Puritans and English

I don't think that was necessary CLARK. I am supposed to not
speak of the past because you think it is immature. Maybe we should
stop all study of history to make you feel better.

Residents of the USA may correct me if I'm wrong. I understand that most of the Puritan immigrants to North America came from east and north east England. Since there were regional and religious divisions in the England of the times, they may not have identified themselves with the power centre of London. As for persecution in the England of the day
I'd say it was probably fairly mild compared to what English Catholics faced. The Catholics (English and Irish) were regarded as untrustworthy since some had allied themselves with the Spanish in 1588 (Armada time) and at other times with France.

According to something I read a few years ago the Puritan influence in the early colonies was fairly strong, but it declined rapidly as other immigrants arrived from the "Old Dart". In any case many of the Mayflower immigrants were dead within 18 months of landing from disease and starvation.

Most of the dissenting Protestants who arrived from Britain came later.

The Mayflower bunch had apparently stopped in the Netherlands for a while (Leiden) but for the New World after a while because they didn't want their children growing up Dutch.

True Simon, but they were more Dutch than English until they came with their families to the New World.

As for the Puritans coming to America, I was under the impression that anyone who came to one of the settlements in the New World, and was an English Prstestant, was a Puritan. After 1620, the Massachusetts Colony lasted for a long time, and many religious "purists" went there from England. So I guess they would in fact be Puritans.

As from where these Puritans came from in England, many of them came from Lancarshire and the Lake District. And then many of them came from Somersetshire and Davonshire, as well as even Greater London. My Puritan ancestors came to America from all of the places I just mentioned.

A lot of the puritans came from East Anglia. And maybe it's no coincidence that this was an area that welcomed many protestant religious refugees from the continent. I guess the Dutch in welcoming the Mayflower bunch were merely reciprocating.

But you know, in spirit Henry VIII was a Catholic. That it was why we have traditionally had the High Church (English nationalised Catholicism) and the Low Church (Protestantism). The rulers of England were not interested in all these fancy protestant religious ideas. They were just looking to free themselves from the political control of the Church in Rome. Similarly, though the Ottomans tolerated Christianity they encouraged Protestantism because its scope was local (and therefore easier to control); The Catholic Church was a powerful supranational organisation (sort of forerunner to the EU - lol).

Ramble, ramble...

PS You also had German protestant "extremists" going to the US, i.e. the Anabaptists, who settled in... I'll leave you to finish this, Clark ;-)

Coulnd't be Pennsylvania could it? ;-)

Yeah, a lot of the Germans in Pennsylvania are, or were, Anabaptists, Lutherans or Duth Reformed.

And now, there are different sects among the Amish community; one has the Old Order Amish, the Mennonites, the Gay Dutch (no, they are not homosexual), Secatarians, non-Seccetarians, and several others, and I have only a little knowledge of the history behind this. I could not tell you much about all of these sects.

Did you know that there were Germans who came over to America on the Mayflower? I did not know that until recently.

I advise any Gay Dutch people to keep their religious persuasion to themselves if they want to go out drinking in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

So who was on the Mayflower then? And what was its significance?

http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/info/book_reviews/tolzmannreview.html

Interesting article about the German input into the US.

PS Clark, I found list of Mayflower passengers. There were no Germans. The list may be wrong of course. According to the article above, the German equivalent of the MAyflower was called the Concord.

Simon, the reason you did not find any Germans on the passenger lists is because there probably weren't any (thought not everyone on the Mayflower were Puritans). I was thinking about the first settlement at Jamestown in 1607. There were Germans who came with the English settlers. Here is a link:

http://www.germanheritage.com/Publications/Jamestown/

This will take you to a page with 8 different links about the Germans in early America.

I haven't seen your link yet. One website about who was on the Mayflower made the interesting point that not all of the passengers were from the Leyden bunch - many were picked up in London essentially to ease the financial burden. Imagine hitching a ride with a ship load of puritans? Aaaggh!!

I gather the Puritans were fond of a cold beer on a hot day and not averse to a good meal either. One early Thanksgiving 'do' is said to have lasted three days.

Just be careful about coveting (or covering) thy neighbours wife (or daughter, or husband, or son). But their worries about sex were no different from those of most people of the day. Extra-marital sex stirred up jealousies, confused inheritances and could lead to inadvertent incest in a later generation. It could also spread syphilis which was as devastating if not a quick as Ebola fever is today. All rational causes of concern.

They wanted to "purify" religion. That's where the name came from.

Good old puritans!