Analyze_the_Extent_to_Which_Religious_Freedom_Existed_in_the_British_North_American_Colonies_

When people started migrating from Europe to the New World, people they migrated for various reasons. One of the main reasons people were moving was because of religious freedom. Prior to the 1700s, there were various degrees of religious freedom in the British North American colonies. The colonies were divided into three main sections. These sections were made up of the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies. The religious freedom in these colonies varied from state to state; there was a lot of religious freedom in the South, there was some religious freedom in the middle colonies, and the New England colonies were mostly the colonies that were very strict. The New England colonies consisted of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. In the 1620s, many Puritans migrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They believed that every aspect of daily life must revolve around God, and they wanted to create a “City Upon a Hill”; a society that everyone would look up to. There was no religious freedom in Massachusetts, because if you didn’t have the same beliefs as the Puritans and didn’t follow their laws that were all based on the Bible, you would be punished. Next, there was Rhode Island, a colony founded in 1644 by Roger Williams. Roger Williams was a man that had spoken out against the church in Massachusetts Bay Colony. He formed Providence in 1636, and later joined with other settlements to form Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, there was religious freedom for everyone; even Jews, Catholics and Quakers could practice their religion there. Rhode Island was the colony that granted the most religious freedom and is an example of what our society is like today. The colony of New Hampshire was not founded for religious freedom, but for business reasons. New Hampshire was however founded by people that disagreed with the Puritans. The colony of Connecticut was founded by Puritans who then again founded the Congregational Church. The middle colonies consisted of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Most people that moved to these colonies were people that didn’t have religious freedom in Europe. Pennsylvania, a colony founded in 1681, was originally founded for Quakers. In the early 1680s, Pennsylvania applied the Act of Toleration. Because of the religious freedom in Pennsylvania, the population increased, since many people wanted to live in a colony that granted them freedom to worship any religion. New York was a colony founded by the Dutch for trade, and there was a lot of religious freedom in New York. There were many different religious groups and people of the same religion settled in the same regions of New York, and all Christians except for Roman Catholics had the right to worship in New York. In 1664, James, the Duke of York, gave his friends Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret land. They founded New Jersey, and promised settlers that it would be a colony with religious freedom and a government in which the settlers would also have a voice. In 1638, Delaware was founded by Swedish settlers who were mostly Scandinavian Lutherans. When the Dutch settled there, there were many Dutch Reformed people, and later, English Quakers and Welsh Baptists also joined. The colony had a very diverse community. There was quite some variety in religious groups in the middle colonies, but despite their differing religious views, they mostly got along. In many of the Southern colonies, which included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, there was religious freedom. However, religious freedom was not very important in these colonies. In Virginia, religion wasn’t very important because they had other things, such as their plantations, to worry about. They accepted any religion but Atheism and Judaism. Lord Baltimore, the English man who founded Maryland in 1634, wanted Maryland to be a colony strictly for Roman Catholics. However, there were more Protestants than Catholics, so in 1949, he passed the Act of Toleration which gave religious freedom to anyone “professing to believe in Jesus Christ”. The Carolinas were the number one place for slaves, and there was a lot of religious freedom in North and South Carolina. James Oglethorde, the founder of Georgia, wanted to create a utopia with no rum or salves, and he wanted everyone in the colony to be equal. Georgia granted religious freedom to everyone except for Catholics. All in all, economics were more important than religious freedom to people who lived in the Southern colonies. In conclusion, religious freedom varied from colony to colony. In some colonies, there was a lot of religious freedom, in others there wasn’t. In some colonies, religion was very important, and in others it wasn’t as important as other aspects of their society. Even in the 1700s, there were many different religions in the colonies, just like we see in our society today. In our modern society, we see the impact that these people in the 1700s had on shaping our nation as we know it today.