This said, the foundation of religious identity in America reflects a greater importance placed on religious ideas. Because specific European religious identities such as the Presbyterian and Congregationalist branches of Puritanism were dissatisfied with the status of their treatment in Europe, settlement began in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay with a main focus on religion. In Europe, Puritans were discontented with the English church’s corruption and its lack of hesitation in regards to baptism and acceptance into Catholicism. Puritan beliefs in accountability and group exclusivity translated into the creation of Puritan systems of governance and of legal documents stating allegiance to the larger group. Even before settling in America, the Mayflower Compact begins an American lack of legal separation between church and state. With the introduction of the Mayflower Compact, Early Colonial Puritans are able to create allegiance to the beginnings of America first before