I’m 33 and American. This myth is so widespread here I didn’t know the truth until I was TWENTY-NINE. I was literally taught something similar IN COLLEGE—that the Puritans were so reactionary in America as a result of what happened to them in England. And this was in a class about the history of witchcraft accusations and the Salem witch trials. Like, we were taught that they were horrible HERE, but the narrative was still that they faced injustice in England.
This wasn’t a stupid teacher, either. She had her first doctorate and was pursuing a second. Basically everything else I learned in that class checks out. The myth just runs THAT DEEP.
Yep. :/
This thread got me watching this BBC documentary on Oliver Cromwell and I highly recommend it anyone else who also had no idea.
The "injustice" the Puritans faced was not being in power any more and thus not being able to oppress people who didn't worship in the same intolerant way they did.
So they went to America and did it there.
They seem to have done it on and off ever since.
I was a whole-ass adult the first time I heard it framed as "the Puritans were so extreme and oppresive in their religious practices that every country in Europe kicked them out."
I *had* kind of known that, but I had not, well, heard it *framed* that way, and the framing is really critical. It's really difficult to get past childhood indoctrination (that continues into adulthood, like, this is not a piece of information that most American have access to: "persecuted because of religious intolerance" is as far as it goes) even if, technically speaking, you have access to all the facts.
Fun fact: you can live in Central Europe and still be adult when you'll learn that puritans were not exactly persecuted religious minority.
The myth doesn't just run deep, it also runs wide.
