The first English colony in what is now the United States of
America was that of the Virginia Company, founded in 1607 during the reign of
King James I. The first township was called Jamestown, after the king.
The next American colony was of a very different character;
it was formed by religious exiles from England. A few Puritans, mostly from
Lincolnshire, were disgusted with their treatment in England under King James I
and left England to seek refuge in Holland. After ten years there, some of them
decided to emigrate to North America. Other Puritans joined them, and the
exiles, who became known as the Pilgrim Fathers, left Plymouth in the Mayflower
in September 1620. They landed just north of Cape Cod and founded the first
township which they called Plymouth.
Eight years later a larger body of Puritans in England formed
a company which they called the Massachusetts Bay Company. The following year
King Charles I granted them a charter and the whole body of shareholders
crossed the Atlantic in 1630 to form the colony of Massachusetts. A steady flow
of English immigrants during the next eleven years meant that the colony
prospered. By 1644 the total population was more than 20,000.
Despite the fact that these Puritans had left their home to
escape from religious intolerance, their own government was no less intolerant.
John Winthrop, the first governor, was a man of considerable ability but had
narrow views. Political rights in Massachusetts, no less than in England,
depended on conformity with the narrow religious creed. This creed was
determined by a small circle of strict Puritans who supported the governor.
Anyone who differed from their rulers on minor points of religion could be
subject to harsh punishment. Roger Williams, a clergyman who was driven from
Massachusetts by this persecution, founded a new colony, that of Rhode Island,
in 1636.
Other colonies followed, namely Connecticut and New
Hampshire, the whole group becoming known as new England. These Puritan
colonies were on the whole very prosperous, continuing to receive emigrants
from England. Although the New Englanders tend to be less aristocratic than the
Virginians, narrow religious opinion prevented the growth of a real democracy.
The severance from England was more marked that of Virginia, because they
regarded themselves as exiles rather than colonists.
© John Welford
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