CHAPTER 3 – PRIMARY SOURCES

TOWARD AN AMERICAN IDENTITY

By the eighteenth century, the American colonies had evolved from small, struggling outposts into prosperous, growing societies. During the first half of the century, American culture became increasingly distinct from that of Great Britain as large numbers of Germans, Scots- Irish, and West Africans joined the English in America. British

authorities were eager to exercise some control over the American possessions; but with their authority constrained in part by a worldwide struggle for empire, Americans were relatively free to manage their own affairs. The prosperity and independence of the colonies caused some to ponder whether the colonies might ultimately sever their ties with

Britain. The following excerpts detail the emergence of an increasingly American culture.

The Middle Passage (1788) Olaudah Equiano

This account of the "middle passage" comes from one of the first writings by an ex-slave and the originator of the slave narrative. Equiano was born in Nigeria and was kidnapped into slavery at the age of eleven. After a time in the West Indies, he was sold to a Virginia planter before becoming the slave of a merchant. Years later he was able to buy his freedom and at the age of 44, he wrote "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African. Written by Himself." Equiano became an abolitionist and made the expedition to settle the colony of ex-slaves at Sierra Leone.

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. . . The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country.

When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little I found some black people about me, who I believe were some of those who brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and loose hair. They told me I was not; and one of the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would not take it out of his hand. One of the blacks therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I took a little down my palate, which, instead of reviving me, as they thought it would, threw me into the greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced, having never tasted any such liquor before.

Soon after this the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country or even the least glimpse of hope of

gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across I think the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced anything of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water: and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.

In a little time after, amongst the poor chained men, I found some of my own nation, which in a small degree gave ease to my mind. I inquired of these what was to be done with us; they gave me to understand we were to be carried to these white people's country to work for them. I then was a little revived, and thought, if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate: but still I feared I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I saw when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute. This made me fear these people the more; and I expected nothing less than to be treated in the same manner.

I could not help expressing my fears and apprehensions to some of my countrymen: I asked them if these people had no country, but lived in this hollow place (the ship): they told me they did not, but came from a distant one. "Then," said I, "how comes it in all our country we never heard of them?" They told me because they lived so very far off. I then asked where were their women? had they any like themselves? "and why," said I, "do we not see them?" they answered, because they were left behind. . .

The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable…

Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat as we expected, they tossed the

remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well as we could, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little privately; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings. . . .

. . . I and some few more slaves, that were not saleable amongst the rest, from very much fretting, were shipped off in a sloop for North America. . . . While I was in this plantation [in Virginia] the gentleman, to whom I suppose the estate belonged, being unwell, I was one day sent for to his dwelling house to fan him; when I came into the room where he was I was very much affrighted at some things I saw, and the more so as I had seen a black woman slave as I came through the house, who was cooking the dinner, and the poor creature was cruelly loaded with various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head, which locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak; and could not eat nor drink. I was much astonished and shocked at this contrivance, which I afterwards learned was called the iron muzzle . . .

QUESTIONS

1. Note the author's beliefs regarding the intent and character of his captors on board the ship. In what terms does he describe his captors? What does he assume is their purpose in capturing him?

2. Identify and analyze the author's conclusions about the civilization of his captors based on their behavior.

3. What was the “Middle Passage” like? Why was it so deadly?

Wessell Webling, His Indenture (1622)

During the 17th century, labor needs in the colonies were generally filled by indentured servants from England. In exchange for passage to the colonies, individual men and women signed themselves into virtual slavery, with the stipulation that once their terms of service were completed, they would receive "freedom dues"—land and tools—with which they could establish their own estates. Wesell Webling signed this three-year contract, which offered him passage to America as well as land when he completed his period of indenture.

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To all to whom theife presents shall come greeting in o' Lord God everlasting.

