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I. America as a Religious Refuge:
The Seventeenth Century
[ PART 1 ] [ PART 2 ]
Many of the British
North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of
America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of
European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled
Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived
and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for
secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe
to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the
efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would
prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American
wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led
by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to
promote the prosperity of the church.
EUROPEAN PERSECUTION
Execution of Mennonites
This engraving depicts the execution of David van der Leyen and Levina Ghyselins,
described variously as Dutch Anabaptists or Mennonites, by Catholic authorities in
Ghent in 1554. Strangled and burned, van der Leyen was finally dispatched with
an iron fork. Bracht's Martyr's Mirror is considered by modern Mennonites as
second only in importance to the Bible in perpetuating their faith.
Murder of David van der Leyen and Levina
Ghyselins, Ghent, 1554
Engraving by J. Luyken, from T. J. V. Bracht (or Thieleman van Braght),
Het Bloedig Tooneel De Martelaers Spiegel. . . .
Amsterdam: J. van der Deyster, et al., 1685
Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (1)
A Jesuit Disemboweled
Jesuits like John Ogilvie (Ogilby) (1580-1615) were under constant surveillance
and threat from the Protestant governments of England and Scotland. Ogilvie
was sentenced to death by a Glasgow court and hanged and mutilated on March 10, 1615.
John Ogilvie (Ogilby), Societas Jesu, 1615
Engraving from Mathias Tanner, Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis et vitae
profusionem Militans. . . .
Prague: Typis Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae, 1675
Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (4)
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The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North
American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics
alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction
rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the
civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the
souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed
as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as
"inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled
political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics
persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still
others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although
England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European
continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have
commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented
for generations.
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The Expulsion of the Salzburgers
On October 31, 1731, the Catholic ruler of Salzburg, Austria, Archbishop
Leopold von Firmian, issued an edict expelling as many as 20,000 Lutherans
from his principality. Many propertyless Lutherans, given only eight days to
leave their homes, froze to death as they drifted through the winter seeking
sanctuary. The wealthier ones who were allowed three months to dispose of
their property fared better. Some of these Salzburgers reached London, from
whence they sailed to Georgia. Others found new homes in the Netherlands
and East Prussia.
Lutherans leaving Salzburg, 1731
Engraving by David Böecklin from Die Freundliche Bewillkommung
Leipzig: 1732
Rare Books Division. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and
Tilden Foundations (7)
A Pair of Salzburgers, Fleeing Their Homes
These religious refugees flee Salzburg carrying with them religious volumes. The
man has under one arm a copy of the Augsburg Confession; under the other is a
theological work by Johann Arndt (1555-1621). The woman is carrying the Bible.
The legend between them says: "We are driven into exile for the Gospel's sake;
we leave our homeland and are now in God's hands." At the top is a scriptural
verse, Matthew 24:20. "but pray that your flight does not occur in the winter or
on the Sabbath."
Salzburgische Emigranten [left page]
[right page]
Engraving from [Christopher Sancke?], Ausführliche Historie derer
Emigranten oder Vertriebenen Lutheraner aus dem Erz-Bistum Salzburg, Leipzig: 1732
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (8)
Persecution of Huguenots by Catholics
The slaughter of Huguenots (French Protestants) by Catholics at Sens,
Burgundy in 1562 occurred at the beginning of more than thirty years of
religious strife between French Protestants and Catholics. These wars
produced numerous atrocities. The worst was the notorious St.
Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris, August 24, 1572. Thousands
of Huguenots were butchered by Roman Catholic mobs. Although an
accommodation between the two sides was sealed in 1598 by the Edict
of Nantes, religious privileges of Huguenots eroded during the seventeenth
century and were extinguished in 1685 by the revocation of the Edict.
Perhaps as many as 400,000 French Protestants emigrated to various
parts of the world, including the British North American colonies.
Massacre Fait a Sens en Bourgogne par
la Populace au Mois d'Avril 1562 . . .
Lithograph in A. Challe, Histoire des Guerres du Calvinisme et de
la Ligue dans l'Auxerrois,
le Sénonais et les autres contrées qui forment
aujourd'hui le département de l'Yonne
Auxerre: Perriquet et Rouille, 1863
General Collections, Library of
Congress (2)
Persecution of Catholics by Huguenots
In the areas of France they controlled, Huguenots at least matched the
harshness of the persecutions of their Catholic opponents. Atrocities A,
B, and C, depictions that are possibly exaggerated for use as propaganda,
are located by the author in St. Macaire, Gascony. In scene A, a priest is
disemboweled, his entrails wound up on a stick until they are torn out.
