Big Questions:
Society of Christian love?
Brainstorming on Puritans going to church painting:
Comparisons to Chesapeake?
Anything striking about the painting?
Puritan docs?
Discussion of King Philip’s War game?
Doc to use: The Divine Right to Occupy the Land, by John Cotton, London,1630:
http://americanphilosophy.net/docs/cotton_divine_right.htm
Doc to use: John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity, (1630):
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html
Doc to use: John Cotton, “God Did Not Ordain Democracy Fit for Church or
Commonwealth,” 1636 (scan)
Doc to use: Massachusetts Proscribes Quakers, 1677 (scan)
Doc to use: Roger Williams Responds to John Cotton, 1644 (scan)
Online docs, Group Discussion
http://www.annebradstreet.com/
i like "before the birth of one of her children,":
http://www.annebradstreet.com/before_the_birth_of_one_of_her_children.htm
"to my dear and loving husband,":
http://www.annebradstreet.com/to_my_dear_and_loving_husband.htm
"verses upon the burning of our house.":
http://www.annebradstreet.com/verses_upon_the_burning_of_our_house.htm
"a letter to her husband, absent upon public employment,":
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bradstreet/bradlet.htm
Issue: purity and worldliness
Use of Bradstreet poem (student insight) – rejection of worldly goods vs. hard work and
earthly success
Images of war, brutality
Images of New England town layout
Things to include:
War and purification: precedent in European wars, followed by wars against Native
Americans
Witches
Not just self-sufficient farmers
Involved in Atlantic trade, triangle trade, ports, markets, consumer earthly goods
Purifying society; perfectionism on earth = Reform movements
Reading Notes
Puritans adapted Calvinism – God is reasonable, salvation not random
Lifestyle is one indicator if one is saved, so root out sinfulness, live good life, and
one can be fairly sure one will be saved
Critical of English society as well as Anglican Church: sinfulness, crime,
commercial nature
Wanted to create society with Christian love
Attacked by Charles I: lost jobs, right to worship – push to MA
John Winthrop, City Upon a Hill – covenant with God
God’s covenant with Abraham
If they obeyed God’s command, they would be blessed
If they succeeded, then they had covenant: If they got to N.E. safely, then God
supported them; only lost 1 ship out of 100
Puritan family: center of Puritan life; patriarchy; women expected to marry and have
children; unmarried looked down on, suspect; widows expected to remarry
Problems related to religion
Exclusivity
Anne Hutchinson
Came to MA in 1634, was a midwife and educated by father
Held religious meetings in her home and discussed sermons of ministers
Accused of heresies: teaching men, evaluating ministers’ beliefs, antinomianism (belief
that God was talking directly to individuals)
Banished from MA
Roger Williams
Thought more dangerous b/c he was a minister
Disagreed with church leadership on relationship between church and state
Believed in toleration – people shouldn’t be forced to join or attend church
Exclusion wrong
Disagreed on treatment and relations with Native Americans
Williams believed N.A. deserved respect; relations of peace; bargaining or buying of land
Williams banished from MA in 1636; founded R.I. in 1644
Quakers and other non-Puritans were repressed
Quakers: God spoke directly to individuals; equality of religious experience; women
were active participants; jailed, repressed, and even executed – Mary Dyer
Toleration Act of 1689 – England passed Act that colonies had to accept religious
toleration of other sects
Problem of declension – 2nd and 3rd generations not as religious
Halfway covenant, 1662 – children of members could participate in church – way of
appealing to younger generations to become involved
Everyone required to attend church, pay taxes to church
Not everyone a member; only those thought to be saved
Decided before church leaders
Advantage of being a member was right to vote
Govt. founded to do God’s law, not people’s good
Early town meetings were consensus b/c God’s will could not be split – this broke
Down eventually
Economics
Competency
Land hungry – conflict with native Americans;
Much land already open b/c of native American work, then disease
Rocky ground, wheat, corn, grains, fruits, shipping (trade with W. Indies,
Chesapeake tobacco)
First couple of generations were middle-class, some rich merchants
Trouble on City on a Hill
3 conflicts: with England, with Native Americans, class conflict
Population dispersal after 1630s
Religious dissenters
Relationships with English Crown and Economy
Mercantilist goals of England – raw materials, colonies should buy
Finished goods
Navigation Acts in 1660s to enforce mercantilism: English ships, sailors,
Goods to and from England
But N.E. didn’t have much raw materials or plantation economy
N.E. had shipping which competed with British ships, got around laws,
Traded with competing nations
N.E. wanted more free trade, not mercantilism
Puritans not obeying Navigation Acts, so England taxed them and
reorganized govt.; created Dominion of New England from Maine to NJ;
got rid of colonial assemblies and enforced religious toleration
During English Civil War , Glorious Revolution, 1688-89, Puritans retook
colonies from Anglicans/Royalists
But with reinstatement of monarchy, English asserted tighter control,
creating Royal Colony of MA, new navigation acts and taxes
Later in 1715 Parliament took control of colonies, virtual representation
MA and other New England Colonies had same structure, but actual
Representation
Outcome?:
Role in Atlantic trade = worldly profits, sinful trades (slavery, rum)
Relations with Native Americans
Watch PBS We Shall Remain, After the Mayflower:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/the_films/episode_1_trailer
Pequot War, 1637
Context: prior diseases decimated tribes, power vacuum; competition
among tribes for influence with Europeans for fur trade
Mohegans allied with English; Pequots with Dutch
Attacks on Pequot traders; predatory Euro. Traders broke rules of
reciprocity; competition and attacks between Indians and allies
Conflict over land in CT river valley
Pequots already had more positive relationships with Dutch and French fur
Traders – reciprocal relations of trade
But Puritans wanted land and permanent settlement
Narragansetts and Puritans had closer relations, so Puritans got Ns to
attack Ps
Puritans not happy with progress of war, so wiped out Pequots
Used Bible to justify war; test of their will; Bible justified Israel’s
decimation of other tribes too
Mystic:
Puritan leaders called out the militia and enlisted dissident Pequots and some 500
Narragansetts to help attack a Pequot fort on the Mystic River which sheltered most of the Pequot women
and children. The English surrounded the fort, set fire to it, and killed many of the Pequot people who tried to
escape. Some 400 hundred died. The Puritan then hunted down the Pequot men in detail. The few survivors
were handed over to the native allies of the English as payment for their services. Many were sold into
slavery.
