Early American History

Why America?

First reason:

Population increase at home:Depressed wages as a result of plentiful workforce accelerates urbanization, first to urban English areas and then overseas Many assume immigration offers chance for prosperity

Why America?Second Factor: Religion

Calvinist separatists, with their belief in predestination, salvation through faith, original sin and their rejection of ritual and authority found themselves either persecuted or excluded in England

East Anglia

Plymouth Plantation

PlymouthThe Mayflower sailed in 1620, carrying 102 settlers, many fleeing active religious persecution

They were heading for Virginia and landed in Massachusetts in November

Forty-five died the first winter

Massachusetts Bay

Founded in 1628, also religious but population more diverse

Economically sucessful

Explosive growth

Population drawn from many parts of England and many classes

Anne Bradstreet

New World GenresThe Conversion Narrative

The Jeremiad

The Sermon

The Conversion NarrativeMany puritan churches required an oral account of conversion as a condition of membership -knowledge, conviction, faith, combat, and true, imperfect assurance

Barack ObamaAnd it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened because I’d be spending an enormous amount of time with church ladies, sort of surrogate mothers and fathers and everybody I was working with was 50 or 55 or 60, and here I was a 23-year-old kid running around.

I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and it’s importance in the community.

And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply.

So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.

The SermonA.TextB. DoctrineC. ReasonsD. Application E. Exhortation

The SermonThe Modell of Christian Charity (1630)

John Winthrop (1587-1649)Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke, and to provide for our posterity, is to followe the counsell of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, wee must be knitt together, in this worke, as one man. Wee must entertaine each other in brotherly affection. Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. Wee must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekeness, gentlenes, patience and liberality. Wee must delight in eache other; make other's conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body. …… Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when hee shall make us a prayse and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it likely that of New England." For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us. Soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our God in this worke wee haue undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. Wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of God, and all professors for God's sake. Wee shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are a goeing.

American Exceptionalism

The idea that the United States is different from all other nations and that it has an explicit mission to serve as an example of liberty and democracy.

Morning in America

The JeremiadA jeremiad is a religio/political narrative form that attempts to explain misfortune as the result of collective sin or loss of mission.

According to Sacvan Bercovitch, the jeremiad created anxiety through a recitation of current woes, but also reassured listeners by evoking the spirit of a glorious past and suggesting that the same spirit, now slumbering but able to be awakened, exists in the present day

KennedyCarter

Jamestown

Settled in Virginia 1607 on an island in the James River by the Virginia Company of Londoan

Original settlers male, upper class

Economic venture, never intended as farm or homestead

1/3 of the settlers survived the first 3 years

Plagued by disease, Indian conflicts and

poverty, the Virginia settlers moved to

Williamsburg and to higher ground

around Richmond.

Colonial Virginia

Higher Education in the ColoniesHarvard University 1636 The College of William and Mary 1693

John Adams

"There must be a positive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And this public Passion must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society

The EnlightenmentThe colonials representatives were-well read men of property. They could not understand why they were not represented in Parliament.

IndependenceBelieve me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.—Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775

Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from theconsent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Written by Thomas Jefferson with the help and assistance of John Adams, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. John Hancock signed prominently at the bottom, followed by the other representatives of the 13 colonies.