Puritan literature
Puritan literature was stern and serious because life was strenuous and serious and literature attempted to represent life truly.
It aimed to be rational and orderly because God's creation was logical and harmonious.
The Puritans believed in plain style; truth could and should be expressed plainly.
The Bible had supreme literary value. It was the work of God who used language perfectly. Any literary method used in the Bible had divine sanction: parables, analogies, similes, metaphors.
The audience was taken into account. The Puritan author wrote for fishermen, farmers, woodsmen, shopkeepers, and artisans. They knew little about classical literature but a good deal about the gardens, sea life, and concrete concerns of pioneers busily establishing prosperous colonies in a wilderness.
Puritan histories
The Puritans conceived of history as the unfolding of events according to divine plan. The noted God's justice and mercy to men, his punishment of evil and dispensation of grace; they recorded “remarkable Providences.”
To Puritans the central drama of history was the struggle of Christ against Satan, and they regarded themselves as God's champions; New England was to be a New Canaan or Israel or God's common-wealth. The main concern was to leave a memorial of the fulfilment of the divine plan.
Puritan histories were a repository of God's dealings with his people.
William Bradford (1590-1657)
one of the Pilgrim leaders and American colonial governor
sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, and after his arrival in America he helped found Plymouth Colony
served as governor reelected 30 times.
negotiated a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag tribe
Under the treaty, which was vital to the maintenance and growth of the colony, Massasoit disavowed Native American claims to the Plymouth area and pledged peace with the colonists.
the first Thanksgiving Day celebration in New England was organized by Bradford in 1621
Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation
History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, published in 1856, 200 years after Bradford's death.
an important source of information about the early settlers
a continuous story of events in the Plymouth colony during the first thirty years of its existence
the Mayflower compact
the Pequot massacre
a controversy over baptism (dipping or sprinkling)
John Winthrop (1588-1649)
American colonial administrator of Massachusetts.
Educated at the University of Cambridge, and trained for the law in London.
In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company in London selected him to govern its colony in New England. With some 700 Puritan settlers, Winthrop sailed from Yarmouth in March 1630, and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, on June 12. Shortly thereafter he settled in the Shawmut Peninsula community, later renamed Boston.
John Winthrop (1588-1649)
Winthrop was elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony 12 times between 1630 and 1649.
Believing that the colony could be more effectively governed by a few learned and pious leaders, he opposed an unlimited democracy.
In 1643 he helped to organize the New England Confederation, which he served as the first president.
Winthrop's administrative ability and wisdom were in large part responsible for the early prosperity of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The History of New England
His journals were published in 1825-1826 as The History of New England 1630-1649.
He favored drowning as a means of punishing evildoers by God, even for slight offences like working an hour past sundown on Saturday or carrying manure on the Lord's day.
The description of the first epidemic of venereal disease.
The Puritans were very cruel to the Indians and themselves. A Boston woman drowned her baby in a well, troubled about her spiritual estate. Other persons drowned themselves or froze to death praying in the snow.
Winthrop and his officials enforced the laws with great severity by whipping, setting in the stocks, cropping off the ears, banishing heretics and confiscating their property, and hanging adulteresses and witches.
Edward Johnson (1598-1672)
colonial Massachusetts chronicler and captain of militia
came to Boston in 1630 to trade with the Indians, and after a short stay sailed for England to bring his family, with whom he returned in 1636.
founder of Woburn (1640), active in the affairs of that town until his death
The Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England (1654)
Johnson commenced writing his history of New England in 1650
best known as The Wonder-Working Providence
published anonymously
celebrates the Puritan religious commonwealth in America
Johnson writes with vigor both of homely facts and of great events, and rhapsodizes with an epic view of the founding of New England as a spiritual crusade by soldiers of Christ at war with unbelievers and the wilderness
a literary curiosity, written in the form of a military metaphor, with Christ as King and the the New England Puritans as an army
Thomas Morton (1579?-1647)
another important historian of early America, American adventurer, trader, lawyer, and travel writer
used humor in portraying what he considered to be the overbearing and intolerant qualities of the Puritans
one of the most colorful and controversial figures in colonial American history
New English Canaan
his only book, New English Canaan (written 1634-1635 , published 1637), is an account of life at his New England settlement and fur-trading post of Merrymount, or Ma-re-Mount
offers perhaps the earliest description of Native American life and culture.
significant for being told from the point of view of a non-Puritan
New English Canaan
presents a sympathetic and accurate account of early Native American life and manners, shows an appreciation for the beauty of the American landscape
uses humor and satire to offer a critical look at the hypocrisy of the Pilgrims as he contrasts their inhumanity to the kindness and humanity of the Indians
Morton and his companions were viewed with hostility by the Pilgrims of nearby Plymouth and other settlements, who considered their reveling and association with the local Indians to be immoral.
