Comment by throw4847285

Comment by throw4847285 4 days ago

Displaced in terms of total population, but the aristocracy of the US was mostly Mayflower types will into the 20th Century.

I think some overstate the influence of Radical Protestants on American ideology with offhand references to Max Weber or by calling whatever their pet cause is a fight against "secular puritanism." On the other hand, I do think there are some interesting parallels.

For example, one could argue that the mistreatment of colonists by the mother country was overstated by a population already distrustful of the Crown. I'm no expert, but it would be interesting to read more about that dynamic.

ch4s3 4 days ago

I don't disagree, but the descendants of the Puritans stopped being Puritans pretty quickly. The Halfway Covenant was only about 40 years after they landed in Plymouth and there were virtually no Puritans by 1740.

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Gormo 3 days ago

"Pretty quickly" may be an exaggeration there, given that 1740 was a good five generations after the founding of the Plymouth colony, and they were still famously conducting witch trials only fifty years earlier.
But it surely did happen -- IIRC, Adams and Jefferson were both noting in their correspondence how by the end of the 18th century most of the Puritan descendants had somehow become Unitarians.

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- ch4s3 2 days ago
  
  Like I said, the halfway covenant was less than 2 generations after landing, and the character of Puritanism in America was totally different after that point.
  
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