I have a complicated relationship with Puritans. In my classes I have led a “Puritan Dance Party” to help students grapple with their contradictions.

Puritans were certainly bigoted, pre-modern, religious fanatics. Mary Dyer, Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams also discovered the perils of dissenting from their orthodoxies. Their attitudes towards Native Americans, Blacks, Catholics, the French, etc. were atrocious.

At the same time they founded Harvard College, passed a law guaranteeing public education within their towns, and created a diverse and successful economic system. Their capacity for self critique sowed the seeds of their own reforms. The Puritans persecuted witches at a similar rate to Europe around the same period.

I have found some of our criticisms of the Puritans lack context and display temporal bias. Yes, Pennsylvania was founded on religious tolerance. It was also founded fifty years later and well after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) had devastated Europe. New York was founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam and was always focused more on profit and trade than religious uniformity.

I find it interesting how frequently the descendants of Puritans were at the forefront of movements for antislavery, women’s rights, and Native American sovereignty. Maybe it is a result of their own highly developed sense of guilt and morality coupled with an understanding of how their ancestors failed.