That may be true for some, but the original settlers came here not to escape religious persecution or because they found the Church of England to be too strict, but because they found the Church of England to be too lenient, not nearly strict enough.
At that time in England, there was no separation of Church and State. The people worshiped exactly the same way the King or Queen did, period. To worship against the crown was considered treason and it was punishable by imprisonment (and on rare occasions, if you were really adamant about it, death). If the King was Catholic, so were the people. If the King was Protestant, so were the people. Separatists who broke away from the Church of England (the Pilgrims) wanted to simply worship with the rules and rituals of the Anglican Church and live peacefully among others. In 17th century England this was not allowed, and King James I was very strict about it. So the Separatists moved to The Netherlands where they found the religious freedom they wanted, but couldn't find jobs, and felt the Dutch were far too lenient with their children, far too lenient in the way they worshiped (they worked on Sunday instead of observing the Sabbath), and their own children were growing up speaking Dutch and not English, which was bothersome. After a dozen years they went back to England to make arrangements to go to America.
An earlier group of Separatists settled in Jamestown, and the Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England headed for present-day New York at the mouth of the Hudson River, but storms prevented that, and 66 days later arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in 1620. In a few week's time the eventually chose Plymouth Harbor as their new home. Great harbor, clean supply of water, fields that were already cleared by the previous occupants (Patuxet Indians who in the 3 previous years had all died from European-brought Smallpox), and of course, no hostile native people because they were already dead.
Interestingly, the Pilgrims were set to depart England on the Mayflower and the Speedwell, but the Speedwell leaked so badly that they left it and most of its passengers behind. Many of the Speedwell's passengers were able to crown onto the Mayflower, 102 passengers and 32 crew on a boat designed for about half that number of passengers. After arriving most lived on the ship while they built houses. That first year, most of it spend on board, was a rough one. People got sick (pneumonia and scurvy) and 47 Pilgrims and half the crew died during that first year. In April 1621 the Mayflower and what as left of her crew returned to England, all of the Pilgrims remained.
Over the next few years more Separatists arrived and the colony grew, despite poor farming conditions (2 years of drought). The investors who financed the Pilgrims lost money, as the Pilgrims were supposed to farm the land and send the cops and fish and timber back top England. Very little got sent back and the investors disbanded in 1625 after receiving no return on their investment and after seeing so many settlers return to England with stories of really, really strict religious demands of the colony church leaders (about one-third of the colonists had returned). Each settler was given 1 acre of land to farm, but the colony's Church owned all the land and the livestock. The profits from the land was grossly mismanaged by Church leaders due to corruption, and the colonists were eventually tasked with having to take on the debts of the Church. It wasn't until 1627 that they finally owned their own livestock and 1628 before they took ownership of their land.
But the ones left behind stuck with the strict religious views, particularly that with sex and the disciplining of children, with many of their views still influencing America today.
Incidentally, after the 2-year drought, after one particularly nasty three-month period where it didn't rain a single drop, they got together one morning for several hours of prayer to pray for rain. By mid afternoon it was raining like crazy and the drought ended just like that. From that day on the farming in the colony was very prosperous. Despite the fact that it either never occurred to them in any time during the previous 2 years to pray for rain, or they did and they're prayers weren't answered, many people still to this day view that as a miracle of the power of prayer rather than the simple occurrence of coincidence that it was.
In answer to Maverick's morality question which I failed to answer directly as to whether or not I have any morality, and to what that morality should entail, yes, I do have a morality, and it's a morality that the Bible is permeated with from start to finish. It's the Golden Rule: Do unto to others as you would have others do unto you. Live and let live - live your life the way you know is right, and let others do the same.
It's a morality that takes care of right and wrong, and doesn't impose onto anyone a set of moral values that is based on a particular belief system which forces others to believe the same things in the same way in order to be moral themselves.
