Approximately 20,000 Puritans migrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 and 1640, led by John Winthrop who delivered his famous 'City upon a Hill' sermon aboard the Arbella. This Great Migration represented a significant demographic and religious exodus driven by persecution under Charles I and Archbishop Laud.

The Puritan migration produced a rich literary culture in New England that maintained connections to English poetic traditions while developing distinct American voices. The rhetoric of covenant theology and typological interpretation found in sermons and diaries influenced religious poetry on both sides of the Atlantic, creating transatlantic literary networks that persisted through the Civil War period.