Colonial American History

Puritan faith : The Puritans sent settlers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 , under the leadership of John Winthrop . They believed that England and Europe were due to suffer a heavy scourge and judgment from God . The Puritans , through a special providence , had entered into a covenant with God . God ed them to fly into the wilderness of the Americas and create a City upon a Hill ' - a holy commonwealth upon which all the eyes of the people would focus (p . 78 ) Church and state were partners , and women were excluded from

office . They set up what they called a mixed democracy ' -- the church members as the least depraved part of the population , should select their rulers from a circle of men who would carry out God 's laws as interpreted by the Bible and their ministers . The same few men were continuously elected to the highest office . They remained part of the Anglican Church while in England . In America , the Puritans used the Separatist theory that each individual church had its own covenant . The members chose their pastor teachers , elders , and deacon . To join , a person had to accept Puritan theology and , if male , had to testify publicly to experiences convincing him he was worthy of church membership . No deviation was tolerated They wanted to establish a true church ' -- one that would set an example and lead to the regeneration of the Church of England . It failed . Even when the Puritans who remained n England overthrew the monarchy , they declined to reform the Church of England alone the lines suggested by the New Englanders . The New Englanders then created a new denomination , the Congregational Church . The City on a Hill ' never came to be . The Puritans who came to the colonies never especially lived up to John Winthrop 's ideal of their being a shining example to others , but they did obtain freedom to try

In the Congregational Church , the local congregation became the highest ecclesiastical authority . Church members were the visible saints ' - only those who had testified of being consciously redeemed by the saving grace of God . Their place of worship was a meetinghouse rather than a church , which became a square wooden structure without a steeple . Both men and women sat on backless benches on separate sides of the church All church officials were elected by the church members

The Salem witchcraft trials began after January 1692 , when several young girls began to suffer from convulsions , loss of hearing , speech and sight , and hallucinations . Rather than seek a natural cause , doctors and ministers determined that the girls were possessed by Satan . At that time , few doubted the existence of witches , either in America or Europe , even though the American definition of witch ' included unmarried women , women who claimed to have medical or magical skills , or women who had conflicts with their neighbors . The girls in Salem accused one Tituba , a West Indian slave and two elderly women Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn , of...