They (Puritans) escaped England because of persecution and then started it right here.
Here are a couple of comments about the Puritan moral scolds of the past. These comments were made to the US Senate by Texas Senator Wigfall on the day Texas officially withdrew from the Union (March 2, 1861):
"...then Cromwell had to run them [the Puritans] out of England; and then they went over to Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else; and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. And from that time to this, they have been kicking up a dust generally, and making a mess whenever they could put their fingers in the pie. They confederated with the other states to save themselves from the power of old King George III; and no sooner than they had gotten rid of him than they turned to persecuting their neighbors. Having got rid of the Indians, and witches, and Baptists, and Quakers in their country; after selling us our negroes for the love of gold, they began stealing them back for the love of God. That is the history as well as I understand it."
"That the people of the North shall consider themselves as more blessed than we, more civilized, and happier, is not a matter at which we would complain at all, if they would only content themselves with believing that to be the fact; but when they come and attempt to propagandize, and insist that we shall be as perfect as they imagine themselves to be, then it is that their good opinion of themselves becomes offensive to us. Let my neighbor believe that his wife is an angel and his children cherubs, I care not, though I may know he is mistaken; but when he comes impertinently poking his nose into my door every morning, and telling me that my wife is a shrew and my children brats, then the neighborhood becomes uncomfortable, and if I cannot remove him, I will remove myself; and if he says to me, "you shall not move, but you shall stay here, and you shall, day after day, hear the demerits of your wife and children discussed," then I begin to feel a little restive, and possibly might assert that great original right of pursuing whatever may conduce to my happiness, though it might be kicking him out of my door. If New England would only be content with the blessings which she imagines she has, we would not disturb her in her happiness."
“...then Cromwell had to run them [the Puritans] out of England; and then they went over to Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else; and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock.”
That is the most ignorant thing I have seen in quite a while. And that son of a bitch was a Senator?
First off, King James was on the throne when the Puritans landed-the Mayflower compact came into being under him.
Second, Oliver Cromwell wasnt even a thought at that time. Matter of fact, Cromwell, during the reign of Charles the First, had made plans to come to America to escape persecution. Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan.
Third, the Puritan persecutions against other religions did not happen till long after the establishment of the colony and into the 1640s, most likely the early 1650s.
Why they did that is..my guess, is they feared history repeating again. But never the less, they did that and the rest his history-not the history some dumb ass ignorant Senator from that state claimed back then.