Religious tensions had occurred before, but now it seemed the masses were rejecting the “city upon...
If you can't read please download the document
Religious tensions had occurred before, but now it seemed the masses were rejecting the “city upon the hill” altogether. These tensions mingled with social
Religious tensions had occurred before, but now it seemed the
masses were rejecting the city upon the hill altogether. These
tensions mingled with social unrest, natural disasters, and an
apparent increase in immoral behavior to create a religious revival
in the mid-1700s, known as the Great Awakening The Great
Awakening
Slide 2
In 1734-1735, Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist minister
from western Massachusetts, began rekindling the American spirit of
piety. It is no mystery why it occurred on the extremities of the
colony first. A Baptist clergyman had once called frontiersmen, A
Gang of frantic lunatics broke out of Bedlam. Edwards stirred his
audience with explicit descriptions of the torment of hell-fire and
damnation. In 1737, Edwards published his account of the event,
Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. His most lasting
sermon is Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. Jonathan
Edwards
Slide 3
The real catalyst of the Great Awakening, however, was George
Whitefield, a 27 year old Anglican minister from England. In 1739,
he arrived in Philadelphia to stir up piety. By December, he had
won renown preaching to crowds of as many as 6000. He continued his
tour of the colonies in Georgia and then New England. Whitefield
was a showman. He performed in the pulpit--acting out the horrors
of damnation and the joy of the regenerate. Whitefields meetings
were so popular they often were moved outside to accommodate the
audience. The core of Whitefields message was the idea of new
birth--the need for a sudden and emotional moment of conversion and
salvation where a sinner would testify his (or more often her)
finding Christ.
Slide 4
The Great Awakening affected colonial society in several ways.
First, the sects established colleges. The original three schools
--Harvard (Puritan, 1636), William and Mary (Anglican, 1693), and
Yale (Puritan, 1701)--did not serve colonists needs. Thus were
founded: Presbyterian College of New Jersey (Princeton, 1746)
Anglican Kings College of New York (Columbia, 1754) Baptist College
of Rhode Island (Brown, 1764) Dutch Reformed Queens College in New
Jersey (Rutgers, 1766) Congregationalist Dartmouth in New Hampshire
(1769). A secular school was created in Philadelphia in 1754, it
became the University of Pennsylvania.
Slide 5
Territorial boundaries between churches broke down. Itinerant
preachers spread sects across borders, helping to create a
national, as opposed to regional, religious culture. Thirdly,
religion became increasingly an individual choice. Finally, the
rise of individual conscience fostered the breakdown of the state
church. Religious libertarians began to push for the freedom of
conscience that would become a rallying cry after the
revolution.
Slide 6
The Great Awakening was essential in creating what became
Iredell County. Headstones in the Fourth Creek Burying Ground on
West End Avenue, and the First Presbyterian Church history inform
us that in about 1749, a group of Scots-Irish Presbyterians made
their way along the Great Wagon Road south to the Piedmont of North
Carolina. John Thompson, the first minister, held outdoor services
at which he preached sermons that could last for two or more hours.
Development of the Fourth Creek congregation was hindered by the
French and Indian War (1756-63). The town of Statesville began to
form around the church's location. Source: Henry Middleton Raynal,
Old Fourth Creek Congregation: The Story of the First Presbyterian
Church, Statesville, 1964-1989 (1995).
Slide 7
The Enlightenment, symbolized by Newton and Locke, was largely
limited to the upper and the educated middle classes. It had less
effect on the poor or peasantry of America than the Great
Awakening. But because the upper class were politically powerful,
the Enlightenment is significant. The Enlightenment did not really
reach its peak in America until the 1740s when several scientists
and natural philosophers formed the American Philosophical Society.
The society's most prominent member and principal founder was
Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps the smartest man in the colonies and
certainly the most famous, Ben Franklin embodied the Enlightenment
in America as a man of science and letters, and as a deist.
Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the son of a candle and soap
maker. He was apprenticed to his older brother as a printer, but at
the age of seventeen he decided he'd had enough of that and ran
away, finally ending up in Philadelphia. The Enlightenment
Slide 8
By 1730, Franklin established a print shop and published the
Pennsylvania Gazette. Colonial newspapers were the main means of
getting information about local activities. But they were also a
reservoir of axioms. In 1733, Franklin gathered some of them, added
more and created the first almanac in the colonies. Poor Richard's
Almanac included maxims, home remedies, astrological information,
an index of English monarchs, weather forecasts, and other tidbits.
It was revised many times. In 1748, it was expanded and called Poor
Richard Improved. It was hugely popular; in Franklin's words, it
was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being
without it. The proverbs Franklin collected (i.e. stole or dreamed
up) include: It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. The
rotten apple spoils his companion. God heals and the doctor takes
the fee. Marry your sons when you will, but your daughters when you
can. Women age from the top down. Franklin was particularly
interested in economy and thrift. In 1758, he created Father
Abraham to deliver a sermon on frugality and the evils of idleness.
Father Abrahams popularity was astronomical and not just in the
colonies. Father Abraham raised the celebrity of Franklin in
Europe, as well. Franklin retired from the printing business in
1748 to pursue his interest in science and public service.
