Massachusetts Bay Colony Dbq Analysis

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DBQ Essay The Puritans first came over to the English colonies because they wanted to escape religious prosecution and were seeking religious freedom. When Charles I disbanded parliament and drove England’s economy into the ground, some Puritans joined up with entrepreneurs and created the Massachusetts Bay Company (MBC). The MBC soon colonized the Massachusetts Bay area, which was run by these non-separatist Puritans. This colony of mostly Puritans did not agree with some of the ways other colonies managed their settlements and took control of them, one of these colonies being the Plymouth colony of separatist Puritans who came by way of the Dutch. Although there were colonies that disagreed, most of the
John Winthrop was a Puritan who believed in covenant theology, which means he believed that church and state should work together to govern. He was a leader of the MBC and governor of the colony for 12 terms. He was mainly an authoritarian leader who let his religious beliefs influence much of his governing duties. Roger Williams, on the other hand, believed the polar opposite of Winthrop. He Said, “God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state…” (Doc. F). Williams had believed in separation of church and state and was an important dissenter who found the MBC to be oppressive. He left eventually to create his own settlement of Providence where he allowed more religious freedom and separation of church and state. Both of these men show how Puritan beliefs affected politics in the New England Colonies at the time, and how religion was related to those
In the beginning years it trained many Puritan ministers, and many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational and Unitarian churches throughout New England. One of my resources (doc. B) shows the common format or the way a town in the New England colonies looked. In the map it has the town square in the center of the town along with the school and the church with the ministers house labeled behind it. This is a prime example of how they kept their religion at the center of their lives and had most of their teachings revolving around it. Harvard and the map are evidence that during this time the Puritans beliefs and religion influenced how they built their towns and even how they organized their