Know yee that I Wessell Webling sonne of Nicolas Webling of London Brewer for & in consideration that I have bene furnished & sett out & am to bee transported unto Virginia, at the costs & charges of Edward Bennett of London, marchant & his associates, & for & in consideration that they have promised & covenanted to maintain me with sufficient meat drinke & apparell doe by these presents bind myself an apprentise unto ye said Edward Bennett for the full terme of three yeares to begin the first [fic. feast] of St Michaell the Archangell next after the date of these presents. And I doe promise & bind myself to doe & perform all the said terme of my aprentishippe true & faythfull service in all such labours & busines as the said Edward Bennett or his assignes shall imploy me in, & to bee tractable & obedient as a good servant ought to bee in all such things as shalbe comaunded me by the said Edward Bennett or his Assignes in Virginia, & at the end of the said terme of three yeares the said Edward Bennett do promise to give unto the said apprentice and house & 50 acres of land in Virginia to hold to me my heires & assignes for ever, according to the custome of land there holden, & alsoe shall give to the said apprentice necessary & good apparell, & the sayd apprentice shall inhabitt & dwell uppon the said land, & shall pay yearely for the said fiftye acres of land fro & after the hee shalbe therof possessed unto the said Edward Bennett the yearely rent of 50 shillings starling for ever & two dayes worke yearely, & to all & singuler the covenants aforesaid, one the Party & behalfe of the said apprentice to bee performed & kept in manner & forme as aforesaid. The said apprentice bindeth himselfe to his said Master per these presents: In witnes whereof the Partyes aforesaid to these present Indentures have sett their hands & seales, the 25th of September 1622.

Signett Ed. Bennett

Ext Willm Claybourne

What Is an American? (1770) J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur

By the middle of the eighteenth century, America’s bounty of opportunity had attracted large numbers of immigrants. While many of these new arrivals came in search of religious freedom, the bulk sought economic opportunity, specifically land. The possibility for upward mobility profoundly affected the outlook of those who ventured across the Atlantic. In the ensuing selection, J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur [Michel- Guillaume- Jean de Crevecoeur] describes how the American environment transformed Europeans into Americans. A native of France, he fought with Montcalm’s army in the Seven Year’s War before moving to the British colonies in 1759. Crevecoeur received his naturalization papers in 1765 and four years later settled on a New York frontier farm, where he probably wrote much of his famous Letters of an American Farmer. He remained loyal to the Crown during the Revolution and left America from 1780 until 1783.

Questions to Consider

1. According to Creveceour, what are the differences between Europe and America? 2. In what ways are Europeans transformed into Americans? 3. What are the characteristics of an American? How does this help shape a distinct American identity? 4. How do you think Olaudah Equiano (see above) would respond to this document?

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I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countryment, who, when convulsed by factions, afflicted by a variety of miseries and wants, restless and impatient, took refuge here. They brought along with them their national genius, to which they principally owe what liberty they enjoy, and what substance they possess. Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner, and traces in their works the embryos of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in Europe. Here he beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated! What a train of pleasing ideas this fair spectacle must suggest; it is a prospect which must inspire a good citizen with the most heartfelt pleasure. The difficulty consists in the manner of viewing so extensive a scene. He is arrived on a new continent; a modern society offers itself to his contemplation, different from what he had hitherto seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one, no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of good roads and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself. If he travels through our rural districts he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with the clay-built hut and miserable cabin, where cattle and men help to keep each other warm, and dwell in meanness, smoke, and indigence. A pleasing uniformity of decent competence

appears throughout our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles our towns afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country. It must take some time ere he can reconcile himself to our dictionary, which is but short in words of dignity, and names of honour. There, on a Sunday, he sees a congregation of respectable farmers and their wives, all clad in neat homespun, well mounted, or riding in their own humble waggons. There is not among them an esquire, saving the unlettered magistrate. There he sees a parson as simple as his flock, a farmer who does not riot on the labour of others. We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free as he ought to be; nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as many others are. Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain? For no European foot has as yet travelled half the extent of this mighty continent!

The next wish of this traveller will be to know whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen. The eastern provinces must indeed be excepted, as being the unmixed descendants of Englishmen. I have heard many wish that they had been more intermixed also: for my part, I am no wisher, and think it much better as it has happened. They exhibit a most conspicuous figure in this great and variegated picture; they too enter for a great share in the pleasing perspective displayed in these thirteen provinces. I know it is fashionable to reflect on them, but I respect them for what they have done, for the accuracy and wisdom with which they have settled their territory; for the decency of their manners; for their early love of letters; their ancient college, the first in this hemisphere; for their industry; which to me who am but a farmer, is the criterion of everything. There never was a people, situated as they are, who with so ungrateful a soil have done more in so short a time. Do you think that the monarchical ingredients which are more prevalent in other governments, have purged them from all foul stains? Their histories assert the contrary.

