Puritans
A Puritan family about 1563
About 1563 AD, some people
in England decided that they wanted to follow a way of life that they thought
would be more according to what God wanted. They called themselves "the godly", but
other people called them "Puritans." If they lived this way, Puritan people thought it would
help them get into Heaven. Mainly these people wanted to live quiet, simple
lives, spending a lot of their time praying, reading the Bible (which had
just been translated into English), and listening to sermons. Puritans
wore plain clothes and lived in plain houses. They went to church a lot
(all day on Sundays and often on other days too). They thought that God wanted them
to work very hard and be very serious.
Puritans did not have parties. They did not listen to music, or dance. They did not
celebrate holidays, not even Christmas or Easter.
Like other people who had different religious ideas from
their neighbors - for example the Quakers - ,
the Puritans got into trouble in England. Some of them were killed. So some
of the Puritans decided to leave England and start a new town in North
America. In 1620, the first Puritans came to Massachusetts
in their ship, the Mayflower.
Puritans in the 1700's
The Puritans didn't really know anything about farming,
and especially not about farming in North
America, but the Iroquois people who
lived there showed the Puritans how to farm corn
and beans, hoping that the Puritans would help them in their wars against
each other.
The descendants of the Puritans today are called Congregationalists
or Presbyterians.
