When settlers founded Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, John Winthrop, the Puritan leader, wrote of their aspiration to create a colony that was reflective of a “city upon a hill” and represented the ideal “mode of Christian charity” (Doc A). These snippets exemplified the ideal society which the Puritans aspired to create. New England was implemented strict moral codes, including bans on public drunkenness and harsh punishments against the disobedient toward “God’s law.” Development politically centralized on the founding of a religious state where saintliness overshadowed other concerns. The incorporation of ethics in Puritan politics caused a harsh response from other colonies.…
In Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity,’ this sermon was given by Winthrop to the puritans on their way to the new world. He was trying to ensure that God, love and kindness help them to overcome the challenges they are about to face. “Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow…
The New Englanders desired a place where they prosper together as a community. They were more than concerned about the moral health of the whole community and would do whatever was called for to keep their community strong and happy. " This court in the interim recommends [that] all tradesmen and laborers consider the religious end of their callings, which is that receiving such moderate profits as may enable them to serve God and their neighbors", DOC. E, this shows that they would give their money away to help their fellow man.…
This commitment to religion which is apparent in two classic American text, William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and Arthur Miller The Crucible served the colonists to help to shape American identity over the year ahead. In the text “Of Plymouth Plantation “ by William Bradford the author demonstrates the how…
Levi Coffin and Direct Action: A Historical Analysis of the Important Contributions of North Carolinian Quakers in the Smuggling of Slaves in the Underground Railroad I.Introduction: This historical study will define the importance of the North Carolinian Quaker movement to apply “direct action” to the smuggling of salves in contrast to the more ideological and political abolitionist movements of the Pennsylvania Quaker movements. Initially, the Pennsylvania Assembly of the 18th century had imparted an important ideological opposition to slavery through the influence of the Society of Friends. In the case of William Southeby, Northern Quakers took direct action to stop slavery in the early 1700s, yet the movement became increasingly ideological…
In the beginning, no indigenous governing power existed in the English colonies, so atomistic competition for colonial dominance manifested. James Henretta argues in his essay Wealth, Authority, and Power that the New England, Southern, and Middle colonies all followed the same pattern of people achieving economic wealth, using the wealth to get political power, and then using this power to assert their authority over the people; however, the regions varied on every step of the process. Despite economic diversity in New England communities, the wealthiest people were the ones who homogenized the body politic and preserved stability. A staggering slave population in the South created huge economic gaps and allowed a group of rich families to…
The provision that John Winthrop discusses when he argues that the government will endanger liberty is an uncompounded republic. He points out that the government intended to make everyone in the country equal by subjecting them to the same regulations and policies, but this would not be effective. He went on to exclaim that the new legislature made all individuals equal regardless of race, and this would somewhat be a violation to humankind. He specifically pointed out that introducing alone legislature for all individuals would not take into account people’s different backgrounds and economic status. Furthermore, the legislation does not take into consideration the different viewpoints and statuses of people, which make people perceive situations…
Jurist, colonial administrator and North American chronicler, born in Edwardstone, Suffolk (England) on January 12, 1588 and died in Boston on March 26, 1649. Winthrop began his law studies at Cambridge, which he abandoned before obtaining a bachelor's degree. Married in 1605. Later he graduated in law and began to practice as judge of peace in 1609. Along with a group of leading English Puritans, Winthrop founded the Massachusetts Bay Company and, once obtained the privilege of Carlos I to colonize the New world, the company emigrated completely to America in 1630, where they founded Boston, city of which Winthrop had been appointed governor for a period of four years; Sometime later, the company established different settlements in the vicinity.…
In “Narrative of Commercial Life,” T. H. Breen explores economic and cultural changes in eighteenth century British North America that came about after the French and Indian War. Breen argues that those changes informed colonial protest movements, most notably nonimportation agreements, and that those “specific styles of resistance” caused colonists to unite and “...to reimagine themselves within an independent commercial empire” (Breen 472). Staughton Lynd and David Waldstreicher’s article “Free Trade, Sovereignty, and Slavery” begins with a discussion of how both modern historians and early Americans have viewed the causes and ideology of the American Revolution. Lynd and Waldstreicher claim that the main contentions are whether the Americans…
Poems are pieces of writing that convey meanings through nature and rhetorical devices. Phillis Wheatley uses nature as well as light and dark imagery, reason and love to show the meaning in her poem “Thoughts on the Works of Providence”. Her audience is forced to think about the meanings of the poem through the imagery she uses. Wheatley efficiently uses rhetorical strategies to get her message across about God’s providence, which is how God provides for us. The reader must adequately absorb the imagery in order to understand what the poem is about.…
As soon as the first settlers began to arrive in America, different pieces and types of literature began to emerge rapidly. Although they were all created in different formats and tell different stories about the happenings, they all share equal value among the literary world. Because people began to write about the happenings within the colony, we are now able to reflect upon and relate ourselves to what our ancestors encountered when they traveled to and settled in the new world with a sense of appreciation. In William Bradford’s short story, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Bradford details the arrival and settlement of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts.…
Analysis Essay: "A Model of Christian Charity" In 1630, Puritan layman and leader John Winthrop delivered a sermon to the Puritan people on board the ship Arbella while en route to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Unbeknownst to him or those in attenedence, his sermon would go down in history and serve as a defining literary example of American colonization. The main purpose of his speech can be linked to preparing the puritans on how to develop a new society in a dangerous environment. During the sermon, Winthrop reminded the colony of its purpose and the reason for existence.…
John Winthrop and Jonathan Edward’s sermons both relate to the puritan ideas; both create a call to action telling the people exactly what they should do in order to be considered faithful puritans. They are trying to influence people to view their ideas and believe in them. Although there are major significant similarities there are also extreme differences in the sermons due to the huge time gap between when these sermons were expressed to the people. The enlightenment time period, and the aging and evolving of the colonies both had a magnificent contribution on the tone, and drive of each sermon. John Winthrop’s sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” conveyed in 1630 at the very beginning when colonies were just starting to form, the wide…
In the eighteenth century poem “To the University of Cambridge”, Phillis Wheatley highlights the importance of recognizing Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice of dying for the forgiveness of sins committed by all of mankind and of straying away from the temptation of sin. Despite being a slave who has received no formal university education, Wheatley is addressing students who are undergraduates at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a premiere institution of higher learning. Although the students have gained knowledge in a variety of subject areas during their time spent as undergraduate students in Cambridge, the most important lesson they will ever learn, Wheatley asserts, is to shy away from the allurement of sin in order to honor Jesus for dying for the sins, past and future, of humankind. Wheatley’s use of…
“in 1629 he set forth to help establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he became a leading citizen, including being elected several times as the governor of the colony. “John Winthrop views religion over political powers. He believes that Christ and the church makes one body, we can see a great religious implications and in the same time political implication…