In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have by some means met together, and in consequence of various causes; to what purpose should they ask one another what countrymen they are? Alas, two thirds of them had no country. Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continual scene of sore affliction or pinching penury; can that man call England or any other kingdom his country? A country that had no bread for him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met with nothing but the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and punishments; who owned not a single foot of the extensive surface of this planet? No! urged by a variety of motives, here they came. Everything has tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system; here they are become men: in Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mould, and refreshing showers; they withered, and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished! …they receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure them lands; those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require...

What attachment can a poor European emigrant have for a country where he had nothing? The knowledge of the language, the love a few kindred as poor as himself, were the only cords that tied him: his country is now that which gives him land, bread, protection, and consequence: Ubi panis ibi patria, is the motto of all emigrants. What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country.

I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds…Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit.

The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest… Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, service dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, reward by ample subsistence. This is an American. . .

The Salem Witch Trials

The Salem witch trials are one of the most dramatic and best-known episodes in colonial American history. The text relates the story without speculating on the possible causes and only hints at the social origins of the outbreak of accusations of witchcraft. The “Re-Viewing the Past” section offers an analysis based on the sexual frustration of the young girls who made the accusations of witchcraft. The story of the crisis in Salem Village has fascinated historians (as well as playwrights and film producers), and recent years have seen the publication of several sophisticated attempts to understand this puzzling episode.

The events began in obscurity with several teenage girls and their experiments in fortune- telling. Abigail and Betty Parris and Ann Putnam were worried about their futures and began to cast spells and practice “conjuration with sieves and keys, peas, and nails, and horseshoes.” Their real concern was their prospects for marriage. One girl developed a primitive crystal ball made of the white of an egg suspended in a glass; she saw a chilling vision: “a specter in the likeness of a coffin.”

Eventually the magic they tried to practice took control of them. We probably will never know what the girls actually experienced; perhaps they were not sure themselves. In any case, in February 1692, adults in the community began to describe “odd postures,” “foolish ridiculous speeches,” “distempers,” and “fits.” At first, the village tried informal means to control the incident. Rev. Parris called in a local physician, who detected the presence of the “Evil Hand,” or malefic witchcraft. If this were the case, the problem was not medical but legal. Parris took the problem to several other ministers. More than a month passed without legal action, but the afflictions began to spread. Seven or eight other girls, including three from the household of Thomas Putnam, were affected.

At last the troubled village turned to law. Under intense questioning by adults, the girls named three tormentors: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. The next day the two nearest members of the provincial legislature made the trip from Salem town to Salem Village and examined the women. All three women were jailed.

If this had followed the normal pattern of witchcraft episodes in New England, things would have ended there; but the pattern did not hold. Even with the women in prison, the bizarre behavior of the girls continued. More people were arrested and examined, and still the outbreak did not abate. The arrests accelerated, and the accusations moved up the social scale. Among those accused was George Burroughs, a former minister who had moved to a frontier parish in Maine.

The outbreak came at a particular time in the history of the colony. Massachusetts was without a legally constituted government. After the overthrow of Edmund Andros (see “The Dominion of New England” section), the colony lobbied for restoration of their original charter. In early 1692, the colonists learned that a new governor, Sir William Phips, would arrive with a new charter. Thus, the most severe challenge to the colony’s legal system came at a time when the system was immobilized.

Phips arrived and established a court to hear the backlog of witchcraft cases. Several were found guilty and hanged, including Burroughs, who protested his innocence and created

a stir by correctly reciting the Lord’s Prayer (it was assumed that those in league with the devil could not do so).

The last executions took place on September 22, but the outbreak continued. Roughly one hundred suspected witches remained in jail, and arrests continued.

Finally, the intervention of a group of influential ministers, led by Increase Mather, put an end to the episode. Mather preached a sermon, published on October 3, titled “Cases of Conscience.” In it, he asserted that “it were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned.” He demanded solid proof. Spectral evidence was not enough to convict a person of a capital offense. The devil might cause someone bewitched to imagine that innocent people afflicted them. The devil might also take the form of an innocent. Because of these difficulties, argued Mather, “the Evidence in this Crime ought to be as clear as in any other Crimes of a Capital nature.” Thus, two eyewitnesses should be required. Mather cited the “Rule of Charity” to argue for a presumption of innocence. Only confession, the testimony of an actual witness, and empirical tests should be used to convict witches.

