At the time the federal government made the Lake Superior Mining Region available for exploration and mining, there was much movement throughout the Western Hemisphere. Particularly in Western Europe, where the same wars over the same causes had continued more or less without abating since the Middle Ages. Beginning in the 16th century, the fractionalization of Christianity that began with what historians call the Reformation Movement added Protestantism to the list of causes for warfare. As more and more religions were organized according to their founders’ personal beliefs and interpretations of Christianity, increasing divisions they caused often became the cause of warfare. The most extreme of these was Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell was a Puritan, Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices. Cromwell believed that the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church, and that the reformation was not complete until it became more protestant. Cromwell had missed the point in the actions of Henry VIII, however, when Henry declared himself the head of the Church in England. It was not Henry’s intention to alter the beliefs and practices of the Church in England, only to transfer the authority of it from the Bishop of Rome to himself. Changes that were made were in regard to practice and culture, not doctrine. Cromwell raised an army, started the English Civil War, declared King Charles I was guilty of treason against him, and had him beheaded. He next went to war against the Catholics of Scotland and Ireland. When he was finished, one-fifth of the Irish population was left dead. Even for the times, Cromwell’s actions were considered criminal. Guilty of treason, waging civil war, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and crimes against humanity, Oliver Cromwell was so hated in England that he is the only prominent leader in history to be executed two years after his death.

One of the Cromwell parliament’s more ridiculous acts was the banning of Christmas. In June 1647, Cromwell’s fellow fanatics passed an ordinance that abolished Christmas Day as a feast day and holiday.

According to History Extra (the official website of the BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed), while Cromwell certainly supported the move, and subsequent laws imposing penalties for those who continued to enjoy Christmas, he does not seem to have played much of a role in leading the campaign.

Throughout the medieval period, Christmas Day had been marked by special church services, and by magnificent feasts accompanied by heavy drinking. The subsequent 12 Days of Christmas saw more special services along with sports, games and more eating and drinking.

By the early 17th Century Puritans and other firm Protestants were seeing the Christmas jollifications as unwelcome survivors of Catholicism as well as excuses for all manner of sins. Cromwell’s tyranny and his love of absolute power knew no limits. A ban on Christmas was too much.

On 25 December 1647, there was trouble at Bury, History Extra reported, while pro-Christmas riots also took place at Norwich and Ipswich. During the course of the Ipswich riot, a protester named ‘Christmas’ was reported to have been slain – a fatality which could be regarded as richly symbolic, of course, of the way that parliament had ‘killed’ Christmas itself. In London, a crowd of apprentices assembled at Cornhill on Christmas Day, and there “in spite of authority, they set up Holly and Ivy” on the pinnacles of the public water conduit. When the lord mayor dispatched some officers “to pull down these gawds,” the apprentices resisted them, forcing the mayor to rush to the scene with a party of soldiers and to break up the demonstration by force.

The worst disturbances of all took place at Canterbury, where a crowd of protestors first smashed up the shops which had been opened on Christmas Day and then went on to seize control of the entire city. This riot helped to pave the way for a major insurrection in Kent in 1648 that itself formed part of the ‘Second Civil War’ – a scattered series of risings against the parliament and in favor of the king, which Fairfax and Cromwell only managed to suppress with great difficulty.

Protestant wars also raged across Germany, France, Switzerland, and a host of countries to the east, and then by the 19th century, other wars raged over territorial gain, empire-building, and rogue kingdoms. Of course, this constant warring destroyed economies, cities, rural regions, not to mention human lives into the millions. By 1800, Europeans were already emigrating to get out of war zones, escape religious persecution, and avoid being drafted in armies that never won the war.

The Cromwellians had taken Great Britain, but they could not hold it. After the Monarchy was restored and Charles II was placed on the throne in 1660, the Puritans decided it was time to leave. They were granted a colony in Massachusetts Bay, where they could establish their own laws, and went to happily killing those they deemed as witches.

In 1634, Charles I allowed for the establishment of Maryland, which began as a proprietary colony of the English Lord Baltimore, who wished to create a haven for English Catholics in the new world during the European wars of religion.

Crossing the Atlantic and forming a new colony did not guarantee an end to the Protestant religious wars, thought. Religious conflict among Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, and Quakers was common in the early years, and Puritan militants, as had been their practice in Great Britain, attacked Maryland and took control of the province. In 1689, the year following the Glorious Revolution, John Coode led a rebellion that removed Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, from power in Maryland.

The Pilgrims, who were Separatists of the Puritans, established colonies as did the Puritans, throughout what was called New England. Once again, Christmas became one of the many targets of these Fundamentalist sects. But when the Lake Superior copper region was finally opened to mining, the first Protestants to enter the region were Quakers. These were men like John Hays, Cyrus Mendenhall, Curtis Hussey, and other initial capital investors. The Quakers, unlike the Puritans and the Pilgrims did not believe in making war in the name of God. Rather, they taught acceptance, tolerance and the brotherly love taught in the New Testament. The copper region would indeed be a place of religious tolerance, because it was a mining region. Its principal business was mining and profit, not conflict and killing. Perhaps Christmas would have a different approach in this new wilderness region.

Graham Jaehnig has a BA of Social Science/History from Michigan Technological University, and an MA in English/Creative Nonfiction Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. He is internationally known for his writing on Cornish immigration to the United States mining districts.