In an effort to discourage colonists and prevent newcomers from joining Indian societies, puritans suggested the "godly society"

The term Puritan originated in sixteenth-century England, and it was initially a term of abuse towards nonconformist clergy in the Church of England because they insisted on the need to purify the Church. These nonconformists "preferred to think of themselves as the 'godly', because they sought to only live out divine precepts they had found in the Bible."The 'godly' were zealous Protestants who lived a "distinctive and particularly intense variety of early modern Reformed Protestantism." The brand name given to the Puritans represented a particular "Protestant religiosity, social conduct, and politics."