King Philip’s War (1675-76)
Chief of Wampanoags – unhappy with treatment of N.A.; punishment for
Crimes; land-hungry expansion; bad treaties that ripped off N.A.
K.P. convinced Ws and Ns to unite to fight whites; got within 20 miles of
Boston; defeated several towns
Of 90 puritan towns, 52 attacked
1/7 of puritan towns destroyed - Took 40 years to rebuild and resettle
lands puritans had before war
Philip reached out to Mohawks to join war against Puritans, but instead
Ms attacked Ws and Ns
Wampanoags and Narragansetts were defeated b/c of Mohawk attacks
Mohawks and Iroquois became leading intermediaries in trade with whites
And N.A.
King Philip's War
http://ourpluralhistory.stcc.edu/firstpeoples/King%20Philips%20War.html
War between European colonists and the indigenous people of New England broke out in 1675. After two
years of fighting and thousands killed in Massachusetts, the war ended with the death of Wampanoag leader
Metacomet, called King Philip by the English. During King Philip's War, the town of Springfield was burned to
the ground.
The arrival of European colonists in North America uprooted native communities and decimated the native population.
Though some of the native groups of the Connecticut River Valley established commercial exchange with the Europeans,
relations soured as more and more settlers arrived and encroached further on the farming and hunting grounds of the
indigenous people.
For almost sixty years before the war, the Wampanoags of southern New England lived in relative peace with the
European settlers. An epidemic in 1616 devastated the Wampanoags, who then turned to the Europeans for protection
against the rival Narragansetts. The Wampanoags taught the colonists about local food crops and farming techniques.
The European population grew, claiming more of the Indians' crop and village land, while the Wampanoag population
declined. By the late 1670s, the Wampanoags were treated as a subject people, and Metacomet began to organize a fight
for the group's survival.
In the spring of 1675, Metacomet and his fighters launched a series of attacks against European villages, farms, and
travelers across Massachusetts. Incited by Metacomet's successes, the Hadley sachem Wequogan began planning an
attack on Springfield. In early October 1675, Wequogan and his warriors gathered on a palisaded hilltop near what is now
the Springfield-Longmeadow line. Forewarned of the attack, townspeople sought refuge in several fortified houses,
including John Pynchon's brick house. Pynchon was away with the militia in Hadley, and word of the attack came too late
for the troops to make it back to Springfield.
The townspeople awoke to smoldering ruins. Most of the buildings in town had been burned, and the saw mill and grist
mill were destroyed. Sporadic Indian attacks continued, and Springfield residents passed the winter in a state of siege.
Provisions laid up in barns on the west side of the river provided food, but the work of repairing buildings and grinding
grain had to be done by hand.
Nearly 600 Europeans died defending the Massachusetts colony, and nearly 8,000 Indians were killed, enslaved, or made
refugees. Two musket shots killed Metacomet in 1677, leading the native warriors to surrender. Isolated fighting between
the First Peoples of the Connecticut River Valley and European settlers continued for almost 100 years.
Religious schism
Tendency for schism and criticism of leadership
Great Awakening, George Whitefield – 20,000 in Boston, 1739
Old and New Lights
Jonathan Edwards
Tendency towards reform and perfection – reform movements
Economic growth in 18th century
Consumer revolution – N.E. shipping, trade with England
Growth in w. indies slave economies drove whole
Unification of economy, tastes, and bonds between colonies
Tea drinking
Problem of declension from religious focus and competency
Less land available
Opportunities for wealth through commerce
Belief in hierarchical society anyway, so justified differences in wealth and power
Conflicted with P beliefs in community, equality, duties of rich to poor
Wealthy started own churches
Problems of change and declension were context of height of witch trials, contributed to
them, along with war, gender roles
Puritan beliefs in witches not unique, but more focus on outcasts, women, poor
Focus on conformity, correct women’s roles in society
Constant surveillance, rumors in P life – conformity to values and rules
Heightened surveillance b/c of war and commercial development
Tituba, crystal ball, hysterical young women accused T of being witch
Two Sarahs (Goode and Osgoode) accused of casting spells, one typical outcast,
the other an argumentative woman
T confessed and accused dozens of others
48 people claimed spells put on them
200 accused; 50 confessed – why? Confessors wouldn’t be executed, but had to
rat out teachers of witchcraft