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Religion has been a fundamental component in every colonization known to man since the Garden of Eden. In fact, one is hard pressed to find a culture where the act of utilizing the principle of religion as a cornerstone is not employed. However it was upon the virgin soil of America that Religion made one of its most indelible conquests. Religious conviction played a vital role in all of the continent's fledgling settlements, but particularly in two colonies did religion, unequivocally, have the most radically different effect. It was religion that drove the New England colony and Middle Atlantic colony down two starkly opposite paths, but one was a religion of uniformity and government by God, and the other, a religion promising exactly the opposite. The doxology, or lack thereof, practiced in these two neighboring settlements was the basis for their entire beginnings, and the foundation for every facet of life within, the New England colonies standing united by a common faith, and the Middle Atlantic colonies in which freedom was the only common religion. These two settlements were hugely contrary but both began, and were fueled by the religion that they employed.
The hand of European religious persecution ignited the spark of immigration to the new world of America. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established as "holy experiments" by the puritans. This group of English Protestants, whose only wish was to "purify" the Church of England, began to receive savage punishment from England for their religious beliefs. In turn, driven by religion, thousands of the religious zealots immigrated to New England to worship God in the way that they saw fit. However, although the Puritans did leave England, running from there own religious persecution, once they had established themselves they self-righteously employed the exact same old-world custom that drove them to the refuge of America. The Puritans held the...