In illustration B a priest is buried alive, and in C Catholic children are
hacked to pieces. Scene D, alleged to have occurred in the village of Mans,
was "too loathsome" for one nineteenth-century commentator to translate
from the French. It shows a priest whose genitalia were cut off and grilled.
Forced to eat his roasted private parts, the priest was then dissected by
his torturers so they can observe him digesting his meal.
Frightful Outrages perpetrated by
the Huguenots in France
Engraving from Richard Verstegen, Théâtre des Cruautez
des Hérétiques de notre temps
Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1607
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (3)
Drowning of Protestants
Shown here is a depiction of the murder by Irish Catholics of approximately
one hundred Protestants from Loughgall Parish, County Armagh, at the
bridge over the River Bann near Portadown, Ulster. This atrocity occurred
at the beginning of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Having held the Protestants
as prisoners and tortured them, the Catholics drove them "like hogs" to the
bridge, where they were stripped naked and forced into the water below at
swordspoint. Survivors of the plunge were shot.
Massacre of the Protestant Martyrs
at the Bridge over the River Bann in Ireland, 1641
Engraving from Matthew Taylor, England's Bloody Tribunal: Or, Popish
Cruelty Displayed . . . .
London: J. Cooke, 1772
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (5)
Persecution of Jesuits in England
In the image on the left is Brian Cansfield (1581-1643), a Jesuit priest
seized while at prayer by English Protestant authorities in Yorkshire.
Cansfield was beaten and imprisoned under harsh conditions. He died
on August 3, 1643 from the effects of his ordeal. At the right is another
Jesuit priest, Ralph Corbington (Corby) (ca. 1599-1644), who was hanged
by the English government in London, September 17, 1644, for professing
his faith.
Die Societas Jesu in Europa,
1643-1644 [left page] [right page]
from Mathias Tanner, Die Gesellshafft Jesu biss zur vergiessung ihres
Blutes wider den Gotzendienst Unglauben und Laster . . .
Prague: Carlo Ferdinandeischen Universitat Buchdruckeren, 1683
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (6)
Martyrdom of John Rogers
The execution in 1555 of John Rogers (1500-1555) is portrayed here in the 9th
edition of the famous Protestant martyrology, Fox's Book of Martyrs. Rogers
was a Catholic priest who converted to Protestantism in the 1530s under the
influence of William Tyndale and assisted in the publication of Tyndale's English
translations of the Bible. Burned alive at Smithfield on February 4, 1555, Rogers
became the "first Protestant martyr" executed by England's Catholic Queen Mary.
He was charged with heresy, including denial of the real presence of Christ
in the sacrament of communion.
The Burning of Master John Rogers
Engraving from John Fox, The Third Volume of the Ecclesiastical
History containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs. . . .
London: Company of Stationers, 9th edition, 1684
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (9)
John
Rogers Portrayed in New England
Two centuries after John Rogers's execution, his ordeal, with depictions of his
wife and ten children added to increase the pathos, became a staple of The
New England Primer. The Primer supplemented the picture of Rogers' immolation
with a long, versified speech, said to be the dying martyr's advice to his children,
which urged them to "Keep always God before your Eyes" and to "Abhor the
arrant Whore of Rome, and all her Blasphemies." This recommendation, read
by generations of young New Englanders, doubtless helped to fuel the anti-Catholic
prejudice that flourished in that region well into the nineteenth century.
Mr. John Rogers
Woodblock print from The New-England Primer Improved
Boston: A. Ellison, 1773
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (10)
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CROSSING THE OCEAN TO KEEP THE FAITH:
THE PURITANS
Puritans were English Protestants who wished to reform
and purify the Church of England of what they considered
to be unacceptable residues of Roman Catholicism. In the
1620s leaders of the English state and church grew increasingly
unsympathetic to Puritan demands. They insisted that the Puritans
conform to religious practices that they abhorred, removing
their ministers from office and threatening them with "extirpation
from the earth" if they did not fall in line. Zealous Puritan laymen
received savage punishments. For example, in 1630 a man was sentenced
to life imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose slit,
an ear cut off, and his forehead branded "S.S." (sower of sedition).
Beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America
from England to gain the liberty to worship God as they chose. Most
settled in New England, but some went as far as the West Indies.
Theologically, the Puritans were "non-separating Congregationalists."
Unlike the Pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts in 1620, the Puritans
believed that the Church of England was a true church, though in need
of major reforms. Every New England Congregational church was considered
an independent entity, beholden to no hierarchy. The membership was
composed, at least initially, of men and women who had undergone a
conversion experience and could prove it to other members. Puritan
leaders hoped (futilely, as it turned out) that, once their experiment
was successful, England would imitate it by instituting a church order
modeled after the New England Way.