Why then did this outbreak happen? And why did it go on? Imagine how easily the girls themselves could have been accused of witchcraft. After all, they had been conjuring. In short, the decisive factor was the reaction of adults and the interpretation they chose to place on events.

With a slight change of social ingredients, Salem might have been the location for a full- scale revival, rather than the scene for the murder of innocents. The descriptions of the girls’ “fits” and their incoherent speeches were similar to visions and the Pentecostal gift of tongues. Both the religious revivals of the eighteenth century and the witchcraft episode witnessed a reversal of status; young people broke out of their normally subservient roles and became the leaders of their community. The key ingredient in each case is the interpretation placed on events.

In order to understand why Northampton of the 1730s became the scene for a revival and Salem the scene of tragedy, one needs to understand the social dynamics of Salem Village. Salem began as a commercial settlement. Its natural harbor and rivers connecting the town to the interior made it a focal point of imperial trade. As the town grew, it made grants of land in the interior. Among those who took up residence in the interior were names that appear in the witchcraft episode such as Putnam, Procter, and Ingersoll. Part of the new area was called Salem Farms.

Salem became increasingly mercantile, and the interior provided food, resources, and tax revenue. Several areas became separate towns (Waltham, Manchester, Marblehead, and Beverly), but not Salem Farms (Salem Village). Nevertheless, the interests of Salem Village and Salem town diverged. The villagers asked to be relieved of night watch duty in 1667, pleading that it was too far to travel. The villagers received some degree of autonomy when they won the right to build their own meetinghouse and hire their own minister in 1672. However, the town still did not have a “church.” A Puritan church was a select fellowship of “visible saints” banded together under a covenant. Not until 1689 did the residents of Salem Village get a church of their own.

This peculiar situation, a town without its own government or (for most of its history) church, was potentially disruptive. Salem Village had a reputation as a contentious community. The level of bickering was probably no greater than that of many villages in New England, but Salem Village lacked the normal structures for settling these disputes. In this environment, grievances easily escalated. The witchcraft incident did not generate divisions in the village; rather, it revealed the intensity of divisions that already existed.

Salem town became increasingly urban and wealthy. Salem Village, however, did not prosper. Moreover, it could not expand, since it was surrounded by other villages. As land

holdings were split up between children, each generation owned less land. This accounts for Salem Village’s border disputes with other towns and its reputation for contentiousness.

Some villagers, usually those in the eastern part, threw in their lot with the town. The key was proximity to the town and to the Ipswich Road. The village’s best farmland was close to town, and this area also had access to roads and waterways connecting to the town. Some of these people engaged in commercial farming; they provided food for the growing town. Others owned taverns or provided crafts to the town.

Those living further west pursued an older way of life, subsistence farming, and were usually isolated from the town and its economic activity. From this group came the faction concerned with establishing an independent church. In the witchcraft episode, the faction revolving around the town interests became the accused. Perhaps from the perspective of the more rural element, they were guilty of pursuing individual interests, which was, after all, the original sin. The emergence of the new commercial economy posed a threat to the Puritan community. Thus, to the villagers, the town appeared hostile, not just because it followed a different line of economic development, but because that economic development led to a different sort of society.

Unable to relieve their frustrations and conflicts through normal political means, some Salem Villagers fell back on an archaic strategy. They regarded those who threatened them not as political enemies but as morally defective individuals. In one sense, the witchcraft trials were an attempt of displaced elite to reassert their position.

Those most likely to be accused of witchcraft lived in the eastern part of the village and near the Ipswich Road. They were wealthier than their accusers, who lived in the north and west parts of the village. Most of the accused were outsiders. Most lived outside the actual boundaries of Salem Village; many lived in the town. The first group of accused tended to be outcasts. Tituba was a slave; Sarah Good was a pauper; Sarah Osborne was a bedridden old woman who had married an Irish immigrant she hired, giving rise to gossip. Many of the accused were socially mobile. Those on the way up represented the social threat. Those on the way down were a constant and uncomfortable reminder that economic security and status were precarious.

