ROOT AND BRANCH: NEW ENGLAND'S RELIGIOUS RADICALS AND THEIR TRANSATLANTIC COMMUNITY, 1600--1660

This dissertation explores the cultural roots of New England's early sectarian movement and reconstructs the social networks which comprised it. Its major purpose is to recognize the continuity of New England's radical Puritan tradition which past studies have neglected to bring to light. Former histories of seventeenth-century New England have assumed that religious dissent before 1660 was sporadic and had little connection to later sectarian growth. In contrast, this dissertation argues that heresy preoccupied the Puritan founders because the various branches of radical dissent known in England were evident here by the time of the Antinomian Controversy. Colonial dissent was closely tied to the larger movement in England and the Continent. Transatlantic communication between Old and New England strengthened the indigenous colonial movement. As in the Old World, New England's radicals maintained their separate identity by intricate familial and associational networks that were continuous over three generations at least. By exploring both the cultural and social worlds of New England's early religious dissenters one discovers a vital underground movement that eventually gave rise to new religious traditions. Meanwhile, the Puritan establishment resisted the ongoing challenge to the developing "New England way." The effort to sustain the myth of a harmonious spiritual commonwealth determined the course of action against New England's heretics which in turn effected diplomatic relationships with the mother country. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 restrained theocratic excesses, but New England's sectarians were already well-defined groups by that historic year.