The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3

VII. Influence of Racial and Religious Factors

Numerous non-English stocks—the Swedes on the Delaware, the Dutch on the Hudson, the Welsh Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the German Pietists at Germantown—were interspersed among the English. Then, following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France, in 1685, hundreds of Huguenots found their way to the American colonies. These settled in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, and South Carolina. In addition there were Negroes, and of course the Indians—the latter, one of the familiar sights. ²⁷ PFF3 29.2

The heterodox religious complexion is equally important. In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut the Congregational Dissenter had legal eccleciastical establishment, to which the taxpayers were compelled to contribute support—whether members or not. In Rhode Island there was no establishment. In New York the Dutch Reformed establishment had fallen at the time of the English conquest. Then the Church of England sought to pass an act of establishment, but did not succeed. In New Jersey there was no establishment, nor in Pennsylvania and Delaware. PFF3 29.3

In Virginia, in Maryland from 1692, and in the Carolinas, the Church of England was the state church, but with many Dissenters in Virginia and Catholics in Maryland. Such was the extreme religious diversity. Meantime, forces were at work “tending to disintegrate the belief in the necessity or desirability of a union between church and state.” ²⁸ PFF3 30.1