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Richard Mather
Richard Mather (1596-1669), minister at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1636-1669,
was a principal spokesman for and defender of the Congregational form of church
government in New England. In 1648, he drafted the Cambridge Platform, the
definitive description of the Congregational system. Mather's son, Increase
(1639-1723), and grandson, Cotton (1663-1728), were leaders of New England
Congregationalism in their generations.
Richard Mather
Relief cut by John Foster. Copyprint
c. 1670
Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts (11)
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (1663-1728), the best-known New England Puritan divine of his
generation, was a controversial figure in his own time and remains so among
scholars today. A formidable intellect and a prodigious writer, Mather published
some 450 books and pamphlets. He was at the center of all of the major political,
theological, and scientific controversies of his era. Mather has been accused,
unfairly, of instigating the Salem witchcraft trials.
Cottonus Matherus S. theologieae doctor regia societas
Londonensis. . . .
Mezzotint by Peter Pelham
Boston: 1728, restrike 1860
Prints & Photographs Division,
Library of Congress (12)
Sermon by Cotton Mather
Holograph manuscript on paper
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (13)
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THE BIBLE COMMONWEALTHS
The Geneva Bible
The Geneva Bible was published in English in Geneva in 1560 by English reformers
who fled to the continent to escape persecutions by Queen Mary. Their leader was
William Whittingham, who married a sister of John Calvin. The Geneva Bible was
used by the Pilgrims and Puritans in New England until it was gradually replaced
by the King James Bible. According to one twentieth-century scholar, "between
1560 . . . and 1630 no fewer than about two hundred editions of the Geneva Bible,
either as a whole or of the New Testament separately, appeared. It was the Bible
of Shakespeare and of John Bunyan and of Cromwell's Army and of the Pilgrim Fathers."
The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the
Olde and Newe Testament.
Geneva: 1560
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (14)
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The New England colonies have often been called "Bible Commonwealths"
because they sought the guidance of the scriptures in regulating all aspects
of the lives of their citizens. Scripture was cited as authority for many criminal
statutes. Shown here are the two Bibles used in seventeenth-century
New England and a seventeenth-century law code from Massachusetts
that cites scripture.
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The King James Bible
The first edition of the King James Bible, also called the "Authorized
Version," was composed by a committee of English scholars between
1607 and 1611. The first copy of the King James Bible known to have
been brought into the colonies was carried by John Winthrop to
Massachusetts in 1630. Gradually the King James Bible supplanted
the Geneva Bible and achieved such a monopoly of the affections of the
English-speaking peoples that a scholar in 1936 complained that many
"seemed to think that the King James Version is the original Bible which
God handed down out of heaven, all done up in English by the Lord himself."
The Holy Bible, conteyning the Old
Testament and the New
London: Robert Baker, 1611
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (15)
Seventeenth-Century Laws of Massachusetts
Criminal laws in the early New England colonies were based on the scriptures,
especially the Old Testament. Many civil laws and procedures were modelled
after the English common law.
The General Laws and Liberties of the
Massachusets Colony: Revised and Reprinted [right page]
[left page]
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Samuel Green, 1672
Law Library, Rare
Book Collection, Library of Congress (16)
The Bay Psalm Book
The first book published in British North America, what has become
known as the Bay Psalm Book, was the work of Richard Mather and
two other ministers who transformed the Psalms into verse so they
could be sung in the Massachusetts churches. Shown here is one of
the eleven surviving copies.
The Whole Booke of Psalmes
Faithfully Translated into English Metre.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Stephen Daye, 1640
Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (17)
Eliot's Algonquin Language Bible
Obedient to the New Testament command to preach the Gospel to all
nations, ministers in all of the first British North American colonies strove
to convert the local native populations to Christianity, often with only
modest results. One of the most successful proselytizers was John
Eliot (1604-1690), Congregational minister at Roxbury, Massachusetts.
His translation of the Bible into the Algonquin Indian language is seen here.
At one time Eliot ministered to eleven hundred "Praying Indians," organized
into fourteen New England style towns.
The Holy Bible: Containing the Old
Testament and the New, Translated into the Indian Language. . . .
[left page]
[right page]
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, 1663
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division, Library of Congress (18)
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[ PART 1 ] [ PART 2 ]
HOME -
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW -
OBJECT LIST
SECTIONS:
I. America as Refuge -
II. 18th Century America
III. American Revolution -
IV. Congress of the Confederation -
V. State Governments
VI. Federal Government -
VII. New Republic
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February 14, 2007
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