<span>The Puritans separated from the
churches in their local parishes where preaching was viewed as
inadequate, hiring their own lecturers who were well-versed in reform
theology. These lecturers were prosecuted by the monarch and Church of
England officials. The last straw may have been when King Charles I
dissolved Parliament in 1629. This dissolution prevented Puritan leaders
from working within the system to effect change and left them
vulnerable to persecution. Moderate Puritans chartered the Massachusetts
Bay Colony in the same year. The New World represented both a refuge
from persecution and an opportunity to establish a “Zion in the
wilderness.” Puritans imagined their migration to the New World mirrored
the Biblical story of Exodus.
Between 1629 and 1640, over 20,000 men, women and children left
England to settle permanently in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the
Americas. When Parliament was re-established in 1640, migration dropped
drastically.</span>
