English Dissenters in the context of "George Fox"

The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who travelled to North America on the ship Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony at what now is Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States. John Smith had named this territory New Plymouth in 1620, sharing the name of the Pilgrims' final departure port of Plymouth, Devon, England. The Pilgrims' leadership came from religious congregations of Brownists or Separatists who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands.

These Separatists held many of the same Calvinist religious beliefs as Puritans, but unlike Puritans (who wanted a purified established church), Pilgrims believed that their congregations should separate from the Church of England, which led to them being labelled Separatists. After several years of living in exile in Holland, they determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fund them. In 1620, they established the Plymouth Colony, in which they erected Congregational churches. The Puritans' later establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony eventually became more powerful in the area; but the Pilgrims' story nevertheless became a central theme in the history and culture of the United States.

Presbyterianism (pres-bə-TE-ree-a-nizm) is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named after its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that were formed during the English Civil War, 1642 to 1651.

Presbyterian theology typically emphasises the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Scotland ensured Presbyterian church government in the 1707 Acts of Union, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In fact, most Presbyterians in England have a Scottish connection. The Presbyterian denomination was also taken to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, mostly by Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants. Scotland's Presbyterian denominations hold to the Reformed theology of John Calvin and his immediate successors, although there is a range of theological views within contemporary Presbyterianism. Local congregations of churches that use Presbyterian polity are governed by sessions made up of representatives of the congregation (elders), a conciliar approach as with other levels of decision-making (presbytery, synod, and general assembly). There are roughly 75 million Presbyterians in the world.

Anglo-Irish people (Irish: Angla-Éireannach) denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping consisting mostly of the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Predominantly, the Anglo-Irish belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the established Church of Ireland until 1871 or, to a lesser extent, to one of the English Dissenting Churches, such as Baptists, Presbyterians, the Methodist Church. However, some were Roman Catholics. They often defined themselves simply as "British", or less frequently as "Anglo-Irish", "Irish" or "English". Many became notable as administrators in the British Empire or as senior army and naval officers. The Kingdom of England and Great Britain were in a real union with the Kingdom of Ireland for over a century, before politically uniting into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

The term is not usually applied to Presbyterians in the province of Ulster, whose ancestry is mostly Lowland Scottish, rather than English or Irish, and who are sometimes identified as Ulster Scots. The Anglo-Irish hold a wide range of political views, with some being outspoken Irish nationalists, but most overall being Unionists. And while most of the Anglo-Irish originated in the English diaspora in Ireland, others were descended from families of the old Gaelic nobility of Ireland.

The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England.

Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration of certain practices associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian, and congregational types. Some believed a uniform reform of the established church was called for to create a godly nation, while others advocated separation from, or the end of, any established state church entirely in favour of autonomous gathered churches, called-out from the world. These Separatist and Independents became more prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.

Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England, founded in 1620, and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on the Mayflower at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of what is now the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.

Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Protestant Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe. Plymouth played a central role in King Philip's War (1675–1678), one of several Indian Wars. The colony was ultimately merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

The Brownists were a Christian group in 16th-century England. They were a group of English Dissenters or early Separatists from the Church of England. They were named after Robert Browne, who was born at Tolethorpe Hall in Rutland, England, in the 1550s. The terms Brownists or Separatists were used to describe them by outsiders; they were known as Saints among themselves.

A majority of the Separatists aboard the Mayflower in 1620 were Brownists, and the Pilgrims were known into the 20th century as the Brownist Emigration.

Nonconformists are Protestant Christians who do not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England.

Use of the term Nonconformist in England and Wales was precipitated by the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 renewed opposition to reforms within the established church. By the late 19th century the term specifically included other Reformed Christians (English Presbyterians and Congregationalists), plus the Baptists, Brethren, Methodists, and Quakers. English Dissenters, such as the Puritans, who violated the Act of Uniformity 1558 – typically by practising radical, sometimes separatist, dissent – were retrospectively labelled as Nonconformists.

Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population (or 141 million people) in 2019. Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population (or 157 million people) is Protestant. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. The U.S. contains the largest Protestant population of any country in the world. Baptists comprise about one-third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S., comprising one-tenth of American Protestants. Twelve of the original Thirteen Colonies were Protestant, with only Maryland having a sizable Catholic population due to Lord Baltimore's religious tolerance.

The country's history is often traced back to the Pilgrim Fathers whose Brownist beliefs motivated their move from England to the New World. These English Dissenters, who also happened to be Puritans—and therefore Calvinists—, were first to settle in what was to become the Plymouth Colony. America's Calvinist heritage is often underlined by various experts, researchers and authors, prompting some to declare that the United States was "founded on Calvinism", while also underlining its exceptional foundation as a Protestant majority nation. American Protestantism has been diverse from the very beginning with large numbers of early immigrants being Anglican, various Reformed, Lutheran, and Anabaptist. In the next centuries, it diversified even more with the Great Awakenings throughout the country.

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was an English colony on the eastern coast of America, founded in 1636 by Puritan minister Roger Williams, at a settlement he originally called Providence Plantations, after his exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Joined by three other settlements soon founded on Narragansett Bay, the colony became a haven for religious dissenters and was known for its commitment to religious freedom and self-governance.

The four Narragansett Bay settlements created an official confederacy through a charter under the Patent of 1643–1644, granted by the English Parliament. It received a more comprehensive Royal Charter in 1663 from King Charles II, which established its government and guaranteed its religious liberties. Rhode Island continued as a self-governing colony until 1776, when it declared independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution, becoming the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the Mayflower, consisting of Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. Although the agreement contained a pledge of loyalty to the King, the Puritans and other Protestant Separatists were dissatisfied with the state of the Church of England, the limited extent of the English Reformation and reluctance of King James I of England to enforce further reform.

The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 21 [O.S. November 11], 1620. Signing the covenant were 41 of the ship's 101 passengers; the Mayflower was anchored in Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.