In 1629, King Charles I of England, believing God had given him the authority to do whatever the hell he wanted, dissolved the English Parliament. This was not popular amongst many people in England, especially the Puritans, who aside from being pretty down with the idea of representative democracy, were also fairly concerned that Charles was too cool with the Catholics, what with him having a French wife and all. As a result, many of the more hardcore Puritans decided it would probably be best to clear the fuck out to find greener pastures. Over the next ten years, some 80,000 Puritans immigrated from England, with equal shares going to Ireland, the Netherlands, the West Indies, and New England. This was pretty all right with King Chucky, since it not got rid of some of his loudest critics, but also increased the English population in the New World. These Puritans founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, the Connecticut Colony in 1636, and the New Haven Colony in 1637, quickly spreading along the New England coast and then into the interior.
The mass immigration of Puritans to New England was unique in that it was not primarily a commercial venture. Most colonies of the time period were being established in an attempt to profit from the resources of the New World, and as such were almost entirely made up of younger men. In comparison, the Puritans were looking for new homes in which they could build the perfect society of their dreams. As a result, entire families and communities were moved lock stock and barrel over the Atlantic, quickly re-establishing themselves in the New World. The Pilgrims were more than happy to see this rapid influx of new colonists, showing them how to grow crops and welcoming them into the existing alliances with the locals. Being industrious sons of bitches, the Puritans quickly set about establishing industries which could export goods back to England. At first this largely included fishing, timber, and furs, but fairly quickly also included shipbuilding. The mass migration continued until 1641, when the English Civil War broke out between the royalists and parliamentarians. The Puritans, being big supporters of the latter, largely decided to fight the good fight in England, many even returning to England to do so. However, the population of New England continued to expand rapidly, thanks to Puritans seeing pumping out as many babies as humanely possible as the will of God, reaching 25,000 by 1650.
Now for being a group that felt they were so persecuted that they had to come to New England to make a better life for themselves, the Puritans were surprisingly not all that open to a diversity of opinions. The Puritans had a very specific way of viewing ethics and religion, and anyone who didn’t follow these views exactly were going to burn in hell for all of eternity. As a result, though the Puritan colonies were run by democratically elected councils, only land owning people who regularly attended Puritan church services could serve in public office. Furthermore, anyone who didn’t want to live that sweet Puritan life, whether for religious reasons or because they didn’t like a bunch of frumpy asshats telling them what to do all the time, was told to get the fuck out. Those who didn’t listen were imprisoned, beaten, and at times even executed. The New England colonies were pretty much all full fledged theocracies, with the exception of New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Colonists first arrived in what became New Hampshire in 1629, settling mostly along the coast. Unlike the colonies further south, New Hampshire was not some Puritan wet dream, but rather just a bunch of fisherman who figured they could profit more by permanently resettling on the west side of the Atlantic. These colonies were absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony after about a decade, but were allowed to not have to follow the strict Puritan ideal required everywhere else in the colony. Rhode Island was much more of a fuck you to the Puritans. It was founded in 1636 by a small collection of settlers who were kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for not being Puritan enough. Not wanting to be the same kind of jackasses, Rhode Island’s colonial charter included provisions establishing the right of its colonists to follow whatever religion they damn well pleased, with the exception of Catholics because apparently that was just one step too far. As a result, its population became a mish mash of disaffected Puritans, Anglicans, Baptists, Quakers, and even a small Jewish community fleeing the Spanish inquisition. This did not sit well with the surrounding Puritan colonies, but since Rhode Island was recognized as a colony by King Charles, there wasn’t really all that much they could do about it.
Overall, despite the rapid influx of new settlers, the majority of the native tribes in the area remained relatively peaceful with the Puritans. By allying themselves with the newcomers, they were better able to compete in the lucrative fur trade against the more powerful Pequot to the west. Most of the New England tribes used strings of small shells, known as wampum, as a means of exchange. Something the Puritans exploited by manufacturing large amounts of wampum using their more refined metal tools. The Pequot were much more aligned with the Dutch, who by this time controlled the Hudson River Valley, and neither were happy with the Puritans undercutting them when trading with the Iroquois. Things only grew worse when a small pox epidemic swept across New England in 1633, killing two-thirds of the Native Americans living in the area south to Long Island, north to the Saint Lawrence River, and west to Lake Ontario. The Puritans declared the plague a sign that God wanted to have this new promised land, while the locals mostly took it as less of a divine blessing. As a result of the pandemic, the Dutch made moves to increase their trade directly with the Iroquois, which enraged the shell shocked Pequot, who began attacking not only Dutch traders, but also English traders and tribes allied with the Puritans. In 1636, the Puritans responded by burning down a Pequot village, the Pequot retaliated, and the war began.
The Pequot War was a decidedly shitty affair for all of those involved. Few in number, the Pequot mostly used guerilla tactics to attack the colonists and their native allies, while the latter sent out militias each summer which burned villages and massacred their inhabitants. The allied tribes were pretty horrified by the English no holds barred style of conducting war, but went along with it because they didn’t want to get on their bad side. Pequot who were captured were shipped to Bermuda as slaves. After two years, the Pequot leadership decided enough was enough and tried to retreat west to find sanctuary amongst the Iroquois. However, the Iroquois instead killed them as a sign of goodwill to the English and Dutch. By the end of the war in 1638, fewer than 200 Pequot remained, most of whom were enslaved by other tribes. Not long after the war, in 1643, the Puritan colonies formed the New England Confederation, an agreement to protect each other from attack by the Dutch and Native Americans. Though limited in scope and ultimately largely ineffective, it did create the first forum outside of the English government for resolving disputes between colonial governments.
