Page 80 - 2023-bfw-stacy-2e-proofs-SE

86 PERIOD 2 Colonial America amid Global Change: 1607–1754

conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together,
always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work,
These sample pages are distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
as members of the same body. . . . For we must consider that we shall be as
a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
Questions for Analysis
Copyright (c) 2024 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
1. Describe the kind of society Winthrop envisions in this document.
2. Explain how this document reveals the ways in which seventeenth-century
New England society continued English traditions.
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
3. Explain how this document reveals the ways in which seventeenth-century
New England society broke from English traditions.
4. Explain how this document illustrates Puritan beliefs.

About one-third of all English Puritans chose to leave their homeland for North
America, and a large proportion of those chose to sail with their entire families. They
were better supplied, more prosperous, and more numerous than either their Pilgrim or
Jamestown predecessors. The settlers, arriving on seventeen ships, included the house-
holds of ministers, merchants, craftsmen, farmers, and — significantly — their ser-
vants, many of whom served on contracts of indenture. Moreover, they settled in a cold
climate that reduced the spread of disease. These demographic and geographic factors
helped ensure the rapid growth of the colony.
The first Puritan settlers arrived on the coast north of Plymouth in 1630 and named
their community Boston, after the port city in England from which they had departed.
Established in the midst of growing conflicts leading to the English Civil War and grow-
ing fears of royally sanctioned persecution of Puritans, the Massachusetts Bay Company
relocated its capital and records to New England. Through this process, the Puritans con-
verted their commercial charter into the founding document of a self- governing colony.
They also instituted a new political practice, in which adult male church members partic-
ipated in the election of a governor, deputy governor, and legislature.
Although the Puritans suffered a difficult first winter in New England, they quickly
recovered and soon cultivated sufficient crops to feed themselves and a steady stream
Puritan Migration of new migrants. During the 1630s, the time of the Puritan Migration, at least eigh-
The mass migration of teen thousand people made their way to North America. Even without a cash crop like
Puritans from Europe to New tobacco or sugar, the Puritan colony flourished.
England during the 1620s and Two factors aided Puritans in quickly forming and developing new communities
1630s.
throughout New England. Cleared agricultural lands, farmed very recently by Ameri-
can Indians, had been made more available by the effects of Columbian Exchange dis-
eases, which severely reduced the native farming populations. Also, Puritan ideology
idealized small, close-knit village communities as a means to achieve a religiously moral
society. These small communities of faithful neighbors, led by male church members,
could watch over each other’s actions to ensure that the community remained within
God’s grace. Male church members acted as patriarchs of their households, responsible
to each other, and for the dependents of the community — both family and servant.
Opposed to the elaborate rituals and hierarchy of the Church of England and believ-
ing that few Anglicans truly felt the grace of God, Puritans set out to establish a simpler
form of worship in New England that focused on their inner lives and on the purity of
their church and community.
Whether one was a Saint and thereby saved was predetermined by and known only
to God. Still, some Puritans believed that the chosen were likely to lead a saintly life.
Visible signs included individuals’ passionate response to the preaching of God’s Word,
their sense of doubt and despair over their own soul, a sense of reassurance that came

03_foan2e_48442_period2_052_143.indd 86 06/09/23 11:08 PM