Many New England communities treated Quakers poorly and many Quakers saw acts of violence inflicted on them in the name of God (Roark 79). Quakers believe that neither preachers nor Bibles are necessary to worship God, which is the polar opposite of the Puritan religion. In the last half of the seventeenth century the Quakers began to populate Massachusetts. Not all New England colonists were Puritans, but the Puritan religion was a major influence in the seventeenth-century New England way of life (Roark 70).
Puritanism evolved from the Protestant Reformation in England after King Henry VIII outlawed the Catholic Church in order to control religion in his country (Roark 68). The Puritans founded the northern colonies of New England. Their differences in religion, politics, economics, and social issues, and the way they dealt with them, are what shaped our country into what we are today. The diversity of the United States goes back to its beginning as a collection of northern, middle, and southern colonies.
