15 - The Middle Colonies, 1680–1730

Summary

More than a generation ago Carl Bridenbaugh, summing up the religious experience of the colonists on the Hudson and the Delaware, wrote, “In a region of so many nationalities – Dutch, Swedes, Finns, French, Germans, English – toleration was vital.” In contrast to the colonies to the north and south, which were largely ethnically homogeneous before 1730, with powerful established churches, Congregationalism in New England and Anglicanism in the South, the Middle Colonies – for the purposes of this essay New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware – presented a diverse array of faiths and peoples. All of the following found homes there: Dutch and German Reformed; French Huguenots; Swedish and German Lutherans; Scottish, Irish, and English Presbyterians; Welsh and English Baptists; English Congregationalists; and German, English, and Welsh Quakers, not to mention a variety of other sects. Roman Catholics also achieved grudging toleration there, and by 1730 most of North America's tiny Jewish population lived in New York. Living near them, of course, were Native Americans whose religious relationship with Europeans was often uneasy. And arriving involuntarily were growing numbers of enslaved Africans, who would be a source of both missionary labor and uneasy conscience for some of their European neighbors.

This essay presents an overview of the diversity of the religious experience of the inhabitants of the Middle Colonies between 1680 and 1730, largely in terms of denominations broadly defined. It examines not only “high” matters of theology and leadership, but also elements of faith closer to the experience of the masses of worshippers. In a world in which political leadership was firmly in male hands, it looks at how these religious groups incorporated women into their communities.