Thus, the witchcraft episode in Salem was not just a peculiar event in a random place. It represented an episode in the social development of New England.

For further information, see Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social

Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1974); Marc Mappen, ed., Witches and Historians: Interpretations of Salem (Malabar, Florida: Krieger, 1980); John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York: Oxford, 1982); Peter Charles Hoffer, The Devil’s Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York: Vintage, 2002); Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft In Colonial New England (New York: Norton, 1998); Larry Gragg, The Salem Witch Crisis (Westport: Praeger, 1992); Elaine G. Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies (New York: New York University Press, 1998; and Peter Charles Hoffer, The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999). The quotations come from Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men (London: Dunton, 1693).

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741) Jonathan Edwards

The Great Awakening was the single most important religious event in eighteenth-century America. Part of a larger movement that occurred in Western Europe, the evangelical emotionalism of the Great Awakening enabled its adherents to experience a more intense religious fervor than that offered by most existing churches. While widespread throughout the colonies between 1730 and 1750, the movement was strongest in New England’s Connecticut River Valley, where Jonathan Edwards had begun to deliver sermons that ignited local religious fervor. Following his graduation from Yale, Edwards returned to his hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts, to serve in the Congregationalist (Puritan) church headed by his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, whom he ultimately succeeded. Using Enlightenment rationalism to support traditional church beliefs, Edwards epitomized the New England Awakening. The movement divided established churches into the rationalist Old Light and the evangelical New Light factions, a split that anticipated some later divisions during the American Revolution. Renowned as one of his most moving and monumental works, "Sinners" repeatedly elicited excited responses as Edwards preached it to other congregations of Americans seeking religious revival in the mid-18th century. In his sermon, Edwards describes an angry God who alone holds the fate of sinners in his hands: No amount of good works could save one whom God had not chosen. The following selection is an excerpt from Edwards’s most famous work, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”.

Questions to Consider

1. What is Jonathan Edwards’s view of humanity? Why might he be so concerned about people’s behavior?

2. Why does Edwards frequently refer to Gods control over people’s lives, especially the sinners?

3. What impact did such sermons have on the people on New England?

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. . . This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; 'tis only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but don't see the hand of God in it, but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and, if God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf; and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock. . . .

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince, and yet 'tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. . . .

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in! 'Tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of fire and of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of Divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. . . .

It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite, horrible, misery. . . .

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh! that you would consider it, whether you be young or old!

Were the Puritans Puritanical?

By: Carl Degler

To Most Americans -- and to most Europeans, for that matter -- the core of the Puritan social heritage has been summed up in (English historian Thomas Babington) Macaulay's well-known witticism that the Puritans prohibited bear baiting not because of torture to the bear, but because of the pleasure it afforded the spectators. And as late as 1925, H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Before this chapter is out, much will be said about the somber and even grim nature of the Puritan view of life, but quips like those of Macaulay and Mencken distort rather than illumine the essential character of the Puritans. Simply because the word "Puritan" has become encrusted with a good many barnacles, it is worthwhile to try to scrape them off if we wish to gain an understanding of the Puritan heritage. Though this process is essentially a negative one, sometimes it is clarifying to set forth what an influence is not as well as what it is.

Fundamental to any appreciation of the puritan mind on matters of pleasure must be the recognition that the typical, godly Puritan was a worker in the world. Puritanism, like Protestantism in general, resolutely and definitely rejected the ascetic and monastic ideals of medieval Catholicism. Pleasures of the body were not to be eschewed by the puritan, for, as Calvin reasoned, God "intended to provide not only for our necessity, but likewise for our pleasure and delight." It is obvious, he wrote in his famous Institutes, that "the Lord have endowed flowers with such beauty....with such sweetness of smell" in order to impress our senses; therefore, to enjoy tem is not contrary to God's intentions. "In a word," he concluded, "hath He not made many things worthy of our estimation independent of any necessary use?"

It was against excess of enjoyment that the Puritans cautioned and legislated. "The wine is from God," Increase Mather warned, "but the Drunkard is from the Devil." The Cambridge Platform of the Church of 1680 prohibited games of cards or dice because of the amount of time they consumed and the encouragement they offered to idleness, but the ministers of Boston in 1699 found no difficulty in condoning public lotteries. They were like a public tax, the ministers said, since they took only what the "government might have demanded, with a more general imposition.... and it employes for the welfare of the publick (sic), all that is raised by the lottery." Though Cotton Mather at the end of the century condemned mixed dancing, he did not object to dancing as such; and his grandfather, John Cotton, at the beginning saw little to object to in dancing betwen the sexes so long as it did not become lascivious. It was this same John Cotton, incidentally, who successfully contended against Roger Williams' argument that women should wear veils in church.

