Puritans Vs. New American Colonies

The statement, “Belief in religious freedom was central the development of some colonies, while other colonies such freedom was denied,” is very much true. Looking back to the Northern Colonies, it’s evident that the Puritans were completely set on the Christian faith.Different from the New England Colonies: the Middle Colonies were very diverse with their religion and just everything having to do with things among that nature. Moving onto the Southern Colonies, the major religion was, like in New England, Christianity. The New England (Northern) Colonies were extremely set in their ways, especially when it came to the religion that they used; as most know, the Puritans wanted to ‘purify’ the Catholic church. To purify simply means to cleanse something. Then there were the separatists; these were the group of people who just broke away from the Catholic church to come to the new world for religious and spiritual reasons. These people were referred to as Pilgrims anywhere but England.Once they founded the New England Colonies, they made sure of their religion right away. Their set in stone religion was Christianity; everything they did or said was based on the word of God. One of the many beliefs of the Puritans was predestination; this meant that God had
already chosen who would go to heaven and who would go to hell, that their fates were already chosen. In response to this belief, the Puritans made sure to always do good and make sure that they worked extremely hard even if they knew God already had everything planned out. The Middle Colonies were extremely different than New England; these colonies were full of different religions and different ideas.
They had things that could keep a society successful, while having a few things that were set in stone as well. The Middle Colonies were, as mentioned, filled with different religions such as: Quakers, Mennonites, Lutherans, Dutch Calvinists and Presbyterians. These colonies in specific had a wide range of religions to become a part of and that helped with keeping colonists happy. With the Middle Colonies, no one religion could favor highly over another; in other words, the Quakers couldn’t dominate over Lutherans, just as Lutherans couldn’t dominate over Dutch
Calvinists. Moving into the Southern Colonies a person would find that Christianity is one of the few religions there, and that the people who lived in the south probably had slaves. The people who were living in the south, did not come to America for religious purposes, but just for economic reasons. Simply put, they wanted money and a lot of it. However, the people in the south were still technically dealing with the Catholic group of Christianity. This statement, “Belief in religious freedom was central to the development of some colonies, while other colonies such freedom was denied,” is very true. Based on New England’s Puritan laws with the Christian religion, they had no say so in their religion at all. Moving into the Middle Colonies however, there was an abundance of religions ranging from Quakers to Presbyterians. Continuing to move south, the Southern Colonies weren’t really based with religion, but more with economics; their main religion though, was the faith of Christianity.

Works Cited
"3. The New England Colonies." The New England Colonies [ushistory.org]. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2013.
"4. The Middle Colonies." The Middle Colonies [ushistory.org]. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2013.
"5. The Southern Colonies." The Southern Colonies [ushistory.org]. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Sept. 2013.