By Balmer, Randall

Ever since the first days of European settlement—and even before that with the wide variety of Native cultures—diversity has been one of the distinguishing features of religious life in North America. Sometimes the juxtaposition of religious groups created conflict, as when Spanish settlers sought to impose Roman Catholicism on the Pueblos in the Southwest, leading to the Pueblo uprising of 1680, seventy years after the founding of Santa Fe as the first European capital city in North America. At other times, religious groups have accommodated to one another, as in the Middle Colonies, where rampant ethnic and religious diversity forced various groups to find some way to coexist. This essay chronicles some of the religious diversity that exists in the United States and the ways people have dealt with this pluralism over time.

Subjects

History / Education Studies / American History / Religious Pluralism / Thirteen Colonies / Freedom of Religion / Religious Intolerance / Immigration /