In matters of dress, it is true that the Massachusetts colony endeavored to restrict the wearing of "some new and immodest fashion" that was coming in from England, but often these efforts were frustrated by the pillars of the church themselves. (John) Winthrop reported in his History, for example that though the General Court instructed the elders of the various churches to reduce the ostentation in dress by "urging it upon the consciences of their people," little change was effected, "for divers of the elders' wives, etc., were in some measure partners in this general disorder."

We also know now that Puritan dress -- not that made "historical" by Saint-Gaudens' celebrated statue -- was the opposite of severe, being rather in the English Renaissance style. Most restrictions on dress that were imposed were for the purposes of class differentiation rather than for ascetic reasons. Thus long hair was acceptable on an upper-class Puritan like (Oliver) Cromwell or Winthrop, but on the head of a person of lower social status it was a sign of vanity. In 1651 the legislature of Massachusetts called attention to that "excess of Apparell" which has "crept in upon us, and especially amongst people of mean condition, to the dishonor of God, the scandall (sic) of our profession, the consumption of Estates, and altogether unsuitable to our poverty." The law declared "our utter destestation and dislike, that men and women of mean condition, should take upon them the garb of Gentlemen, by wearing God or Silver Lace, or Buttons, or Points at their knees, or to walk in great Boots; or Women of the same rank to wear Silk or Tiffany hoods, or Scarfes, which tho allowable to persons of greater Estates, or more liberal education, is intolerable in people of low condition." By implication, this law affords a clear description of what the well-dressed Puritan of good estate would wear.

If the Puritans are to be saved from the canard of severity of dress, it is also worthwhile to soften the charge that they were opposed to music and art. It is perfectly true that the Puritans insisted that organs be removed from the churches and that in England some church organs were be removed from the churches and that in England some church organs were smashed by zealots. But it was not music or organs as such which they opposed, only music in the meetinghouse. Well-known American and English Puritans, like Samuel Sewall, John Milton, and Cromwell, were sincere lovers of music. Moreover, it should be remembered that it was under Puritan rule that opera was introduced into England -- and without protest, either. The first English dramatic production entirely in music -- The Siege of Rhodes -- was presented in 1656, four years before the Restoration. Just before the end of Puritan rule, John Evelyn noted in his diary that he went "to see a new opera, after the Italian way, in recitative music and scenes...." Furthermore, as Percy Scholes points out, in all the voluminous contemporary literature attacking the Puritans for every conceivable narrow-mindedness, none asserts that they opposed music, so long as it was performed outside the church.

The weight of the evidence is much the same in the realm of art. Though King Charles' art collection was dispersed by the incoming Commonwealth, it is significant that Cromwell and other Puritans bought several of the items. We also know that the Protectors' garden at Hampton Court was beautified by nude statues. Furthermore, it is now possible to say that the Puritan closing of the theaters was as much a matter of objection to their degenerate lewdness by the 1640s as an object to the drama as such. As far as American Puritans are concerned, it is not possible to say very much about their interest in art since there is so little in the seventeenth century. At least it can be said that the Puritans, unlike the Quakers, had no objection to portrait painting.

Some modern writers have professed to find in Puritanism, particularly the New England brand, evidence of sexual repression and inhibition. Though it would certainly be false to suggest that the Puritans did not subscribe to the canon of simple chastity, it is equally erroneous to think that their sexual lives were crabbed or that sex was abhorrent to them. Marriage to the Puritan was something more than an alternative to "burning," as the Pauline doctrine of the Catholic church would have it. Marriage was enjoined upon the righteous Christian; celibacy was not a sign of

merit. With unconcealed disapprobation, John Cotton told a recently married couple the story of a pair "who immediately upon marriage, without ever approaching the Nuptial Bed," agreed to live apart from the rest of the world, and "afterwards from one another, too....: But, Cotton advised, such behavior was "no other than an effort of blind zeal, for they are the dictates of a blind mind they follow therein and not of the Holy Spirit which saith, It is not good that man should live alone." Cotton set himself against not only Catholic asceticism but also the view that women were the "unclean vessel," the tempters of men. Women, rather than being "a necessary Evil are a necessary good," he wrote. "Without them there is no comfortable Living for Man..."

