Basically, Christ-followers who rejected the Romanist dognatic practices that disagreed with those of the Savior, His Personally-indoctrinated Disciple-apostles, their written record, and their spiritual descendants who relied on and were sustained by local assemblies of people who understood and were Spiritually alive because of the Holy Scriptures that were taken as their sole guide, individuaally or corporately.
Of the Founders of colonies in North America, one must start with these three:
(1) France's Huguenots, a variety of the b>Valdois/Waldensesclick here> that emerged in the Piedmont areas, about 1200 A.D,. contemporary with to the time of the Magna Carta in England;While the greater migration of them followed, as well as the inundation of Romanist religionists in Maryland and Dutch Reformists in New York, there is much, much more from this initial penetration of people believing in the individual right of every human to life, liberty, and justly seeking after happiness, these being self-evident innate rights given by God and not by government, the governing systems put in place to promote and enforce these rights, not withhold them without common approval.(2) the English "Pilgrims,"click here> a local assembly of Bible-believing abd -preaching adherents meeting in Scrooby of Nottinghamshire, and having well-done translations of the original Scriptures as their foundation, not Reformists, but seeking identity with the New Testament prototype gatherings of Spirit-born humans professing allegiance to Christ, persecuted by not only Romanists but also by pope-less Anglican state religious officers and Cromwell's Puritans, first fled to the Netherlands, then back to England yo embark on the Mayflower vessel for America, to escape feudalism, its episcopacies and presbyteries, so that they might exist separately in the new land, being guided by God Alone according to His Word and Spirit, and congregayionally trusting in their more spiritually mature elders for implementation of accepted regulation; and
(3) the King-rejecting Puritansclick here, separated from the immediate authority of both the distant Anglican state church and the aristocracy involved.
The rest of history that follows is up to the reader of this comment. I'm with the Pilgrims, not very wealthy, but God-fearing and still existimg. Very small, but a minority with great powr delegated from The Lord of Lords to herald the Gospel if eternal life.
All Christians