ABSTRACT
The English colonies of America had different religious cultures from their earliest founding: Congregationalism in New England, the Anglican church in New York, the South, and the West Indies. Catholics claimed a foothold in Maryland, Baptists in Rhode Island, Presbyterians in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Dissenting sects sprang up in all areas. Some new immigrants brought religious systems with them, such as Lutherans and Moravians in Pennsylvania. Others, notably African slaves, brought religious backgrounds that splintered or went underground in the colonies, making their influence felt indirectly. By the end of the eighteenth century Methodism would be a growing force, along with evangelical strands in the more established denominations. A synagogue had appeared in Bridgetown, Barbados, in the middle of the seventeenth century; another followed in New York.
