History 101: Week 4 (Professor Messer-Kruse)

. Lecture 9: The Great Awakening

I. The "Great Awakening" defined: A popular evengelical movement of the 1730's and 1740's that broke down the authority of established clergy and that spread a popular religious counter- culture that was the vehicle for protest against social institutions and conditions that were evolving away from the social norms of the 17c.

II. Roots of the Great Awakening:

A. 18c. a time of growing literacy. Literacy highest in New England as Protestantism required a personal understanding of the Bible. Spread of literacy undermined the authority of religious authorities.

B. 18c. also a time of increasing disparities of wealth that placed stress upon the values of communalism (self-restraint, humility, charity) that was the basis of earlier colonial social order in New England.

III. Chronology of Great Awakening: A. 1737-1739 English evangelist George Whitefield toured America delivering sermons whose plain language and emotional power appealed widely. Whitefield's theology that emphasized that God offered his saving grace to all, but that the individual had to meet him half-way and accept Jesus into their lives threatened the Congregationalist establishment that was beginning to preach that good works and godly lives would bring salvation. Whitefield was soon banned from preaching in established churches and took his sermonizing into the streets and commons. In 1739, he attracted a crowd drawn from miles around Boston that equalled the population the city. B. Several associates of Whitefield came to America after 1739. Gilbert Tennent turned Whitefield's more purely religious message into a populist attack on privilege. James Davenport (who came in 1741) impressed throngs of poorer Americans with his rough language (he was once a sailor). Andrew Crosswell continued this tradition and even preached against the abuse of prisoners and against slavery. C. This wave of evangelistic preaching encouraged ordinary people to preach and testify on their own. (Previously preaching was strictly left to trained ministers - except in the Quaker denomination.) This "lay exorting" trained people to trust in themselves and each other rather than the elite authorities in the colonies. D. One established, Harvard-trained minister, Jonathon Edwards, was influenced by the outpouring of religious revival and incorporated many of the same themes and passionate, emotive style in his own preaching and writing. E. Established churches split by the evangelical movement into "new light" and "old light" factions. IV. In the South, particularly in Virginia, the Great Awakening sparked the spread of Baptist and Methodist faiths. These were generally religions that attracted the poorer members of society and they were attacked and repressed by the established Anglican order. (In the first half of the 18c., the Anglican church was the only legal church in many colonies and in Virginia, attendence was compulsory.)

Lecture 10: The Enlightenment in America

I. The discovery of America and the contrasting cultures that Europeans came into contact with over the 16c. caused a rethinking of settled opinions and philosophies. The late 17c. and early 18c. saw an outpouring of intellectual achievement rarely matched in Western Europe: A. Newton Principia (1687) B. Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) C. Linneaus Systema Naturae (1735) D. Hume Treatise on Human Nature (1739) E. Diderot, et al. Encyclopedia (1751-1772)

II. Enlightenment boils down to three propositions: A. Humans not depraved original sinners, but essentially good, though corrupted by their environment. B. By the use of reason, humans could uncover and understand the immutable laws of the universe. C. Knowledge of these laws would enable man to control the environment and improve society.

III. Rationalist ideas took deep hold in American society. Why?: A. Wider spread of literacy (in the free population.) 85% literate in New England. 2/3's of adult, free males in America literate. (European rates a little over 50%). 1. New England built town and village schools in the 17c. 2. Most popular books: a. Bible b. Indian capture narratives c. Almanacs 3. Poorer people did their reading in taverns. 4. 18c. saw the rise of newspaper publishing in America. By 1765, 40 American newspapers had been founded. 5. 18c. also the creation of an intercolonial postal service. B. 18c saw the founding of many colleges in America. In 17c. America founded only two colleges. By 1776 there were 9. C. Growth of cities and of the Atlantic merchant trade in the 18c brought a dramatic increase in the number of lawyers and the sophistication of their legal training. 1. Mercifully, America did not attract or produce as many doctors. (Given the state of medical knowledge in the 18c. patients were better off not seeing a doctor).

IV. Enlightenment ideas that were especially popular in America: A. Deism - Belief in a universal God, creator of the universe, but one who after having created it, remains aloof from earthly affairs. B. Progress - The World not inevitably a temporary arena of human misery and suffering, but a place that can be improved by human art and science. C. Natural Rights D. Doctrine of Utility - usefullness in fostering well-being should be the test of all institutions.

Lecture 11: Imperial Conflict and Social Change

As the economic importance of the American and Caribbean colonies increased throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the competition among the three great empires of the Western Hemisphere intensified. After a relatively long period of imperial truce in the first half of the seventeenth century, the ambitions and interests of these three powers increasingly collided. The eighteenth century was a time of nearly continuous warfare between these three European powers. Between 1689 and 1765, England and its American colonies were embroiled in five major wars, each more widespread and costly than the last. This long period of war decisively shaped the economic and social development of the American colonies.

