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Pilgrim ​Puritan Family

Pilgrim​: Hi who are you?

Puritan​: Oh hi, I’m just a Puritan passing by.

Pilgrim​: Oh really? What is a Puritan? Tell me about your origins!

Puritan​: Well, from what I know Puritanism arose from the Church of England in the 16th century
as a result of a group of people not liking changes that were occurring. We believe that the
Church of England is evolving into something that it was not meant to be, and that all of these
new rituals and ceremonies are just too much.

Pilgrim​: Oh I see so what exactly are you trying to do?

Puritan​: Oh were centered on going back to the roots of Catholicism and being rooted to the
bible and avoiding what monarchs render from it.

Pilgrim​: That’s so wholesome! Us pilgrims did not all specifically originate from a specific religion
like you did from Catholicism, but were rather a group of people seeking religious freedom in the
New World. Although some of us were from other countries, a large part of Pilgrims came from
Separatists, who were kind of radical Puritans, so you might know some of my friends!

Puritan​: That’s cool, I’d definitely like to meet them! But why’d you come here anyway?
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Pilgrim​: Oh well like I said, us pilgrims were really looking for religious freedom because at the
time England really started cracking down on people who were not Protestant, they were
punishing us for our beliefs! In hopes of being able to worship without fear, we moved here.

Puritan​: Aw that’s horrible, I hope you’re happy now. Us Puritans emigrated because of a similar
reason! We weren’t happy with the exact details of how the Church of England was establishing
Christianity, and we were persecuted whenever we criticized it so we decided to come here to
live and worship how we wanted, in hopes of spreading this purified Christianity!

Pilgrim​: Oh wow that’s cool, you mentioned you were passing by, where did you Puritans
originally settle?

Puritan​: We had a whole colony for ourselves! We established the Massachusetts Bay colony in
1630, where all could worship freely! Where did y’all settle?

Pilgrim​: Well we pilgrims sailed over on the Mayflower, and we settled in Plymouth Harbor, not
far from here in Cape Cod!

Puritan​: Oh wow that’s so close, I’ll have to go visit you on horseback sometime. But tell me
more about your religion, this is so interesting! What are your philosophies? Us Puritans really
believe in the importance of our relationship with God, as that is the only way to rid us of our
sins. Our beliefs gradually drifted into the Calvinist predestination, and we are really open and
observant to change, as that is the sole reason we immigrated here!

Pilgrim​: Hey that’s so rad, we also believe in predestination! We also believed that the Church of
England definitely needed change so we stopped the religious rituals it was doing and
eradicated church hierarchies because we believe that to be against the Bible. We really believe
in predestination where God already has our lives planned out for us, and really just used it
minimally, with no religious holidays like Christmas or rituals, just the Bible!

Puritan​: That’s neat! But not only did us Puritans want to worship freely, but we also wanted to
spread our faith. An important leader of our colony, John Winthrop, liked to refer to our colony
as “a city on a hill” to drive in the message that we would reform the Church of England to be
better, and that colonies all around us would look up at us and change as they see the good we
do.

Pilgrim​: That’s really nice, but who were your leaders?

Puritan​: As I just said an important leader was John Winthrop because he pushed us to spread
our religion, how about you?

Pilgrim​: Some leaders in our Plymouth colony included John Alden who was an early governor
and pilgrim father William Brewster.
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Puritan​: Well, it was nice talking to you, but I should go home to my wife, see you soon!

Pilgrim​: See you soon!