I read it many times that America was founded by puritans, who crossed the Atlantic on Mayflower and landed in Massachusetts.
But recently it was pointed out to me that Virginia was dominated the Anglican Church, Maryland, by Catholics, and Penn by Quakers.
I'm confused now. Why the founding of America is so often linked to the arrival of Puritans, if they were just one among several religious groups and limited geographically to just one area (Northeast)?
Where did you read that America was founded by puritans?
New England long dominated the intellectual and cultural life of the United States. In some ways it still does--most of the country's most prestigious universities lie in the relatively narrow strip of land along I-95 from Washington, D.C. to Boston (obviously there are great universities in other places, but think of the continued prominence of the "Ivy League," especially Harvard and Yale). It was Harvard, and later Yale*, educated/employed scholars who wrote many of the early prominent histories of the country, and they naturally tended to emphasize the contributions of their own communities. Heck, many of their own direct ancestors were major figures, so this is perhaps not surprising. It wasn't just in founding mythology that New England came to stand in for the whole country. It happened in other areas, like landscape painting, as well.
Further, Harvard was long the divinity school associated with the Congregationalist (and later Unitarian) ministers who formed the intellectual class of the antebellum period. These religious traditions are directly descended from the Puritans, so they naturally emphasized those origins.
*In the 19th century PhDs from Germany became more popular, I know, but for simplicity's sake let's go with this.
Source: Miller, Empire of the Eye. There are other rich sources about the origins of American intellectual culture in New England, but they are sadly escaping me now. If you would like more please let me know.
I think it might be said that Puritans "founded" America because they built one of (the second after Jamestown) the first colonies in modern day USA.