V. Imperial Detente of the 17c.: A. 1670, Spain accepted British claims on North America. B. France was occupied in consolidating its territories in Canada. C. Dutch power, once an imperial threat, waned from 1750 on.

VI. Broad Observations of the Nature of Imperial War of 18c.:

A. They were wars for natural resources, markets, and land. B. The earliest wars were spin-offs of European conflicts, (wars fought over the question of balance of power in Europe) the later ones, reflecting the increasing importance of the colonies to the trade of the western world, were begun in the colonies and spread to Europe. C. All were continuations of the Indian wars of the 17c. Indeed, most of the mass murder, eviction, and expropriation of Indians was accomplished in the 18c. under cover of war between European nations (including the American Revolution). D. As a percentage of the population, these wars collectively killed more Americans than any war since. Most casualities caused by disease, malnutrition, and accident.

VII. During the 17c and much of the 18c, the North American colonies valuable for basically four things: furs, fish, tobacco, and naval supplies. The English and French began competing for control of the fur and fish trades in the mid-17c.

A. King Williams War (1689-1697) a struggle for control of the fur trade.

King Williams War:

1. 1664 English take over Dutch outposts (Albany) that marketed the furs of the Iroquois and signed a peace treaty with them. 2. 1668 English establish Hudson Bay trading posts in an attempt to end-run French control of the fur trade. 3. New England expansion moved into Maine, Vermont, etc. placing English colonists in uncomfortable proximity to New France. 4. 1680 France responds by establishing a string of trading posts down the Ill. river to cut off Iroquois trade routes to Mississippi Valley. a. Iroquois and Illinois/French war over the fur trade from 1683-1693. 5. Ultimately, this fighting engulfed the English colonies in 1689 King Williams War (War of the League of Augsburg).

B. Queen Anne's War: (1701-1713) A struggle for fur and fish.

1. Fighting first erupted when French establish outposts at Biloxi and Mobile Bay that the Carolinians saw as a threat to their fur and skin trade with South Western tribes.

2. After a couple years, New England launches a successful campaign designed to capture Nova Scotia and the best fishing grounds in the Atlantic, the Grand Banks.

C. War of Jenkin's Ear: (1739-1743) A struggle for control of trade routes to Carribean. 1. Erupted after jingoistic press campaign (the popular press is a new phenonmenon) enlisted the English in the idea of the riches to be obtained from opening Spanish empire to trade and seizing Spanish colonies. a. Immediate cause: 1730 Spanish policy of search and seizure on the high seas. Robert Jenkins ear displayed to Parliament. b. British establishment of Georgia a clear threat to Spanish Florida and the Carribean.

D. King George's War: (1744-1748) A widening of War of Jenkin's Ear with addition of France - same objectives as previous wars.

E. French and Indian War: (1756-1763) French and English rivalry for control of Ohio Valley. First war for land.

VIII. Impact of War upon the Colonies:

A. Each war created the conditions for the next one. For example, the earliest wars resulted in the decimation of Indian peoples whose presence had restricted the spread of European settlement. As these Indians were pushed back, colonists moved westward, northward, and southward and became a greater threat to their French and Spanish neighbors. By the French and Indian War, the struggle was one for supremacy of the transapplachian west itself. B. War contributed dramatically to the spread and deepening of capitalist society. 1. English gov. provisioning contracts enriched a few colonial merchants. 2. Privateering gold-rush stimulated the growth of the central colonial industry of shipbuilding. 3. The social dislocation and stress of war (growing numbers of widows, orphans, crippled soldiers) broke down the traditional communal expectation that cities and towns must provide for the unfortunate. More cities and towns simply forced starving vagabonds to move on rather than placing them on government relief. Others (Boston, Philadelphia) experimented with poor-houses were the indigent were to pay their own way through manual labor. 4. The insatiable demand of armies for provisions sent basic commodity prices soaring and the governmental cost of war doubled and tripled taxes (4/5ths of Mass budget in 1704 went to war). Taxes and inflation redistributed income upward in the social scale as wages were eaten away while business boomed. 5. War increased the colonies reliance on London. Colonies needed money, soldiers, navy, etc. London took advantage of this dependence by slowly centralizing its authority over the colonies. By end of French and Indian War, London decided to keep a permenent garrison of 10,000 redcoats in America as well as its fattened beureaucracy of imperial officials, tax and customs collectors. 6. War directly shifted colonial attitudes towards the Crown. Colonists gradually learned through hard bloody example that the interests of the Empire and their own interests were often at odds. For example, in King George's War, a force of colonials and British men-of-war conquered the Gilbralter of the West, Louisbourg at a tremendous cost. Three years later, London gave it back to France in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in exchange for lands in India and Europe. 7. Constant war created in the colonies a martial culture, a large pool of veteran officers and men, and an experienced, even battle-hardened militia. Such victories as the capture of Louisbourg gave the colonists the idea that they were the equal of any European army.

ID: NOTES-101.4.

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