Assignment:

1. Write ten statements that either confirm or refute the question posed in the title.

THE ORIGINS OF SLAVERY

THE debate among historians over how and why white Americans created a system of slave labor in the seventeenth century—and how and why they determined that people of African descent and no others should populate that system—has been a long and unusually heated one. At its center is the question of whether slavery was a result of white racism or whether slavery created racism.

In 1950, Oscar and Mary Handlin published an influential article, “Origins of the Southern Labor System,” comparing slavery to other systems of “unfreedom” in the colonies. What differentiated slavery from other conditions of servitude, they argued, was that it was restricted to people of African descent, it was permanent, and it passed from one generation to the next. The unique characteristics of slavery, the Handlins maintained, were part of an effort by colonial legislatures to increase the available labor force. White laborers needed an incentive to come to America; black laborers, forcibly imported from Africa, did not. The distinction between the conditions of white workers and the conditions of black workers was, therefore, based on legal and economic motives, not on racism. Racism emerged to justify slavery; it did not cause slavery.

Winthrop D. Jordan was one of a number of historians who later challenged the Handlins' thesis and argued that white racism, more than economic interests, produced African slavery. In White Over Black (1968) and other works, Jordan argued that Europeans had long viewed people of color—and black Africans in particular—as inferior beings appropriate for serving whites. Those attitudes migrated with white Europeans to the New World, and white racism shaped the treatment of Africans in America—and the nature of the slave labor system—from the beginning.

George Fredrickson echoed Jordan's emphasis on the importance of racism as an independent factor reinforcing slavery; but unlike Jordan, he argued that racism did not precede slavery. “The treatment of blacks,” he wrote, “engendered a cultural and psycho-social racism that after a certain point took on a life of its own…. Racism, although the child of slavery, not only outlived its parent but grew stronger and more independent after slavery's demise.”

In Black Majority (1974), a study of seventeenth-century South Carolina, Peter Wood moved the debate away from racism and back toward social and economic conditions. Wood demonstrated that blacks and whites often worked together on relatively equal terms in the early years of settlement. But as rice cultivation expanded, finding white laborers willing to do the arduous work became more difficult. The forcible importation of African workers and the creation of a system of permanent bondage was a response to a growing demand for labor and to fears among whites that without slavery a black labor force would be difficult to control.Edmund Morgan argued similarly in American Slavery, American Freedom (1975) that the southern labor system was at first relatively flexible and later grew more rigid. In colonial Virginia, he claimed, white settlers did not at first intend to create a system of permanent bondage. But as the tobacco economy grew and created a high demand for cheap labor, white landowners began to feel uneasy about their dependence on a large group of dependent white workers, since such workers were difficult to recruit and control. Thus slavery was less a result of racism than of the desire of white landowners to find a reliable and stable labor force.

(The Granger Collection, New York)

In The Making of New World Slavery (1996), Robin Blackburn argues that while race was a factor in allowing whites to justify to themselves the enslavement of Africans, the real reasons for slavery were hardheaded economic decisions by ambitious entrepreneurs, who realized early on that a slave-labor system in the labor-intensive agricultural world of the American South and the Caribbean was more profitable than a free-labor system. Slavery served the interests of a powerful combination of groups: planters, merchants, governments, industrialists, and consumers. Race may have been a rationale for slavery, allowing planters and traders to justify to themselves the terrible human costs of the system. But the most important reason for the system was not racism, but the pursuit of profit—and the success of the system in producing it. Blackburn concludes that slavery was not an antiquated remnant of an older world but, rather, a recognizably modern labor system that, however horrible, served the needs of

an emerging market economy.

UNDERSTAND, ANALYZE, AND EVALUATE

1. What do historians say is the relationship between racism and slavery? 2. What are the economic arguments put forward by historians to explain the system of slave

labor that developed in America? Do these arguments account fully for the development of slavery?

3. Why was slavery more successful than other labor systems in meeting the labor needs of colonial America's market economy?