The Great Awakening

Lecture 1

  • Roger Williams

    • A puritan who disagrees with the Massachusetts Bay Colony clergy.

    • He critized the leadership and clergy, inadverantly critizing the community and civic leaders as well, over not compensating Indians for taking their land.

    • He was a seeker - Someone who wanting to articulate new religious ideas

    • He goes to easblish the Baptist Church in Rhode Island - he gets a royal charter from the king for a colony (because he was banished due to his criticism of the clergy)

    • Rhode Island would become a refuge for dissenters, whether from Puritans, Jews, or Quakers. It is also becomes known for having good relations with the Indians

  • Anne Hutchinson

    • Also a member of the MBC and an official church member.

    • She was banished because she organized groups of women to discuss religious ideas - YOU CAN’T DO THAT YOUR A WOMAN (Just being a woman in general without having a man or clergy person present was bad). People worried they could come up with the new ideas without the grounding of a clergy person.

    • She argued that someone’s intuition would lead thme to their conscience - Puritan ministers felt like that was usurpation of their power. She was convited and banished in 1637.

    • She would go on to found the colony of Portsmouth in Massachusetts, continuing the discussion of her ideas.

  • Higher Education on the rise in America

    • Why was there a need to have higher education?

    • Several generations of people are coming over, so for a group like the Puritans, new ministers will have to be trained as the old ones die or retire. This led to Harvard being founded - it was a Puritan Instituion.

    • Other colleges were created, such as the College of William and Mary of Orange. It served as a place to train and educate Anglican pastors for new churches in the colonies.

  • Why is it called the Great Awakening?

    • The people at the time thought they were bringing a new light to religious ideas, and many people were trying to revitalize interest in Christianity.

    • The idea of being born again - the fervor in someone’s religious life being renewed - became popular.

    • The sermons were intense and emotional. People fainted!

    • One man, Johnathan Edwards, is a Puritan preacher who was very into Christianity. He was fired for denyong non-church members communion since the conversion narrative was so important to him.

      • Edwards would give the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon, saying that he’s here to save you but YOU ARE GOING TO HELL. “God abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. He looks upon you as worhty of nothing else but to be cast into the fire”. jesus man.

    • Another, Goerge Lillie, was a slave whose master taught him how to read the bible, and he would go on to give sermons throughout the south. He would give sermons to congregations of mixed race and would found the first African American Baptist Church.

    • Indians were also invovled inthe Great Awakening as well. One such man was Samson Ockham, who was involved with creating Darthmouth. Dartmouth was focused on American Indian education as well as clergy training. Ockham became a clergyman and would bring the bible to other Indians.

    • Hannah Heaton, Phyllis Wheatley, and Sarah Osborne were all women writers in the Great Awakening.

Lecture 2

  • James Oglethorpe

    • Left his studies at Oxford for war and adventure to fight against the turks with the british

    • Became a War hero and joined Parliament by 1722

    • He had a friend who was thrown into debt for prison - his friend would die in that prison.

    • Oglethorpe decides to try and reform the system to avoid these debts - he suggests sending debtors to America to farm.

    • When he outlined Georgie, he outlawed slavery and large estate holding of individuals - no large plantations

    • He also said it would help act as a fence between South Carolina and the Spanish, French/Indians

    • Alcohol was banned, religion was encouraged.

  • Start of Georgia

    • While people complained about no slavery, relations with the Indians went well.

    • The people in Georgia thought that they were becoming more poor because they had no slaves - they complained so much that slavery ended up becoming legal by 1751

    • John Wesley sent by Oglethorpe to make sure they practiced Christianity - there went a lot of preachers in Georgia

      • He had aspirations - wanted good relations with the Indians, wanted to get through to the colonists, and wanted a simpler practice of Christian - however….

      • His practice was an abysmal failure. He fell in love with one of the colonist’s daughter, but she married someone else. Wesley would then deny her communion in church (debated if that’s why, but still bad). Remember, church offense was a governmental offense.

      • He would flee the colony in 1737.