Ideal Of A Colony For People example essay topic

Our founding fathers and settlers of our thirteen colonies brought with them ideals that moved America and its people to become a great nation. They brought with them customs, laws, and religions that helped lay the foundation for our nation that we built on and still continue to build on to this day. The Pilgrims came over to the New World in 1620 after breaking away from the Church of England to establish a separate church. These pilgrims came to be known as the Puritans because they wanted to purify the teachings of the Church of England. They set up a self-governing community under the Mayflower Compact they called Plymouth. The Puritans believed in a strict enforcement of the laws they found in the Bible.

Some of these laws applied to the church, while others regulated business, family affairs, and even clothing. Anyone who held different views received harsh treatment. Some of the Puritans who disagreed with the community's interpretation of the laws broke away to found new settlements. Some of these Puritans set up settlements around Massachusetts Bay on land that was given to them by the Massachusetts Bay Company.

Two years later its settlements, Plymouth, and the other northern colonies became part of the Dominion of New England. However, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Maine were eventually grouped together to become Massachusetts. The colony of Massachusetts brought the ideal of the Puritan religion and the laws that were made by their religion to the nation. William Penn, a Quaker leader, was granted 50,000 square miles of land by Charles II as a payment of debt the king owed his family. He decided to establish the colony of Pennsylvania as a refuge in America for people of all religious beliefs and also those who had no religion. Penn gave the people a democratic form of government with the right to elect an assembly to make the colony's laws.

Soon after his arrival he started dealings with the Delaware Indians and several treaties of friendship were made. Penn also made several land purchases from the Indians, which formed a basis of their peaceful coexistence with the Quakers for many years. The colony of Pennsylvania brought the ideal of a colony for people of all religious beliefs and a democratic form or government to the nation. Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts because he was teaching complete separation of church and state and that the government had no authority in religious matters.

He also declared that the king of England had no right to grant lands in America without payment to the Indians. After he was banished, Williams fled to what is now Rhode Island and founded the first settlement there. He formed a colony where there was free opportunity, equality, liberty of worship, and complete separation of church and state. Under William's leadership, the colony framed a government that was a pure democracy with no magistrates and with complete religious liberty.

In 1639, he baptized several of his companions and organized and founded the first Baptist church in America. Rhode Island brought the ideal of free opportunity, equality among people, liberty of worship, and complete separation of church and state to the nation. In 1633, a Dutch group founded a settlement along the Connecticut River that became known as Hartford. In the next few years settlers from Massachusetts established posts at Wethersfield and Windsor.

In 1636, Thomas Hooker led about 100 Massachusetts people south along the Connecticut River to the Hartford site and established a colony near that of the Dutch. The Dutch eventually left the area and in the first years the colonists fought off many attacks by the Native Americans. Hooker helped form New England confederation. The colonists of Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford formed their own set of laws, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. Thought to be the first written constitution, it set up a government that was in effect independent of any authority but their own. The 11 orders provided for a general assembly and for the election of a governor and magistrates.

They set up laws for elections, courts, powers of officials, and taxes. Connecticut brought the ideal of a colony that formed their own set of laws that was called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut to the nation. Each colony laid a cornerstone in building the foundation of our nation. Many people helped bring a piece of each ideal to America. Whether it be religion, customs, or laws, each ideal brought our nation together and made it great.