suffering to other people like the native Americans that had different beliefs. In one occasion the colonists attacked the Pequot and burned their village down along with their people. Their ideas shaped how New England developed economically, socially, and politically from the 1630s to the 1660s.

John Winthrop believed that everyone should have a similar commerce where each person could work together peacefully. He also said that people should make other's conditions their own. Winthrop gives a perfect example on a puritans view of economic situation. The puritans thought that monetary profits in the new world would not make them strong but weak because they would start to put god in second place instead of first. One example of how easy it was to fall into this grave mistake was Anne Bradstreet. When her house burned down she recognized that she felt pain for the loss of her material possessions. For this epiphany she was thankful to God and was sad no more. Instead she focused at the house (heaven), where everything needed would be in abundance if she stayed loyal to God. For their strong beliefs, puritans were careless about having plantations were they could make a lot of money. Instead they focused on providing the basic needs for themselves, what remained they would share with others who were less fortunate. This mindset socially affected the the puritans. How ?

Puritans believed that kids must obey their parents, and wives must acknowledge all power and authority to their husbands. A document from the Enlarged Salem covenant of 1636 indicated,"In public or private, we will willingly do nothing to offence the church.......we do herby promise to carry ourselves in all lawful obedience to those who are over us......knowing how well pleasing it will be to the lord." The puritans were obedient to their ministers and town leaders because they thought God would see their actions and help them in reward, when they had difficulties. Therefore, the center of a puritan town consisted of a school, church, and town hall. These where the most frequented places by true Christians because in order to serve god wholeheartedly they needed to attend mass every Sunday and it was essential for children to go to school so they would not become idle in gods eyes. This was strictly followed by families as we can see, if it were not for the puritans necessity for schools to train ministers there would be no Harvard or Yale.

Politically the puritans believed that if you gave man copious amounts of power, they would use it to fulfill the wickedness in their hearts. As a result, puritans believed in limitation of power. John Cotton said,"Let all the world learn to give mortal man no greater power than they are content that they shall use- for use it they will. And unless they be better taught of God, they will use it ever and anon...." Here cotton explains how when men have a lot of power, if they do not recognize they have the power because of gods will, they will get carried away and use it for their own benefit. Later in the document Cotton mentions that the power men have is in behalf of the towns people who let them have that power by handing them their power. That is why in New England, town halls or town meetings were held annually to see who would be the next town leader or to settle property disputes. In this town meetings men older than twenty one that owned property could vote. New England was one of the first towns to incorporate democracy due to their view of the whole community being "one man" .

The puritans influenced greatly the development of New England and other nearby colonies with their ideas such as having a community were people all work together and values like respect and obedience that still exist now days. In light of their ideas we now have democracy and other forms of government where people vote to choose a representative. No matter how bad the puritans acted due to their strong beliefs and aspirations they did contribute a lot to the development of the early colonies. They contributed economically, socially and politically.