Beginnings to 1763

Chapter one

Puritans Create a "New England"

From Reformation to Pilgrims

King Henry VIII had brought the Reformation to England in the 1530s when he broke with Roman Catholicism to form the Church of England. Although the new church was free of Catholic control, one religious group, the Puritans, felt that the church had kept too much of the Catholic ritual and tradition. They wanted to purify the church by eliminating all traces of Catholicism. Some Puritans felt they should remain in the Church of England and reform it from within. Others, called Separatist, did not think that was possible. The Separatist met in secret because James I was determined to punish those who did not follow the Anglican form of worship.

One congregation of Separatist, known today as the Pilgrims, fled from England to Holland and eventually migrated to America. There, in 1620, this small group of families founded the Plymouth Plantation, the second permanent English colony in North America. Their May Flower Compact, named for the ship on which they sailed to North America, became an importand landmark in the development of America democracy