Slide 9
Franklin devised many practical inventions, including: the
bifocal lens (to save having to switch spectacles to read and see
at a distance); the Franklin stove (a small fireplace that
generated great heat with less fuel); swim fins that fit onto one's
hands like gloves; and the odometer (to measure distance to speed
up the mail); among other things. His greatest scientific
achievement, however, related to the studies of electricity and
weather. His most famous experiment involved the discovery that
lightning was really electrified air. He also created the lightning
rod, a vitally important invention which reduced the danger of
fires started by lightning hitting homes, barns, and other
buildings. His Experiments and Observations on Electricity was
published in 1751.
Slide 10
Franklin was also a statesman and public servant. He founded
the University of Pennsylvania. He helped organize the first
volunteer fire department in America. He organized the financing of
a sewer system and paved roads in Philadelphia. He created the
first lending library in the colonies. He would lead the colonies
in the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the
Confederation Era, and in creating the U.S. Constitution. He died
in 1790.
Slide 11
In 1747, several wealthy Virginians established the Ohio
Company. Among the investors were George Washingtons brother and
Lieutenant-Governor Robert Dinwiddie. Hoping to make money in the
fur trade and in land speculation, in 1748, the company received a
200,000 acres grant in Pennsylvania at the forks of the Ohio River,
near present-day Pittsburgh. The land was also claimed by France
and in 1749, French troops went to the region to shore up Frances
claim by building a series of forts, and befriending the Indians.
The Last War for an American Empire
Slide 12
In October 1753, now-Governor Dinwiddie sent an expedition led
by George Washington to demand a French withdrawal. The French
refused. On the trip back to Virginia, in January 1754, Washingtons
troops fought French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne.
Returning in May, Washington and his troops engaged the French and
Indians in the Battle of Jumonville Glen. Winning, Washington set
out to build Fort Necessity. The French attacked, forcing
Washington's withdrawal (July 4th, 1754). The skirmishes developed
into the last French-English global war for empire, the Seven Years
War.
Slide 13
In 1754, Ben Franklin devised the Albany Plan of Union to
enable the colonies to protect themselves. Delegates met in Albany,
New York, to form an alliance with the Iroquois against the French
and their Huron allies; and potentially to create a governing
council for all the colonies. It was not an independence movement;
it intended only to bring the colonies closer together. Some
colonies thought it was a good idea, but most did not want to give
up any power to another layer of government.
Slide 14
The war, in America, was inconsistent. In 1755, Gen. Edward
Braddock led British troops to the area and was ambushed by Indians
and Frenchmen in Indian costumes. The English were defeated and
Braddock was killed. George Washington again the retreat. Little of
significance occurred in the North American war between Braddocks
death (1755) and the fall of Louisbourg in 1758. What was important
was William Pitt became Prime Minister. Pitt reorganized the
British government and put in the resources (military and
financial) needed to win the war and establish Britains imperial
dominance once and for all.
Slide 15
Pitts policies turned the tide of war. British troops made
significant gains, including building Fort Pitt at the forks of the
Ohio. In September 1759 came the death blow for the French in North
America. Gen. James Wolfe led a British force against the Marquis
de Montcalm at the Citadel of Quebec. Both commanders were killed
in the British victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The
Death of General James Wolfe, by Benjamin West (1769).
Slide 16
Slide 17
The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the French and Indian War. In
it, France gave up all claims to North America, ceding land east of
the Mississippi River to Britain and west of it to Spain. The land
between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River posed an
opportunity and a problem for Britain. Colonials wanted the land
and the Transylvania Company (whose investors included George
Washington and Ben Franklin) was created in Virginia to speculate
in lands in Kentucky. But each new incursion by colonials resulted
in war with the Indians. So King George III banned colonists from
entering the region. The Proclamation of 1763 banned all settlement
west of the continental divide in the Appalachians. Colonists were
outraged. Many, including North Carolinian trailblazer Daniel
Boone, simply ignored it and went anyway. The Proclamation brought
a formal end to the era of Salutary Neglect. Parliament: What was
the temper of America towards Great Britain before the year 1763?
Franklin: The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the
government of the Crown, and paid, in all their courts, obedience
to acts of Parliament...
Slide 18
1756: Fort Dobbs, built near Statesville to house settlers
during times of war, is completed. The Moravians build a fort
around the village of Bethabara. 1758: North Carolina militia and
Cherokee assist the British military in campaigns against the
French and Shawnee Indians. The Cherokee decide to change sides
after receiving ill treatment by the English, and they return home,
where they eventually attack North Carolina colonists. 1759: The
French and Indian War intensifies as the Cherokee raid the western
Piedmont. Refugees crowd into the fort at Bethabara. Typhus kills
many refugees and Moravians there. A second smallpox epidemic
devastates the Catawba tribe, reducing the population by half.
1760: An act of assembly permits North Carolinians serving against
Indian allies of the French to enslave captives. February: Cherokee
attack Fort Dobbs and white settlements near Bethabara and along
the Yadkin and Dan Rivers. June: An army of British regulars and
American militia under Colonel Montgomerie destroys Cherokee
villages and saves the Fort Prince George garrison in South
Carolina but is defeated by the Cherokee at Echoe. August: Cherokee
capture Fort Loudoun in Tennessee and massacre the garrison. 1761:
June: An army of British regulars, American militia, and Catawba
and Chickasaw Indians under Colonel James Grant defeats the
Cherokee and destroys 15 villages, ending Cherokee resistance.
December: The Cherokee sign a treaty ending their war with the
American colonists. The French and Indian War in Western North
Carolina