The forces that led to the settlement of New England both at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay stemmed from the religious controversy begun by Martin Luther's Reformation movement. When Luther attacked the church for the failings he perceived, he opened the door for even more radical theologians such as John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli. They preached such matters as predestination and the need to rid the Protestant church—or churches, as was soon the case—of remaining elements of Roman Catholicism, the so-called "remnants of popery."
Early in the 1600s a group of more the radical Puritans, "Separatists," moved to Leyden in Holland for a time, but when they found conditions there not amenable to their religious convictions, they contracted to come to America under the aegis of the Plymouth Company. They were the famous Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower in 1620.
The remaining Puritans discovered that although they had been able to get along under the relatively benign reign of Elizabeth I, they did not do so well under James I and his successor. (James had declared that he would make all his subjects conform to his religion or he would "hound them out of the realm.") During the reign of Charles I the Puritans decided that the way to find the religious environment they were seeking was to go to America, where they could create a "New Jerusalem." Thus the Massachusetts Bay Company was
Founded, and the great Puritan migration began. The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, laid out the plans for the colonists in his "Model of Christian Charity." (See Appendix.)
John Wnlhrop
The New England experience was similar in some ways to that of Virginia, but with a much stronger emphasis on religious practice and a theocratic form of government. Virginia's Anglicans were also very religious, and the Anglican Church was "established" in Virginia, but it was not as intense as Puritan New England in matters of religion. Ca-pitalism—the desire for material improvement—was part of the cultures of both Virginia and Massachusetts, but it is safe to say that capitalism tended to be the primary motive for all that happened in Virginia, whereas religious motives were more controlling in New England. Additional differences existed between Virginia and Massachusetts generally and, as time went on, between the northern and southern colonies, and those differences were the root of the sectionalism that would later divide colonies and country.
Both Virginia and Massachusetts came to be based on systems of governance that had roots in British philosophy, although those roots are easier to find in the New England case. Thomas Hobbes wrote in "Leviathan" that man first existed in a state of nature, where he was born absent any constraints and therefore could live in absolute freedom. Man in nature, however, lived "in continued fear and danger of violent death," and found that life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Man's natural freedom therefore needed to be curbed so that civilization could develop, and because human nature was inherently sinful, man needed to be controlled by a strong authority to control man's wayward nature. In other words, in order to live together in harmony, men (and women) are required to give up a portion of their natural freedom so that society can function. For Hobbes, that controlling authority was a monarch who ruled by "divine right."
Later, philosopher John Locke wrote that in finding ways for controlling man, good institutions were needed, for man was a blank slate ("tabula rasa") at birth and his nature would develop according to the kinds of mechanisms that were used to control his baser instincts. Thus both Locke and Hobbes provided the fundamental concepts that shaped English and, later, American political philosophy, though Locke's ideas tended to support more republican forms whereas Hobbes leaned more toward absolutism. It was Locke who provided the philosophical basis for American democracy. He wrote, "every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority."12
World History
