Week 5: The Great Awakening

The reasons that allowed the Great Awakening to develop at the this time in colonial America are. "Many ministers were concerned that westward expansion, commercial development, the growth of Enlightenment rationalism, and lack of individual engagement in church services were undermining religious devotion... the revivals were less a coordinated movement than a series of local events united by a commitment to a "religion of the heart," a more emotional and personal Christianity than that offered by existing churches" (Liberty 156). Many Churches adopted intensely emotional styles of preaching. They were critical because many people heard the sermons and immediately confessed their sins, begging for forgiveness, to be saved. If it weren't for this new way to preach, many people would have lost "their way". The Great Awakening also caused Americans to call into questions aspects of established authority. It also brought many black slaves into the Christian fold. As a result, some Plantation owners emancipated their slaves.
Jonathon Arnold's main criticism of Whitefield according to Mangus Falconer was, "That the Rev. Mr. Whitefield exclaims against all the bishops and clergymen of the Church of England, 2nd, That he passes unwarrantable sentences upon men as if he was the Supreme Judge" (Voices 86).
The revivals created change in the colonies, they were now thinking for themselves, able to question the autohority, and that even the most sinful people have a chance of salvation. Even today, these "intense emotional" style preaching is going on today.

Week 4 Discussion

The Indians felt that they were being unfairly treated and cheated out of their lands. Rightfully so, many tribes formed alliances and fought the English. “The bloodiest and most bitter conflict occurred in southern New England, where in 1675 an Indian alliance launched attacks on farms and settlements that were encroaching on Indian lands. It was the most dramatic and violent warfare in the region in the entire seventeenth century. By 1676, Indian forces had attacked nearly half of New England’s ninety towns. Twelve in Massachusetts were destroyed. As refugees fled eastward, the line of settlement was pushed back almost to the Atlantic coast” (Liberty 92). All the Indians wanted were to be left alone. They were simple people that lived off the land. The English came over and took land that wasn’t theirs to take, the Indians were willing to compromise, but when they kept getting their land taken they decided that enough was enough and that ultimately led to battles. Even though they were victorious, their victory didn’t last. “In mid-1676 the tide of battle turned and a ferocious counterattack broke the Indians’ power once and for all… Both sides (English and Indians) committed atrocities in this merciless conflict, but in its aftermath the image of Indians as bloodthirsty savages became firmly entrenched in the New England mind” (Liberty 93).

The English associated land with liberty, freedom, but also as a status of wealth. “By 1700, nearly 2 million acres of land were owned by only five New York families who intermarried regularly, exerted considerable political influence, and formed one of colonial America’s most tightly knit landed elites” (Liberty 96). Not all English colonists wanted to capitalize land for their own profit. William Penn, a member of a leading English Quaker family and the founder of Pennsylvania “considered his colony a “holy experiment,” but of a different kind- “a free colony for all mankind that should go hither.” He hoped that Pennsylvania could be governed according to Quaker principles, among them the equality of all persons (including women, blacks, and Indians) before God and the primacy of the individual conscience” (Liberty 98). Quakers had views extremely different from most colonizers. They wanted equality for everyone, which ultimately because our society today.

In Virginia tobacco plantations shifted from white indentured servants to African slaves causing poverty among whites and had reached levels reminiscent of England. “In addition, the right to vote, previously enjoyed by all adult men, was confined to landowners in 1670” (Liberty 105). Rebellion against William Berkley soon arouses. White land hungry farmers demanded that he allow the extermination or removal of the colonies Indian population in order to open up more land for whites. He refused and the colonists rebelled against him creating armies which included some African Americans. “The specter of a civil war among whites greatly frightened Virginia’s ruling elite, who took dramatic steps to consolidate their power and improve their image. They restored property qualifications for voting, which Bacon had rescinded…planters developed a new political style in which they cultivated the support of poorer neighbors” (Liberty 105). Berkley tried to make Virginia more like England, unlike the rest of the colonies of New England, where they were given much more freedom.

