<P> The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined sharply for a time . The term Great Migration usually refers to the migration in this period of English Puritans to Massachusetts and the West Indies, especially Barbados . They came in family groups rather than as isolated individuals and were motivated chiefly by a quest for freedom to practice their Puritan religion . </P> <P> King James I of England made some efforts to reconcile the Puritan clergy in England, who had been alienated by the conservatism blocking reform in the Church of England . Puritans embraced Calvinism (Reformed theology) with its opposition to ritual and an emphasis on preaching, a growing sabbatarianism, and preference for a presbyterian system of church polity as opposed to the episcopal polity of the Church of England, which had also preserved medieval canon law almost intact . They opposed church practices that resembled Roman Catholic ritual . </P> <P> This religious conflict worsened after Charles I became king in 1625, and Parliament increasingly opposed his authority . In 1629, Charles dissolved Parliament with no intention of summoning a new one, in an ill - fated attempt to neutralize his enemies there--which included numerous Puritans . With the religious and political climate so unpromising, many Puritans decided to leave the country . Some of the migration was also from the expatriate English communities in the Netherlands of nonconformists and Separatists who had set up churches there since the 1590s . </P> <P> The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 included eleven ships led by the flagship Arbella; it delivered some 700 passengers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony . Migration continued until Parliament was reconvened in 1640, at which point the scale dropped off sharply . The English Civil War began in 1641, and some colonists returned from New England to England to fight on the Puritan side . Many then remained in England, since Oliver Cromwell backed Parliament as an Independent . </P>

How did puritan influence in new england change from the 1600s to the 1700s