Religion in the Anglo American Colonies 1607-1763

¶ … religion in the Anglo-American colonies between 1607 and 1763. By the time America was on the brink of revolution, religion had altered in American society.

When the first settlers came to America, most of them were strict and pious Puritans who fled England because of their religious beliefs. One writer says of the earliest settlers in New England thought that, "a strong church was the handmaiden and bulwark of a stable state" (Bonomi 13). However, by 1763, there were many more settlers in America than just Puritans, and religious beliefs had changed radically in many areas. The Puritans no longer dominated religion, and there was already a melting pot of cultures, ideals, and religious beliefs. What led to this change? Mostly it was a relaxing of strict Puritanical beliefs blended with an influx of settlers from other countries who brought along their own religions and beliefs.

When America was first settled, the settlements were actually quite far apart. There were planters in Virginia, and Puritans in New England and their lives were quite separate. As the country grew, and more people came to settle the New World, settlements grew, and so did trade and communications between cities and towns. More people meant more people from different walks of life, different countries, such as Germany, France, and Holland, and different religious and political beliefs. The Puritans held on to their stronghold in New England for many decades, but things were chancing around them, and their religion began to seem old-fashioned and stodgy to many new immigrants. By the early 1700s, one historian writes of the impression of a visitor to New England. He writes, "And Burnaby, an Anglican, adds as an afterthought: 'The character of the inhabitants of this province is much improved in comparison of what it was, but Puritanism and a spirit of persecution is not yet totally extinguished'" (Wright 328). The Episcopalian Church had grown quite popular in many areas, and there were also influxes of Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland, Catholics from France and Spain, and many other religions moving to the area from Europe and beyond. Historian Wright continues, "religious conditions in New England and in the other colonies had undergone great changes during the eighteenth century" (Wright 328). Thus, Puritanism still gave Boston and New England a conservative and thrifty nature, but it was no longer the dominant religion in America.

That is not to say that religion still did not play a major role in America, or in the foundations of American freedom. Another historian notes, "Religion permeated early American life in part because religious institutions had to be built anew in the colonies, a task that incorporated the laity into the very fabric of the churches at the same time that it built the churches into the structure of civil society" (Bonomi 217). Thus, blending religious beliefs helped lay the foundation for a strong, vital country, and the foundations that would eventually lead to freedom. This was a country of strong and passionate beliefs, both in religion and in national pride, and just as the first settlers had come to American to rid themselves of religious persecution, the following generations wanted to rid themselves of British tyranny and manipulation.