Read on Twitter
There’s a moment at the end of my lecture on Plymouth, Mass Bay, and New Haven where I just say, look: these folks wanted religious freedom for themselves but NOT for anyone else. And you can see the students start to get it. 1/
I generally treat Rhode Island in the next lecture (and thematically deal with MD and PA at a different moment) but even then, I remind students that these spaces existed bc other colonies did NOT practice religious freedom. 2/
And even in Tolerationist colonies, Catholics, Jews, and Quakers could run into problems, depending on where they were and when. 3/
When I tell students about Quakers being jailed and executed, they are usually shocked. The mythology of Pilgrims to First Amendment remains powerful and widespread. 4/
Of course NO colony made space for Native religiosities outside of Christianity. No matter how things started out, settlers invariably moved towards extirpation (even of Indigenous converts, so Christianity was no protection there). 5/
All this is to say we clearly have a long way to go getting ppl to understand this past. /fin
