Transcript RELIGIONS IN COLONIAL AMERICA

RELIGIONS
IN COLONIAL AMERICA
Notes by B. Becker, adapted by N. Miller and T. Zigler
Eastlake HS
AP US/Honors Amer Lit
1620:
Pilgrims
arrive at
Plymouth
1601
1649:
Maryland
Toleration
Act
169093:
Salem
witch
trials
1656: Quakers
arrive in
Pennsylvania
1700
1650
Century to come:
Great Awakening
CHARACTERISTICS OF
RELIGION in the Colonies
• Important motive
•
behind founding of
several colonies
Colonial religion part
of the continuing
debate dating from
the Reformation
• Puritanism very
•
•
influential
Assumed union of
church and state
Overwhelmingly
Protestant
– 98%
Continuing debate from
Reformation
• Issues: role of ministers,
number of sacraments,
organization of the
church, liturgical service,
hierarchy, Presbyterians,
Congregationalists,
Quakers, antinomianism,
Arminianism
• Changes in England:
Bishop Laud, Charles I,
39 Articles, Civil War,
Levellers, Puritan
Commonwealth, Test Act
(1673), Toleration Act
(1689), Glorious
Revolution
Influence of Puritanism
• Source of significant
ideas:
– education for Bible Reading
– founding of Harvard to
educate ministers
– higher law & moral codes
• Covenant theology:
– boost to the idea of a
covenant between
government and the
governed
• “city on a hill” – an
example of a sense of
mission
Freedom from religious persecution,
not religious freedom
• Established churches
in 9 colonies (tax
supported)
– Anglican: NY, Md, Va,
NC, SC, Ga
– Congregational:
Mass., Conn, NH
– Quakers: Pa
• Pennsylvania: 1682:
•
Quakers: Wm. Penn
Rhode Island: Roger
Williams
– Exile
– Relations with tribes
• Maryland: Lord Baltimore:
•
•
•
Catholic
SC and NJ experiments
French Huguenots
Catholic Spain and France
Union of Church & State: Backlash
• Fear of tyranny of
church and state, SPG
(Society for the
Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign
Parts) seen as a
conspiracy
• Too many for any one
•
church to control,
although Mass. & Pa.
significant
Examples:
– Roger Williams
– Anne Hutchinson
– Mary Dyer - Quaker
• Roger Williams: RI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Dyer
separate to preserve
the purity of the
church, not the state
People
• Antinomianism
Roger Williams
– Belief that “child of God”
need not be restrained by
civil or other law
• Exiled from Plymouth
• Death at hands of Indians
was taken to be divine
retribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Roger_Williams_and_Narragansetts.jpg
Anne
Hutchinson
•
•
•
•
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons
/b/b8/Anne_Hutchinson_on_Trial.jpg
Kicked out of Mass. Bay
Founded RI
Religious Freedom
Treatment of Native
Americans
America Overwhelmingly Protestant
• 1775:
– 3142 church buildings
– only 56 Catholic, 5
Jewish
– More than 98%
Protestant (USA now
more than 20%
Catholic, 3% Jewish)
• Called the “Penal
Period” by Catholic
historians
– All colonies had antiCatholic laws at one
time
CHANGES during the Colonial
Period
• Multitude of religions
• Calvinism influential,
•
•
•
especially evangelical
Energized by Great
Awakening
Many unchurched
Religions contributed
to rise of political
liberty
• 4 largest:
–
–
–
–
Congregational – 21%
Presbyterian – 19%
Anglican – 16%
Baptist – 16%
Influence of Calvin
• Emphasis on evangelical
•
•
Calvinism: missionary
work to get converts
Emphasis on the
individual’s direct
relationship with God
rather than the church’s
corporate one
Emphasis on emotion,
not doctrine
Influence of Great Awakening
1730s-40s
• Reinvigorated Calvinistic
•
•
•
•
influence – society seen as
egalitarian
Jonathan Edwards:
“Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God”
William and George Tennent
& George Whitefield
Missionaries to Westerners
and Indians
In-Fighting
– Old Lights vs. New Lights
• Colleges established to
train ministers
– Princeton – 1746 – Presby
– King’s College – Columbia
• 1754 – Anglican
– RI College – Brown
• 1764 – Baptist
– Queens College – Rutgers
• 1766 – Dutch Reformed
– -Dartmouth College
• 1769 - Congregationalist
Jonathan Edwards and George
Whitefield
• “Sinners in the Hands of
•
•
an Angry God”
Preached during “Great
Awakening”
Foe of the “halfway
covenant”
• Methodist Preacher
• Revivalist
Many unchurched or Deists
• Many never attended
– 1776: Philadelphia
had 18 churches for
40,000 people
– Few churches or
missionaries in
backwoods areas
– Deism widespread
among the upper
classes
• Religion or philosophy that
sees God reflected in
nature and known through
reason and personal
reflection, or unknowable
• Generally rejects
supernatural events or
divine interference in
human life
• Generally rejects all
scriptures, or accepts all as
fallible human attempts to
express ineffable Nature
• Generally rejects organized
religion
Contribution to Political Liberty:
• James I: “No bishop, no
king” – attack on the
church was attack on the
crown
– Anti-Presbyterian
– Democratic churches led to
a demand for democratic
governments. (Dang! He
knew that would happen!)
• Concept of natural laws,
natural rights fed by
deism
• Weak church organization
and control spurred
individualism (Calvin’s
emphasis on individual)
• Disestablishment came
only because it proved
too difficult to establish a
single church: they tried!
– Came with Revolutionary
War
– Virginia Decl of Rights
(1776)
– Virginia Act for Est of
Religious Freedom (1785)
Separation of Church and State
• Religious freedom
was not original
desire
– Maryland Act of
Toleration for only
those who believed in
the Trinity
• Church was
separated from state
• But it ended up as
religious freedom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GROWTH1850.JPG
Colonial Maps
• Maryland: Catholic (1649:
•
•
•
•
•
Toleration Act)
Massachusetts Bay: Puritan
Pennsylvania: tolerant
Plymouth: Puritan
Rhode Island: tolerant
Virginia: Church of England
• Spanish Florida: Catholic
• New France (lower
•
http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/T_M06_ColAmerCP300g15.gif
Canada): Catholic
(later) Upper Canada:
Church of England
Resources used:
•
•
•
•
•
Becker, Bruce, notes.
Brewer, Jaques, Jones, and King. “Religion in Colonial America.”
http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/16071783/religion.htm, viewed Sept. 21, 2007
“Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/,
viewed 21 Sept 07
“Gilbert Tennent”, http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0848163.html
http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html