Church Of England Back To Catholicism example essay topic

The Puritan and Chesapeake Colonies The Puritan and Chesapeake colonies were populations who were vastly different, but also quite the same in many ways. Although the origins of both colonies lay in England, the differences between them surfaced and depicted distinctions as to why they left the motherland, their political ideologies, religion, family life, and even use of land. The Puritan's reasons for leaving England were centered upon one aspect; the need for religious freedom and escape from persecution. In the 1530's, King Henry V turned to the Pope to have his marriage annulled from Catherine, who was not providing him with the male heir necessary to inherit the throne. Upon the Pope's refusal to annul the marriage, the King became enraged and cut off all ties with the Catholic Church.

He converted the current Church to the Church of England, or Anglican Church, appointing himself as the head of his new religious establishment. He annulled his own marriage, marrying another who would bare him the male heir he needed. His son, King Edward VI would take the throne in his place in 1548, but would die at the age of 53, leaving his half sister, Mary, to become Queen. Mary converted the Church of England back to Catholicism, enraging many who would then flee the area to Geneva.

There, the many who felt it necessary to flee would be introduced to John Calvin and his doctrines. Calvin was a Protestant who had been exiled from England due to his firm and radical belief and following of the sixteenth century ideas and protests of Martin Luther, who had openly protested against the Catholic Church. The doctrines these people were introduced to preached that faith and faith alone, not good works, brought one to salvation, and that all were predestined to be saved or damned at their birth by God. When Queen Mary died, and was replaced by Elizabeth who restored the Anglican Church, those who had fled and learned of these new doctrines and ideas returned.

These "Puritans" quickly became a powerful and growing group in English Parliament, their main goal not being to separate from, but "purify" the Church of England which had remained very Catholic in practice. When King James I took the throne in 1603, he was angered by the power the Puritans had gained and put to use within the Church, and began to clamp down on their actions. His successor, King Charles I did the same, and upon his marriage to a Catholic woman, many feared he would convert the Church back to Catholicism. The Puritans felt threatened, and many opted to make the journey to the New World. John Winthrop, a strong leader of the Puritans, would form the Massachusetts Bay Company and attain a charter from the King, making them a joint-stock company. Along with seventeen ships and over one thousand people, Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts in 1630.

They came prepared to settle in family units. Men, women, and children all came on the ships to the new world, some being clergy, others artisans, and some indentured servants, in a conscious effort to bring success. While upon the lead ship of this journey, John Winthrop spoke to his people in a sermon in which he proclaimed their intentions for traveling far from home to this New World. He declared these intentions to be for the colonists to work live and pray together as a community, putting all self-interest aside in order to create a "city upon a hill" which would be the model and envy of the rest of the entire world.

Upon actual arrival in the New World, many of the original strict religious beliefs needed to be modified. This new land brought many stresses of building stable communities, cultivating and finding food, the constant threat of Indian raids and many other difficulties. The doctrines which preached that faith and faith alone would save spread the idea that the arduous and relentless work that was day in and day out was not necessary. The religious clergy, having control due to the lack of separation between Church and State, would bring good works back into the doctrine, stating a person's good deeds would eventually bring them to salvation. The authority of these religious figures was challenged by many, and by 1650 only fifty percent of the Puritans that had come to Massachusetts were still practicing Church members. However, the communities within the colonies, although splitting, growing, and becoming more materialistic with dissent from the Church, remained.

New Englanders grew diverse crops on their small family farms to both feed themselves and have a little surplus. This provided them with healthy diets, making the average lifespan in New England greater than in England itself. New Englanders also made industry out of fishing, timber and shipbuilding, and fur trades, being a diverse economic people. Women were also participants in the society, owning taverns and general stores as well as serving as attorneys and midwives. The Puritans fabricated themselves to be a religious, family oriented, economically diverse and educated people. The settlers in the Chesapeake colonies came to the New World with much different intentions than those of the Puritans.

They were not fleeing to escape discontent or persecution in their homeland, but rather for the economic gain for both the motherland and themselves. The English were rather late comers to the colonization efforts, the Spanish and French already being established in the New World. In 1607, however, King James proposed a charter for the Virginia Company, a joint-stock company as the Massachusetts Bay Company was. One-hundred and four Englishmen with profit and gold on their minds could not refuse the opportunity to travel to the New World with lands that promised of gold, riches and wealth. The company was comprised only of men along the first journey, many of whom were wealthy, and none of whom had crucial skills they would need in the New World such as the ability to work well with their hands. Of the one-hundred and four that arrived, only thirty-eight would survive the harsh winter that brought them into 1608 and more settlers would have to be sent over to secure success.

The settlers were completely unprepared for the merciless conditions they met, including Indian raids, freezing winters, hot summers, and swamps infested with malaria carrying mosquitoes for which they had no defense against. Through malnutrition, starvation, disease, and danger the settlers searched and searched for gold, finding nothing. After spending two years along the James River in a settlement they called Jamestown, John Smith took charge, seeing the settlers had all but given up, and put them on a new work regimen. They were able to escape the devastation of the previous winter, but Smith became scorned by those home in England when he was the first to tell them there was no gold to be found in this new world. The winter of 1609-1610 was ruthless.

Being so little food, it was called the starving time. Of the 500 settlers that were now part of Jamestown, 60 were still alive in the spring, reports of cannibalism being stated from throughout those horrible winter months. The Chesapeake colonies did not meet the New World on similar terms as the Puritans. They came, not to stay, but to find economic gain. They did not come with families to settle in communities, but as mostly a population of men in search for gold to bring back to England. They had no religious beliefs to guide their work and community ethics as the Puritans.

They faced harsh times of starving and winters that few survived, 40% of the Chesapeake settlers never living to see the age of 21, while in New England only 20% of the settlers did not see that age. However, although the Chesapeake was with what many would consider far more difficult and harsh hardships, they certainly were not without their successes. Upon the discovery of how the cultivation of the tobacco crop fruitfully thrived in the region, a road to success and riches was paved. This new "cash crop" met the "get rich quick" mentality of the settlers, whose ideas were mostly based on riches, not religion or family. These men had come for personal profit, not freedom, and now they had found it and were taking advantage of it.

Tobacco soon became the Chesapeake's primary crop which it traded directly with England. The necessity and successful cultivation of the crop was a forerunner for the advancement in other industries, such as the slave trade. The trade depended heavily on the Chesapeake as a market, and the Chesapeake upon the slave trade, as it became dependant on cheap labor to work on the tobacco farms and plantations which were ever growing. The Puritan and Chesapeake became different in yet another manner; most of the Puritan population was English and white, while the Chesapeake held an enormous population of black people, working on plantations as slaves and servants. Although both had the same original homeland, spoke the same language, and knew of the same places back home, it is hard to imagine the Puritan and Chesapeake colonists ever speaking of the same things.

Although similar in many basic ways, both places were a very different people. Through just these drastic and readily evident differences, it is hard to easily paint the picture of the united nation which we are today.