Week 3: Richard Hakluyt

There was little to no support from the Queen to venture to the New World. The first two attempts by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, failed. The main reason the English wanted to colonize the new world was to continue to raid Spanish ships. “Three years later, Raleigh dispatched a fleet of five ships with some 100 colonists to set up a base on Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast, partly to facilitate continuing raids on Spanish shipping. But the colonists, mostly young men under military leadership abandoned the venture in 1586 and returned to England” (Liberty 54). After failing many times, Raleigh realized that “to establish a successful colony, it seemed clear, would require more planning and economic resourced than any individual could provide” (Liberty 55).

The English did much the same as the Spanish did. “National glory, profit, and religious mission merged in early English thinking about the New World” (Liberty 55). However, since Catholic Spain became England’s mortal enemy the English soon changed their views on the New World. “Just as Spain justified its empire in part by claiming to convert Indians to Catholicism, England expressed its imperial ambitions in terms of an obligation to liberate the New World from the tyranny of the Pope.” “English translations of Bartolome de Las Casas’s writings appeared during Elizabeth’s reign. One, using a common Protestant term for the Catholic Church, bore the title, “Popery Truly Displayed” (Liberty 55).

Richard Hakluyt gives many reasons for colonization in the New World, twenty-three to be exact. “Among them was the idea that English settlements would strike a blow against Spain’s empire and therefore form part of a divine mission to rescue the New World and its inhabitants from the influences of Catholicism and tyranny. “Tied and Slaves” under Spanish rule, he wrote, the Indians of the New World were “crying out to us…to come and help” They would welcome English settlers and “revolt clean from the Spaniard,” crying “with one voice, Liberta, Liberta, and desirous of liberty and freedom” (Liberty 56).

His argument is a good one to convince the Queen to colonize the New World because he uses the Spanish, their mortal enemy as a reason to go. He says that they are going to liberate the Indians, but in reality when they got there, they did mostly the same things as the Spanish rule had done. Hakluyt used words to get what he wanted, that was the support of the Queen, to supply men for the colonization. He thinks that the Indians will welcome the English as bearers of liberty because they were treated horribly by the Spanish; he thinks that anything other then the Spanish rule would be welcomed as being liberating. He claims that the English will treat the Indians with "humanity, courtesy, and freedom" (Freedom 27-28).

Week 2: Early European Contact

The main factors that fueled European Expansion was the discovery of new lands, and "unfree labor that enabled them to exploit the fertile lands of the Western Hemisphere" (Liberty 6). The Expansion allowed new trade to be made with continents such as the Americas and Africa. "The emergence of the Atlantic as the worlds major avenue for trade and population movement... enabled millions of Europeans to increase the "enjoyments" of life" (Liberty 6).

Although the expansion of Europe as seen in their eyes was "slender and Glory" slavery was introduced from Africa. By 1820 nearly the majority of Africans, 7.7 million had become slaves. With new lands comes new diseases, both the indigenous people and the Europeans had their own diseases, and when they came into contact with each other, they had no immunities against their diseases, which caused major epidemics. "The transatlantic flow of good and people, sometimes called the Colombian Exchange, reversed millions of years of evolution. Plants, animals, and cultures that had evolved independently on separate continents were now thrown together. Products introduced to Europe from America included, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, tobacco, and cotton, while to the New World from the Old came wheat, rice, sugar cane, horses, cattle pigs and sheep. Europeans also brought with them germs previously unknown in the Americas. (Liberty 26)

Bartolome de Las Casas accounted that the Indians were treated "like dogs" and "this is the freedom, the good treatment and the Christianity that Indians received" (Freedom 12). They were slaves; forced to work for little to no pay, given cassava bread as a sole means of food, with very little pork to go with it. When they were nearly dead from malnutrition they would be sent home only to die before even making it home. "Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the fields. But our Spaniards gave no such opportunity to Indians and truly considered them perpetual slaves..." (Freedom 12). Spain thought the Indians to be barbarians and not rational beings, Bartolome de Las Casas beleived otherwise. "In 1514 Las Casas freed his own Indian slaves and began to preach against the injustices of Spanish rule" (Liberty 32).

I've always been taught that Columbus was friendly with the Indians, like this video says, I was always suspicious about this. What they didn't mention was the fact that they took the Indians from their native land and turned them into slaves. It was not a friendly meeting like I was taught in elementary school.