Origin stories are particularly influential collective memories, establishing a society in the minds of its members. National collective memories are frequently conceived as being shared by all members of the country, but subnational groups may differ in their images of the group’s past. Surveying 2000 Americans, we examined political and religious differences in foundational events selected for America’s origins. While there was considerable agreement across religious and political affiliations for the most important events, there were also critical differences. While all participants demonstrated a marked positivity bias in their origin stories, conservative participants more frequently omitted foundational atrocities from America’s origin story, and thus had the most positive stories. Secular participants were most likely to begin America with the independent state, whereas religious participants frequently began America with earlier colonization events. Origin stories accord with varying images of America and American identity.

No abstract

Since she came hither, she hath found her heart more dead and dull, etc., and being in much sickness when she came first into the land, she saw how vain a thing it was to put confidence in any creature. But yet it wrought some discontent in her own spirit, but [she] hath since witnessed the Lord's love to her. Sometime a heart to run and sometime to sit still in the Lord's way.-Elizabeth Olbon, "The Confessions" In the 1630s thousands of men, women, and childrenlike Elizabeth Olbonleft England's eastern shores for New England. These individuals were already migrants. They had, in all likelihood, moved at least once in their lives to escape religious persecution and to fulfill a religious ideal in a less encumbered setting. These religious migrants have become known as the Puritans, a group of people loosely defined through a shared and often zealous adherence to the reformed theological tradition, largely following the work of John Calvin. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Puritan movement took root in specific regional locales throughout Germany, Scotland, the Low Countries, and England. Religious conflict simmered from the 1580s forward and intensified during the reign of Charles I (1625-49) as Puritans repeatedly called for further reform, often through appeals to the early church and antiquity. Religious and political tension and persecution caused groups of Puritans to leave England in search of new lands and communities.

No abstract

No abstract