The Pilgrims: The New England Colonists
The New England Colonists highly valued religion and rules. Some well known colonists are the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims came to the New England Colonies for freedom of religion. They believed that the Church of England had gone to far beyond Christ’s teachings. There way of dealing with serious crimes was execution. The lesser crimes were handled with fines. There was one law on guns, if you did not bring a loaded gun to church you were fined 12 shillings. The church building itself had no significance to the Pilgrims, and was usually called simply the "meetingplace" or "meetinghouse". The meetinghouse was kept drab, and had no religious icons. The pastor was not essential to the church. Another well known group of colonists are the Puritans.