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In the 17th century, the word Puritan was a term applied not to just one group but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. [6] Originally, Puritan was a pejorative term characterizing certain Protestant groups as extremist. Thomas Fuller, in his Church History, dates the first use of the word to 1564.
The most common ethnic groups in the Thirteen Colonies were those from either Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) or Ulster (north Ireland). Those of Irish, Dutch, German, or French backgrounds would see attempts to assimilate them into the dominant English and predominately Protestant culture. [3]
The largest ethnic group within the Old Stock are the English-Americans, whose ancestors emigrated via England directly, or via partially English-descended populations, such as the Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish. English settlement in what is today America began with Jamestown in the Virginia Colony in 1607.
In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America, almost all in New England.Puritans were intensely devout members of the Church of England who believed that the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, retaining too much of its Roman Catholic doctrinal roots, and who therefore opposed royal ecclesiastical policy.
King James I and Charles I made some efforts to reconcile the Puritan clergy who had been alienated by the lack of change in the Church of England.Puritans embraced Calvinism (Reformed theology) with its opposition to ritual and an emphasis on preaching, a growing sabbatarianism, and preference for a presbyterian system of church polity, as opposed to the episcopal polity of the Church of ...
The Puritans were originally members of a group of English Protestants seeking "purity", further reforms or even separation from the established church, during the Reformation.
The approach taken by King James I led to the absorption of many conforming Puritans into the Church of England of the time. [10] Collinson has discussed a moderate Puritanism , as contrasted to an extreme Puritanism that demanded presbyterianism in church polity . [ 11 ]
The Puritan's main purpose was to purify the Church of England and to make England a more Christian country. History of the Puritans under Elizabeth I, 1558–1603; History of the Puritans under James I, 1603–1625; History of the Puritans under Charles I, 1625–1649; History of the Puritans from 1649; History of the Puritans in North America