No, but seriously, the Puritans were a pretty strict bunch who were concerned with pleasing God, living according to his will, and working hard. That means their skirts could hit at the ankle instead of having to be one inch below. The Puritans shared many beliefs with the Pilgrims-in fact, we could say that the Pilgrims were an extreme section of Puritanism-but the Puritans were a little more relaxed. These settlers were mostly from hardline Calvinist churches, derogatively called 'Puritan churches' because people were upset at their 'we're so pure and holy' attitude. The Pilgrims also developed the institutions for which they would be forever remembered: the town meeting, the Congregational church, the hard-scrabble farming life of New Englanders, and the Protestant work ethic, which influenced the character and composition of subsequent American societies.Īfter the Pilgrims managed to not completely die, they inspired other religious groups in England to come over and sort of survive as well.įrom 1630 to 1700, waves of settlers came to New England to escape religious persecution. Both the English and the Native Americans survived the setbacks and the ravages of disease and death, and in their first half century on the new continent, the English settlers learned from, interacted with, and of course, battled against the Native American nations of New England. Not only did European settlement encroach upon their lands, but it brought devastating plagues of diseases never before encountered in North America, which soon decimated Native-American populations. Native Americans' contact with these newcomers was a startling encounter across a vast cultural and spiritual divide. The New World represented a chance to start anew, to build a society from the ground up on firmly pious principles.

So, when they arrived on the new continent, it wasn't simply the vast forests or lack of densely-populated areas and developed commercial markets that made it a land of opportunity and rebirth.

This meant that the promise the Virginia Company made-the whole business about the Pilgrims creating their own Religious Funland, complete with their own rules and regulations-wasn't valid.Īt this point, while still on the ship, 41 of the men aboard created and signed the Mayflower Compact, which stated that once they landed, the men could work together to create laws that would work for the whole society. Since someone messed up in the navigation department, the Pilgrims ended up much further north than they had originally intended-so far north, in fact, that they were outside the land the Virginia Company controlled. (Pretty bold, eh?) Surprisingly, the Virginia Company agreed, and the Pilgrims set off on the Mayflower. When the Pilgrims bought passage to North America, they asked the Virginia Company if they could arrange to settle in America and make their own rules.

Pilgrims vs puritans