The Puritans were originally members of a group of English Protestants seeking "purity" — further reforms or even separation from the established church (Anglican Church) — during the Protestant Reformation. The single theological movement most consistently self-described by the term "Puritan" was Reformed or Calvinist and led to the establishment of the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist churches. The term was used by the group itself mainly in the sixteenth century, though it seems to have been used often and, in its earliest recorded instances, as a term of abuse.
During the reign of Charles I (1625-1649) Puritans were more often referred to as Dissenters. Since English Dissenters were barred from any profession that required official religious conformity, Puritans became instrumental in a number of new industries. They dominated the export/import business and were eager to colonize the New World. With the flourishing of the trans-Atlantic trade with America, Puritans in England were growing quite wealthy. Similarly, the artisan classes had become increasingly Puritan, thanks to the Puritan emphasis on preaching and evangelizing. Therefore, the economic issues of the Civil War (tax levies, liberalization of royal charters), the political issues of the Civil War (purchasing of peerages, increasing disconnect between the House of Lords and the people, rebellion over the attempt to introduce a Divine right of kings to Charles I), and the religious tensions were all bound together into a general dispute that pitted Church of England Cavaliers against Puritan Roundheads. Puritans played a key role in the Parliamentarian victory and became a majority in Parliament, while Puritan military leader Oliver Cromwell became head of the English Commonwealth.
The influence of the Puritan movement persisted in England as the Evangelical faction of the Church of England, sometimes called "Low Anglican", while in the United States the Puritan settlement of New England was a major influence on American Protestantism.
 

The Puritans were one branch of dissenters who decided that the Church of England could not be reformed. Escaping persecution from church leadership and the King, they went to America (1620, Mayflower). Most of the Puritans settled in the New England area. As they immigrated and formed individual colonies, their numbers rose from 18,000 in 1640 to 100,000 in 1700. 

vocabulary:

credits:

The text was extracted from Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia under GNU Free Documentation Licence.