ABSTRACT
The women and girls who inhabited colo-nial North America and the new UnitedStates were active participants in a stunning array of religious traditions and experiments-from Native American and African religious cultures to nearly every form of Western European Christianity and small congregations of Sephardic Jews. These traditions provided varying opportunities for women. Among Protestants in particular-the faith of the great majority of English America’s colonists-gender roles often reflected churches’ differing views of the clergy and the individual’s relationship to God.
