Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640)

[2] King James I and Charles I made some efforts to reconcile the Puritan clergy who had been alienated by the lack of change in the Church of England.

[7] A group of separatist Puritans had fled from England to the Netherlands because they were unhappy with the insufficient reforms of the English church, and to escape persecution.

After a few years, however, they began to fear that their children would lose their English identities, so they traveled to the New World in 1620 and established Plymouth Plantation.

[8] They and the later wave of Puritan immigrants created a deeply religious, socially tight-knit, and politically innovative culture that is still present within the United States.

They fled England and attempted to create a "nation of saints" in America, an intensely religious, thoroughly righteous community designed to be an example for all of Europe and the rest of the world.