The Antinomian Controversy
Antinomianism
(Greek anti, “against”; nomos, “law”)
doctrine that faith in Christ frees the Christian from obligation to observe the moral law as set forth in the Old Testament.
Anne Hutchinson (1590-1643)
A religious dissident and reformer.
Preached a doctrine of salvation realized through the intuition of God's indwelling in grace.
Because the doctrine appeared to eliminate the need for the externals of institutionalized belief and law, her teachings were considered an attack on the rigid moral and legal codes of the Puritans of New England, as well as the authority of the Massachusetts clergy.
Caused a great political controversy in the colony.
Anne Hutchinson (1590-1643)
In 1637 she was tried by the General Court of Massachusetts, presided over by Winthrop.
Found guilty, excommunicated, and banished from the colony.
Moved with her husband and family to Rhode Island and after the death of her husband settled in what is now Pelham Bay, the Bronx, New York.
Hutchinson and all but one member of her family were killed in an attack by Native Americans in August 1643.
Winthrop recorded this providence with evident satisfaction.
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
In 1635 he was expelled from his Salem ministry and banished from Massachusetts because he:
challenged the validity of the Massachusetts Bay charter, which gave the authorities power to appropriate Native American lands establish a uniform faith and worship among the colonists;
asserted that only direct purchase from the Native Americans constituted a valid title to land, and he denied the right of the government to punish what were considered religious infractions.
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
Williams escaped deportation by the authorities and began a journey to Narragansett Bay.
He became friendly with the Narragansett, making a study of their language, and in 1636 he purchased lands from the tribe.
Established the settlement of Providence and the colony of Rhode Island, naming the settlement in gratitude “for God's merciful providence unto me in my distress.”
The government of the colony was based upon complete religious toleration and upon separation of church and state.
Accepting the practice of adult baptism by immersion, Williams was baptized by a layman in 1639; he subsequently baptized a small group and thus founded the first Baptist church in America.
Williams went to England in 1643 and obtained (1644) a colonial charter incorporating the settlements of Providence, Newport, Plymouth, and Warwick as “The Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay.”
During his sojourn abroad he wrote
A Key into the Language of America (1643),
The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644),a notable work on the nature and jurisdiction of civil government,
Christenings Make Not Christians (1645)
and other texts.
John Eliot (1604-1690)
American clergyman
Occupies a special place in the early intellectual and literary history of America for his work among the native Americans
Called Apostle to the Indians
After learning the Native American dialect, he first preached without an interpreter before the Native Americans at Nonantum (now Newton, Massachusetts) in 1646. Thereafter he devoted most of his time to instructing the Native Americans. He gathered them into 16 different settlements. The communities were supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Indians, created in 1649 by Parliament, and flourished until they were broken up in 1675 by King Philip's War.
Eliot's works include Primer of Catechism, in the Massachusetts Indian Language (1654), the first book printed in the Native American language; Christian Commonwealth, or the Civil Polity of the Rising Kingdom of Jesus Christ (1659); a Native American translation of the Bible (1661-1663; and an Indian Primer (1669).
Samuel Sewall (1652-1730)
American colonial jurist, born in England
came to New England at the age of nine
studied divinity at Harvard
married the daughter of the richest man in the colony
had no legal training, but became a judge and eventually chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court
Sewall served as a judge at the colony's sensational witchcraft trials in 1692 (20 people were condemned to death)
five years later Sewall publicly admitted his wrong decisions, the only judge involved to make such public statement of his error
Sewall's Diary
a witty and perceptive chronicle
published as part of the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections (3 volumes, 1878-82)
a private record with no thought of publication
written in telegraphic style
includes details of Sewall's personal and official business, his domestic affairs, accounts of his travels, comments on his fellow Bostonians, intimate revelations of his thoughts and feelings
a record of two notorious injustices of his society:
slavery and the persecution of “witchcraft”
Sewall's The Selling of Joseph (1700, Boston) - the first American anti-slavery act.
Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)
Daughter of a Boston merchant and widow of a ship captain.
Wrote a journal of a trip she took from Boston through New Haven to New York, and back again, in 1704-5 (not published until 1825).
The Journal of Madam Knight gives a lively account of her journey through hostile Indian territory.
She supported herself by keeping a school, giving business advice, and taking in boarders. She was a versatile and enterprising lady. When she died, she left her daughter a very large estate, attesting to her shrewdness and skill as a businessperson.
Practical, common sense, humor.
The Journal describes frontier manners and compares social life in the colonies of Boston, New Haven, and New York.
A precurson of the frontier humorists and 19th cent realists (Twain).
William Byrd (1674-1744)
Byrd was born in Westover, Virginia, but educated in England.
He founded the city of Richmond in 1737.
Byrd built a large mansion in Westover
acquired a collection of fine paintings
the colony's largest library.
Byrd's personal diaries give an interesting picture of Virginia's aristocracy.
“History of the Dividing Line,” a satirical account of his expedition in 1728 to survey the border between Virgina and North Carolina.