Unit 1 EARLY AMERICAN AND COLONIAL PERIOD TO 1776 PURITANSIM AND THE FRONTIER 1.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1.1.

The America Puritanism Puritansim is the ideology that shaped the American mind. The United States of America grew up of : religious controversy; the desire of monarchs to expand their empires; the human longing for land, gold, adventure. The first English settlers in the new world did not call themselves American until 1760s when the American revolution broke up. The colonists thought of themselves as Europeans, the spoke European languages and they remained European in their ways of thought. But the American Indians were everywhere. The colonists contributed to the shaping of the American civilization, but the colonists that became Americans were English sustained by English traditions, ruled by English laws supported by English commerce and named after English lands (Virginia, Maryland). Beyond this line, a vast wilderness stretched to the Pacific. The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. But the most important New England settlements are those of the Pilgrims in Plymouth and of the Puritans in Massachusetts. The Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 when flagship Mayflower arrived. It had a famous leader, that is William Bradford and the settlers are known as Pilgrims and Separatists. The Mayflower Compact provided for social, religious and economic freedom while still maintaining ties to Great Britain. Flagship Arbella arrived in 163 when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by John Winthrop. The settlers were mostly Puritans or Congregational Puritans. The Arbella Covenant clearly established a religious and theocratic settlement, free of ties to Great Britain. Puritans and pilgrims who came to North America were Protestant Christians, people who had rebelled in their country. They believed that the Church of Englands break from

Rome had not gone far enough. They wanted to purify the church, to be pure and unspotted. They were People of the Book, they believed that the Bible was the revealed Word of God. The Bible should rule the life of men and women. They argued about the meaning of the Bible, they used it as a guide to civil government. The Bible showed them how to live and how to die. The Plymouth Colony was small and weak consisting of about 102 people; half of them died of starvation and sickness in the first year; they were largely uneducated and unfamiliar with the wilderness frontier; the winters were unexpectedly cold. They knew little growing crops in America; their farmland was poor covered with rocky soil. The colony remained one of the poorest. It was absorbed by the large and prosperous Massachusetts Bay Colony(Boston). The Puritans were not concerned only with religion. They wanted to bring religion out of the church. The strict piety won them reputation of being solemn. Indifferent to beauty. The puritan dogma is based on a few important elements. First of all, it is based on providence- ordinary life was a manifestation of God (everything was allegorical). Man is considered to be a sinful nature; it refers to mans depraved nature. Evil is within mans soul and meditation was a way of spiritual purification. Salvation came towards Gods grace, which was arbitrary. The concept of manifest destiny is as old as the first New Enland settlements. John Winthrop articulated the concept, without using the words, in the Arbella Covenant, his famous sermon of 1630 when he said: for we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.. Winthrop urged his listeners to carry on Gods mission and set a shining example for the rest of the world. 1.1.2 THE AMERICAN FRONTIER The problem of the frontier reffered to the advanced movement westwards or the conquest of the USA. In the 17 th century, the communities of settlers were isolated as the wilderness and mountains blockd cultural exchange. In the 18 th and 19 th centuries, the Americans made their great migrations westwards from the Atlantic coast.

From the Atlantic coast, which was the first frontier with the first English colonists, there was a steady advance up to the mountainous region of the Alleghenies, which became another frontier. By 1775, a year before the 13 colonies signed the declaration of independence, no significant change had occurred. However, in the period of the revolution, the frontier crossed the Alleghenies into Kentucky and Tennessee. Besides the successive frontier, advancement created the possibility from the coming into being of a number of States: Ohio, Missouri, Alabama. But the frontier did not advance in a single line. The gold discoveries in California in the middle of the 19 th century opened the territory rather early, on the other hand, the strong resistance put up by the Indians delayed the settlement of the area of the Great Plains. The history of the frontier, which covers a span of time of more than one century and a half is also the history of the defeat and destruction of the Indians. As far as they are concerned, historical information makes it clear that the white settler relation to them was dominated by hostility and violence. The English settlers made clear their policy, to displace the Indians entirely. Many wars were fought till 1919. The wars against the Indians, which resulted in dispossessing them of their lands, were determing contradictory feelings on the conquerors. The Americans had a sense of guilt; guilt has developed into a national complex which haunted the modern community. Apart from the feeling of guilt, the encounter with the Indians was to influence the American mind in many other ways: socially and culturally . The Indians suggested fear, but also a way of living that revealed modern features: selfreliance and self-control. According to D.H.Lawrence: the essential American soul is hard and isolated/ The movement away from the influence of Europe was, in fact, the movement away from the East within the European roots. The frontier was highly instrumental in achieving the fusion of a large number of immigrants of different nationalities and races.

1.13.The Frontier Hypothesis The Frontier Hypothesis is also known as the Turner Thesis. Frederick Jackson Turner, a Wisconsin historian, gave his frontier statement in The Significance of Frontier in American History. Turner asserted that the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development. According to him, the West was the most important American section. For Turner, the novel attitudes produced by the frontier were more important than the European heritage in shaping the American society. Savagery and civilization are used to define the central issue of the frontier. In fact, Turners frontier is the meeting point between savagery and civilization. In 1893 Turner asserted that democracy is born of free land. 1.1.4 The Frontier and Puritanism Shaping the American Mind The Frontier and the Puritan belief contributed to the shaping of the American mind.Isolation, individualism, and initiative are the main features of the American mind. It appears to be a split consciousness following the dream of conquering new lands and pragmatism.