The seventeenth century in American history witnessed the arrival of a devout religious group known as the Puritans to the New England area. Whether unsatisfied with the seemingly slow progress of the Protestant Reformation in their home country of England, or fearing for their lives because of anti-Puritan persecutions, they eventually made their way to the New World with the goal of living and worshipping freely for God. Though the Puritan settlement at Massachusetts Bay …showed first 75 words of 810 total…

…showed last 75 words of 810 total…freedom of choice was hard to come by. The original settlers of the New England colonies were intent on upholding these restrictions as they burned with religious zeal, but this fervor eventually faded away in the face of the colonies gradually becoming more democratic. As a result, settlers and immigrants alike were lost to settlements in the middle colonies like Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, and to less invasive religions that still kept basic Puritanical beliefs.