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5 months agoThe basics are that the first colonies were created by a splinter faction of the Church of England known as the Puritans. There were other Puritan groups who formed colonies in New England, but the Pilgrims are the group most people think of when talking about the birth of the US, who were distinct from other groups of Puritans for pushing for complete separation from the Church of England. The Puritans basically believed that the Church of England didn’t go far enough in separating from the Catholic Church.
To be honest, despite my hometown being one town over from their original landing site (iirc, not technically where they first landed, but where they actually disembarked), I had to look them up because all I could really remember about them is that I tend to call them “a bunch of never-nude prudes.”
I’m still not exactly clear on what their issues with the Church of England were, but I was surprised to learn that they were apparently pretty against slavery, especially for the time period. Slaves made up like 3% of their total workforce and had almost all the same rights recognized by the government as any other citizen, apparently.