Colonial religious liberty was originally limited to Protestants.

Evidence

Notably, the Puritans’ religious intolerance centered on eliminating popery in the colonies while religious nonconformists under the umbrella of Protestantism proliferated. Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and other dissenting Protestant churches clashed with Puritans’ constricted interpretations of Christianity. Quakers were whipped and hung, Baptists were expelled, and religious dissenters were treated like a plague threatening God’s chosen people. As the number of dissidents grew exponentially, religious pluralism gained a foothold in colonial laws by necessity. But full religious liberty was still limited to Protestants, whereas minimal religious tolerance was granted to Catholics and other Christians. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 282

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the historical accident where religious pluralism in America emerged as a pragmatic necessity under intra-Protestant pressure, not from principle.
• XREF: Echoes the book’s core argument that each new religious minority is racialized in turn; conversation with the earlier anti-Jew and anti-Catholic passages. — connects to: American Christian nationalist ministries expand by exploiting former British colonies’ Protestant ties — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 185