I've been reading a lot about the 1600-1700 period recently and it always amazes me how quickly these people went from "our first goal is to not starve and our second goal live as good Christians" to "let's attack anyone and anything that doesn't share our view of what good a good Christian is"
On one hand humanity doesn't change much so it's not that surprising but 400yr later you can still see the scars the backwards ideologies of various groups of early settlers left on New England.
I just read a recent biography of Dr. Benjamin Rush and itβs clear that even before the American revolution there were some strongly opposing views of how to treat native Americans and whether or not it was morally defensible to enslave Africans. So some who called themselves Christians would accept these practices and many others, like Rush, loudly opposed them (just like the disagreements that happen within groups today).
It's amazing how many parallels there are between the issues of 1620-1760 and the issues of the modern day (like 2020 modern, not just the current century). The issues have changed but humanity hasn't.
The thing that really hit home for me was the rhetoric they sued to go after Morton, Williams and the other RI guy who had no issue with the natives (the name escapes me). It's like a straight copypasta from today.
On one hand humanity doesn't change much so it's not that surprising but 400yr later you can still see the scars the backwards ideologies of various groups of early settlers left on New England.