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This jibes with info I'd found, when researching genealogy. I was surprised at the time, because you never hear about this in history classes, usually (you had a good teacher!), but the first arrival of my grandmother's lineage, to the early colony, was said to be a Puritan, and he was run out of town, or out of the settlement, for that. Thanks for posting this nugget of info.
I was born 30 miles from Plymouth Rock so I'm fairly up on that slice of history. The Puritans were a religious cult. They bailed out of England for the the Netherlands. Didn't fit in there so they bailed out to form a colony in Massachusetts. As Massachusetts grew, Plymouth Colony was merged into the Massachusetts Bay Colony 70 years after the Mayflower landed. They were so massively outnumbered and so economically dominated by Boston that they assimilated. By the Revolutionary War era, there was nothing left of the original cult.
Over there, if you put down someone who is on public assistance or in social housing, you're a jerk.
I'm a conservative in the U.S. and I still think that is true.
No one is a bigger **** than someone who kicks you while you're down. Except people who hurt kids/animals/helpless folks.
I was born 30 miles from Plymouth Rock so I'm fairly up on that slice of history. The Puritans were a religious cult. They bailed out of England for the the Netherlands. Didn't fit in there so they bailed out to form a colony in Massachusetts. As Massachusetts grew, Plymouth Colony was merged into the Massachusetts Bay Colony 70 years after the Mayflower landed. They were so massively outnumbered and so economically dominated by Boston that they assimilated. By the Revolutionary War era, there was nothing left of the original cult.
They morphed into the fire-and-brimstone-preaching Presbyterians, over time, according to my research. They may have disappeared as Puritans, but people with that worldview, or those extreme religious beliefs, were attracted to other sects that shared a similar ideology. It got passed down through generations.
As a Dutch person, to me this topic seems contradictory because it's usually the more progressive people looking for better opportunities or adventure abroad for example in the land of opportunity. I could imagine they would stick to habits of the old country, even if that country itself isn't very conservative, to maintain their own identity or to distantiate themselves from 'bad' influences of the new world like rock, punk, or more recently hippety hop or rap. Yet, in case of Dutch people moving to the US, many went there for opportunities in farming and in the Netherlands itself too, farmers are among the most conservative people. So, it may appear Dutch people in the US are conservative although the Dutch themselves generally are not.
my own mother left because she didn't want to continue living in a small town Catholic community (coming from the Catholic part of the Netherlands; Protestants typically live in the Northern region of the country). the liberal values of where she moved in the U.S. appealed to her. she's pretty much a 'self-made' person when it comes to values, and pays more attention to follow-up actions than "ideals". just moderate, considering individual actual experiences in everyday life.
They morphed into the fire-and-brimstone-preaching Presbyterians, over time, according to my research. They may have disappeared as Puritans, but people with that worldview, or those extreme religious beliefs, were attracted to other sects that shared a similar ideology. It got passed down through generations.
Presbyterians are the Scottish version of Catholic-lite. Lots of guilt. It was never a cult.
Dutch Americans are overwhelmingly staunch Protestants, conservative, and Republican voters. The Dutch are among the most liberal and irreligious people in the world.
Because the Hollanders that arrived at the New World were cannon fodder pursued by the Holy Inquisition, so they were bitter against Catholics, the Hapsburgs, that wanted to roast them.
Those long and gruesome religious wars long forgotten in Europe.
Somehow those wars have survived in some congregations in the US, but if you mention them in any church in western Europe people will fart from laughing.
Actually a lot of the Netherlands are conservative and/or right-wing. Scandinavia and Europe as a whole as well. The suburban cities and small towns are generally conservative and the big cities are not. Which is pretty much the dynamic almost everywhere. The Netherlands specifically has a region they call De Bijbelgordel, the Dutch Bible Belt, which has the highest concentration of Calvinest Protestants in the country. And there are various other Calvinist communities sprinkled thoroughout as well.
Actually a lot of the Netherlands are conservative and/or right-wing. Scandinavia and Europe as a whole as well. The suburban cities and small towns are generally conservative and the big cities are not. Which is pretty much the dynamic almost everywhere. The Netherlands specifically has a region they call De Bijbelgordel, the Dutch Bible Belt, which has the highest concentration of Calvinest Protestants in the country. And there are various other Calvinist communities sprinkled thoroughout as well.
They seem to be politically marginalized, though. Or maybe they don’t get involved in politics.
Hey, I got married in a lovely 17th-century stone church also, and we were also not members of the church. (I got divorced in a boring-looking county courthouse.)
I don't know if the church itself promoted racist thinking, so no, I'm not saying that. It may have been the Dutch culture. I remember older people saying when I was a child that black people were destined by God to be slaves because God cursed Noah's son Ham that his descendants would be slaves. It was assumed that Africans must therefore be the descendants of Ham. This was common thinking, at least at one time in the not-so-distant past.
But yes, judging each person on their own merits is my personal song and dance and has been for some years. No pun intended, the church I knew was very black-and-white in its thinking. There was Good and Evil and not much gray area in between. As late as 25 years ago, a childhood friend of mine committed suicide, and the next Sunday someone at church approached his parents to extend his sympathy--and remind them that their son "went straight to hell". Of course, that is an individual speaking, but the environment had to be such that he felt it was appropriate to make such a statement.
I do understand that one of the more famous Reformed Churches, Marble Collegiate in New York City, is quite open-minded and liberal. Nice to know. I have not been part of the RCA for forty years, so things may have changed elsewhere as well.
That is similar to Africaners in South Africa. As after all the Dutch Reformed Church endorsed Apartheid. But these days a lot of Africaners have abandoned that church and that church has become liberal.
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