Colonial Society and Culture Unit 2

The Enlightenment

18th century Change from religious leading to individual leading. From Superstition to Reason

Rationalism

• People have the ability to gain their own knowledge, they don’t have to use scripture

Empiricism

Knowledge comes from experiences

Progressivism

Humans can make their own progress through reasoning and observation

Cosmopolitan

actively engaged citizens opposed to closeminded individuals

John Locke

• Natural Rights- people are born with rights(Life, Liberty, Property)

  • later influenced dec of inde(both)

• Social Contract- Government exists to protect people's rights — if not, people can change it.

  • give up individual freedoms in exchange for the government protecting their rights

• Two treatises on Government

Ben Franklin

• Reason and Science

• Electricity and rods

• Deism

Baron de Montesquieu

• seperation of powers(3 branches of government)

  • inspired constitution

Voltaire

Freedom of speech and religion

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Government must have consent of the governed

Georgia

Founded on the enlightenment ideas

• humanitarian/social reform side of the Enlightenment

First Great Awakening

• Shift from sterile and formal modes of worship to a more emotional and personal experience

• Protestant Revivalism

  • Martin Luther and John Calvin’s doctrine was predestination and close reading of scripture

  • — experiential faith, individuals can bring about their own freedom by accepting Jesus Christ

  • welcome message for excluded by traditional Protestantism: women, the young, and people at the lower end of the social spectrum.

New Lights and Old Lights

New Light- those who followedd the evangelical message

Old Lights- those who opposed i

Theodorus Frelinghuysen

• Revivalism began in New Jersey, led by a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church

• Inspired Gilbert Tennent

  • sparked revival in the middle colonies- NY, PA, NJ

• New Lights also founded colleges in Rhode Island and New Hampshire that would later become Brown University and Dartmouth College.

Johnathan Edwards

• “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”-1741

  • described the terrors of hell and people’s ability to avoid damnation through personal conversion

• Helped kick off great awakening in New England

George Whitefield

• Itinerant, traveling the countryside instead of having his own church and congregation

• Powerful emotional sermons-1730s-40s

• Emphasized personal conversion and a direct, emotional connection to God

• Spread the Great Awakenign from Gerogia to New England

Rise in Protestant denominations

• Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists- adult baptism

• competed with older Protestant groups like Anglicans, members of the Church of England; Congregationalists, the heirs of Puritanism in America; and Quakers.

  • declined because e of the Great Awakening

Consumer Revolution

• An increased supply of consumer goods from England that became available in the eighteenth century led to

  • how gentry set themselves apart

  • ordinary settlers also began to take part

• Fueled by increased trade, credit availability, and the growth of markets

  • Made colonists more economically dependent on Britain

• a flood of journals, books, pamphlets, and other publications became available to readers on both sides of the Atlantic