What was significant about Colonial dissenters in the eighteenth century?

1 For a discussion of interest groups in general, see Gabriel Almond and James Coleman, S., The Politics of the Developing Areas [Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1960], 33–35.Google Scholar See also Truman, David, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion [Knopf, New York, 1958], 33Google Scholar; Wilson, Charles, “Government Policy and Private Interest in Modern English History,” Economic History and the Historian, Collected Essays [London, 1969], 140–55Google Scholar; Finer, Samuel, Anonymous Empire; a Study of the Lobby in Great Britain [Pall Mall Press, London, 1958], 3Google Scholar; and Wootton, Graham, Pressure Groups in Britain, 1720–1970 [Archon, Hamden, Conn., 1975], 3.Google Scholar On English interests see Armstrong, Maurice W., “The Dissenting Deputies and the American Colonies,” Church History, 29 [1960] 298–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Kammen, Michael, Empire and Interest: The American Colonies and the Politics of Mercantilism [Lippincott, New York, 1970]Google Scholar; Steele, I. K., The Politics of Colonial Policy: The Board of Trade in Colonial Administration, 1698–1720 [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968]Google Scholar; Olson, Alison G., Anglo American Politics, 1660–1775 [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1973], ch. IVGoogle Scholar and Olson, , “The Board of Trade and London-American Interest Groups in the Eighteenth Century,” in The British Atlantic Empire Before the American Revolution, ed. Marshall, Peter and Williams, Glyn [Frank Cass, London, 1980].Google Scholar For Quakers see Hunt, Norman C., Two Early Political Associations: the Quakers and the Dissenting Deputies in the Age of Sir Robert Walpole [Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961].Google Scholar For both Quakers and Anglicans, as well as Dissenters, see Bridenbaugh, Carl, Mitre and Sceptre: Transatlantic faiths, Ideas, Personalities, and Politics, 1689–1775 [Oxford University Press, New York, 1962].Google Scholar See also Thompson, H. P., Into All Lands: The History of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701–1950 [published by S.P.C.K., London, 1951], 1–103.Google Scholar

Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church.

European Persecution

The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations.

Execution of Mennonites

Murder of David van der Leyen and Levina Ghyselins, Ghent, 1554. Engraving by J. Luyken, from T. J. V. Bracht [or Thieleman van Braght], Het Bloedig Tooneel De Martelaers Spiegel. . . . Amsterdam: J. van der Deyster, et al., 1685. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [1]

A Jesuit Disemboweled

John Ogilvie [Ogilby], Societas Jesu, 1615. Engraving from Mathias Tanner, Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis et vitae profusionem Militans. . . . Prague: Typis Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae, 1675. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [4]

The Expulsion of the Salzburgers

Lutherans leaving Salzburg, 1731. Engraving by David Böecklin from Die Freundliche Bewillkommung Leipzig: 1732. Rare Books Division. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations [7]

A Pair of Salzburgers, Fleeing Their Homes

Salzburgische Emigranten. [left page] [right page] Engraving from [Christopher Sancke?], Ausführliche Historie derer Emigranten oder Vertriebenen Lutheraner aus dem Erz-Bistum Salzburg, Leipzig: 1732. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [8]

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Persecution of Huguenots by Catholics

Massacre Fait a Sens en Bourgogne par la Populace au Mois d'Avril 1562 . . . Lithograph in A. Challe, Histoire des Guerres du Calvinisme et de la Ligue dans l'Auxerrois, le Sènonais et les autres contrèes qui forment aujourd'hui le dèpartement de l'Yonne. Auxerre: Perriquet et Rouille, 1863. General Collections, Library of Congress [2]

Persecution of Catholics by Huguenots

Frightful Outrages perpetrated by the Huguenots in France. Engraving from Richard Verstegen, Thèâtre des Cruautez des Hérétiques de notre temps. Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1607. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. [3]

Drowning of Protestants

Massacre of the Protestant Martyrs at the Bridge over the River Bann in Ireland, 1641. Engraving from Matthew Taylor, England's Bloody Tribunal: Or, Popish Cruelty Displayed . . . . London: J. Cooke, 1772. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [5]

Persecution of Jesuits in England

Die Societas Jesu in Europa, 1643-1644 [left page] [right page] from Mathias Tanner, Die Gesellshafft Jesu biss zur vergiessung ihres Blutes wider den Gotzendienst Unglauben und Laster . . . Prague: Carlo Ferdinandeischen Universitat Buchdruckeren, 1683. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [6]

Martyrdom of John Rogers

The Burning of Master John Rogers. Engraving from John Fox, The Third Volume of the Ecclesiastical History containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs. . . . London: Company of Stationers, 9th edition, 1684. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [9]

John Rogers Portrayed in New England

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Crossing the Ocean to Keep the Faith: The Puritans

Puritans were English Protestants who wished to reform and purify the Church of England of what they considered to be unacceptable residues of Roman Catholicism. In the 1620s leaders of the English state and church grew increasingly unsympathetic to Puritan demands. They insisted that the Puritans conform to religious practices that they abhorred, removing their ministers from office and threatening them with "extirpation from the earth" if they did not fall in line. Zealous Puritan laymen received savage punishments. For example, in 1630 a man was sentenced to life imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose slit, an ear cut off, and his forehead branded "S.S." [sower of sedition].

Beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America from England to gain the liberty to worship God as they chose. Most settled in New England, but some went as far as the West Indies. Theologically, the Puritans were "non-separating Congregationalists." Unlike the Pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts in 1620, the Puritans believed that the Church of England was a true church, though in need of major reforms. Every New England Congregational church was considered an independent entity, beholden to no hierarchy. The membership was composed, at least initially, of men and women who had undergone a conversion experience and could prove it to other members. Puritan leaders hoped [futilely, as it turned out] that, once their experiment was successful, England would imitate it by instituting a church order modeled after the New England Way.

Richard Mather

Richard Mather. Relief cut by John Foster. Copyprint. c. 1670. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts [11]

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The Bible Commonwealths

The New England colonies have often been called "Bible Commonwealths" because they sought the guidance of the scriptures in regulating all aspects of the lives of their citizens. Scripture was cited as authority for many criminal statutes. Shown here are the two Bibles used in seventeenth-century New England and a seventeenth-century law code from Massachusetts that cites scripture.

Seventeenth-Century Laws of Massachusetts

The General Laws and Liberties of the Massachusets Colony: Revised and Reprinted [left page] [right page] Cambridge, Massachusetts: Samuel Green, 1672. Law Library, Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress [16]

Eliot's Algonquin Language Bible

The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New, Translated into the Indian Language. . . . [left page] [right page] Cambridge, Massachusetts: Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, 1663. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress [18]

What was founded by dissenters fleeing persecution by Puritans?

What was an important consequence of the wealth derived from tobacco in the early 18th century South?

What was a significant result of the new royal charter granted to New York City in 1731?