Did religion play a part in colonizing america?

Answer 1

If I remember my history right (25 yrs ago), they left England because they were told that every one had to be Church of England. There is more to it, but people ultimately decided they wanted a choice so they sailed to America.

Answer 2

Yes! One of the freedoms they were looking for was freedom to practice whichever religion they wanted to.

" In 1762, the king vetoed the charter for America's first missionary society; he also suppressed other religious freedoms and even prevented Americans from printing an English language Bible. How did Americans respond? They took action; and almost unknown today is the fact that Declaration signers such as Samuel Adams and Charles Carroll cited religious freedom as the reason they became involved in the American Revolution. And significantly, even though Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin (two of the least religious signers) are typically the only signers studied today, almost half of the signers of the Declaration (24 of 56) held what today would be considered seminary or Bible school degrees. Clearly, for many Founders, religious issues were an important motivation behind their separation from Great Britain; but that motivation is largely ignored today. "

Answer 3

Hello, Oh yeah! When King James of England established that there would only be one religion, with only one way of believing about God then that motivated the pilgrims to come to America to worship in the way that they believed in their hearts to be right. Religion has been America's strength but lately other things are stealing people away from God...

Answer 4

Yes. The Puritans were out to make the New World a Christian nation and make all the "Heathen Indians" Christains to "save their souls". Also wanted to come to a place with freedom of religion where they could worship as they liked without being persecuted.

Answer 5

Contrary to popular belief, the Pilgrims, or Puritans, did not leave England to escape "religious persecution." They were KICKED OUT because they were persecuting everyone else, and plotting to overthrow the English government to establish a theocratic state.

The English, Dutch and especially the Spaniards were determined to convert the Native Americans, regardless of the human cost. Consequently, something like 30 million (estimated) Native Americans were slaughtered because they refused to be Christian. That's not counting the numbers killed by the various lovely European diseases, like Measles, Smallpox, Diphtheria, and Pertussis (and let's not forget our old friend Syphilis).

Answer 6

Religious freedom - the right to believe in any religion you choose (or not) - was the main reason that European settlers colonized the US.

Answer 7

The earliest pilgrims from Europe came here to seek religious freedom. They were Protestants leaving Catholic Europe.

Answer 8

Yes, many of the "pilgrims" were disgruntled with the Church of England.