New Religious, Philosophical, and Political Currents

U.S. History to 1877

The Church of England in America

Hierarchy and order

Control of vestry by the elite

By 1750 strong and well-established across the South

The Great Awakening, 1735-1745

From Puritan to Yankee

“Outlivers,” greed, contention, guilt

“Fire & brimstone” & “harvests”

“New Lights” & “Old Lights”

Jonathan Edwards

George Whitefield

Baptist growth

Evangelical Calvinists

Baptist growth

Growth despite violent opposition in Virginia

               "pelted with apples and stone"
               "ducked and nearly drowned by 20 men"
               "commanded to take a dram, or be whipped"
               " jailed for permitting a man to pray"
               "meeting broken up by a mob"
               "arrested as a vagabond and schismatic"
               "pulled down and hauled about by hair"
               "tried to suffocate him with smoke"
               "tried to blow him up with gun powder"
               "drunken rowdies put in same cell with him"
               "horses ridden over his hearers at jail"
               "dragged off stage, kicked, and cuffed about"
               "shot with a shot-gun"
               " ruffians armed with bludgeons beat him"
               "severely beaten with a whip"
               "whipped severely by the Sheriff"
               "hands slashed while preaching"

The Enlightenment in America

From Age of Faith to Age of Reason

Reason & nature

Science & progress

Enlightenment in Religion

Deism

Unitarianism

Benjamin Franklin

International hero of the Enlightenment

Political Ideas

Ideal: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy

English “constitution”

Crown, Lords, Commons

Ministers & Commons

“Rotten boroughs” & “placemen”

Colonial “constitutions”

Governor, council, assembly

Factions & paper power

Independent assemblymen

Guarding liberty from tyrants

Liberty vs. power

“Wicked and worthless” wars

Taxation without representation

No juries

Catholicism

STANDING ARMIES

Wars and Empire

3 major French-English wars before 1750

Starts in Europe, main theater is Europe, indecisive ending

French & Indian War, 1754-63

A different war: Starts in America, main theater in America, decisive

Washington at Ft. Duquesne

Albany Plan of Union, 1754

Gen. Braddock at Ft. Duquesne

Pitt turns the tide, 1758-62

Peace

End of New France, 1763

Pontiac’s Rebellion, 1763

English-American relationship transforms

Proclamation Line of 1763