Great Migration (Puritan)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

This article is about Puritan migration of the 1630s. For Great Migration, see Great Migration.

The Great Migration may refer to the Winthrop Fleet of 1630, wherein eleven ships delivered 1,000 passengers migrating from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It may refer more generally to the Puritan migration of approximately 20,000 English refugees to what is now the Northeastern United States, the Chesapeake Bay area, and the Caribbean during the 1630s. This greatly increased the population of our country, which is why it is called the "Great Migration". Many Puritans migrated from England to North America during the 1620s to the 1640s due to believing the Church of England was beyond reform. However, most Puritans in England and New England were non-separatists. They continued to profess allegiance to the Church of England despite their dissent with leadership and practices.

Most of the Puritans who emigrated settled in the New England region. However, the Great Migration of Puritans was relatively short-lived and not as large as believed.^[1] It began in earnest in 1629 with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and ended in 1642 when King Charles I effectively shut off emigration to the colonies with the start of the English Civil War. From 1629 through 1643 approximately 21,000 Puritans emigrated to New England. ^[2] This is actually far less than the number of English citizens who emigrated to Ireland, Canada, and the Caribbean during this time.

Emigration resumed under the rule of Oliver Cromwell, but not in large numbers as there was no longer any need to "escape persecution." Many Puritans returned to England during the war.

"In 1641, when the English Civil War began, some immigrants returned to fight on the Puritan side, and when the Puritans won, many resumed English life under Oliver Cromwell's more congenial Puritan sway."^[3]