Chapter 4 Notes: Religious Strife and Social Upheavals (1680-1754)

Overview: Context (1680-1754)

• Religion, economy, and politics interlinked amid rapid population growth, expanding diversity, and frontier settlement.
• The Enlightenment and Great Awakening reshape beliefs, authority, and social ties.
• Population growth and land pressures deepen class, racial, and regional tensions; mobility reshapes family and community life.
• Key metrics:
  • Population climbs from $2.5\times 10^5$ to about $2.5\times 10^6$ by 1750.
  • Between 1700-1750, roughly $2.5\times 10^5$ immigrants and enslaved Africans arrive.
  • By the late 17th century, about half of white men owned no property ((\frac{1}{2}), i.e., $50\%$).
  • In some regions, two-thirds of white Virginia families farmed their own land by 1750 ((\tfrac{2}{3})).
• Major engines of change: Great Awakening (New Light vs Old Light), Enlightenment thinking (e.g., Franklin), and expanding commerce.

The Great Awakening: Leaders, Spread, and Conflicts

• Key figures: Gilbert Tennent (mid-1730s revivalist, denounced unconverted ministers), George Whitefield (Anglican evangelist; 1740s revival across colonies), Jonathan Edwards ( Northampton preacher; mystical/predestinarian emphasis), Frelinghuysen (Dutch Reformed revival in NJ).
• Dynamics:
  • Revivals drew thousands to new forms of worship, intensified religious competition, and spurred effort to train evangelical ministers.
  • Debates over who could be a minister (converted vs unconverted) intensified; in 1741 Tennent was expelled from the Presbyterian Church.
  • New Light revivals attracted wide audiences across class lines, including women, free Blacks, and Indians, challenging established church structures.
• Conflicts and consequences:
  • Old Light critics condemned revival methods (extemporaneous preaching, itinerancy).
  • Some itinerant leaders (e.g., James Davenport) provoked backlash; Davenport criticized elite clergy and sparked public controversies (e.g., book burnings).
  • Long-term legacies: heightened religious tolerance, democratized religious life, and cross-denominational networks that influenced politics and social life.

Witchcraft, Social Anxiety, and the Salem Context

• Crises of 1680s-1690s: widespread witchcraft accusations reflect fears about expansion, frontier dangers, and shifts in social order.
• Salem Witch Trials (1692): spectral evidence, fear of Indian attacks, and conflicts among merchants, farmers, and ministers.
  • Accusers: predominantly women; trials culminated in 19 executions and one death by pressing; 27 accused faced trial; 20 guilty verdicts.
  • End of spectral evidence and trials followed, with officials and ministers condemning the method.
• Broader significance: witchcraft episodes reveal tensions over marriage, inheritance, and gendered power; they foreshadow later anxieties about social order, property, and authority.

Family, Marriage, and Women’s Roles in a Changing Society

• Patriarchal order and ferne covert: husbands control wives, property, and labor; fathers guardians of children; wives’ property often tied to husband's status.
• Economic and legal shifts: as urbanization and market exchange rise, wives’ domestic roles expand to include management within household production in many settings.
• Marriage and reproduction:
  • By 1700, >90% of white women married; high fertility in New England (average of ~8 children per long-lived marriage for those who survived).
  • Enslaved women in the South faced harsher conditions; fertility and reproductive roles shaped by plantation labor and owner incentives.
• Legal redress and coercion:
  • Divorce was rare; deserts and separations occurred, but women had limited options (desertion by husbands common).
  • Cases of seduction, rape, and abandonment show women’s limited ability to achieve legal redress; courts often prioritized male authority and property.
• Everyday labor and household economies:
  • Wives and daughters performed essential domestic and productive tasks; households formed networks of exchange and mutual support.

Diversity, Population Growth, and Economic Competition

• Population and wealth disparities widen:
  • By 1760, many white colonists owned no property; large gaps between rich and poor grow in urban centers (NY, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston).
  • Consumption of luxury goods rises as transatlantic trade expands credit and markets.
• Immigrants and enslaved Africans shape communities:
  • German, Irish, Scottish-Irish, Dutch, and African populations diversify regional cultures and economies.
  • Frontiers see Scots-Irish and Germans clash with established settlers; Indian nations negotiate with colonists as pressure on land grows.
• Frontier expansion and land conflicts:
  • Walking Purchase (1737) reveals manipulation of Indian land rights; boundary disputes and frontier violence intensify.
  • German Moravians and Scots-Irish in PA often form separate communities; some alliances with Indians linked to trade, religious orders, and political maneuvering.
• Economic structure and dependence:
  • Large landowners, planters, and merchants gain influence over markets, courts, and politics; small farmers and artisans face constrained opportunities.
  • In the South, enslaved labor becomes central to tobacco economy; free Blacks face restricted land ownership and economic mobility.

Indians, Slavery, and Cultural Accommodation on the Frontiers

• The Middle Ground (White) and cross-cultural encounters:
  • In the Pays d'en Haut, alliances between Native nations and Europeans (French and their Indigenous partners) produce a negotiated frontier, with accommodation and interethnic exchange shaping political and military dynamics.
  • White emphasizes mutual misunderstandings, shared practices, and the emergence of new cultural forms through contact.
• Indian slavery and European slaveries (Rushforth):
  • In New France, Native slavery was widespread and integral to colonial economies; enslaved Indigenous people served in towns, as domestics, or in trade networks.
  • Slavery reveals complex inter-ethnic negotiations and violence that undergird colonial power, complicating simple narratives of conquest.
• Comparative note: relations with Indians diverge between British North America and New France; accommodation and conflict vary by empire, trade, and local diplomacy.

Urban Politics, Protests, and the Rise of a Broader Public Sphere

• Bread and market protests (1730s):
  • Bread riots erupt when bread prices rise; urban residents, especially women in New England, claim rights to affordable food and participation in governance.
• Market interference, tenancy, and land disputes (1740s):
  • Tenant and squatters organize to contest landlords and speculators; regional committees and popular courts emerge to resolve grievances.
• Impressment and imperial policy (1747):
  • Naval impressment sparks riots in Boston with participation across classes and races; colonists resist imperial overreach.
• Urban political reform and Zenger trial (1734-1737):
  • New York’s Morris circle mobilizes workers and merchants; Zenger’s libel case fuels debates over liberty of the press and local governance.
  • Although the Zenger verdict did not overhaul British law, it signals growing colonist participation in urban politics and resistance to centralized authority.

Primary Source Snapshots: People, Places, and Power

• Royall family portrait (Source 4.2) and Eliza Lucas Pinckney letter (Source 4.3):
  • Elite women manage households and plantations; enslaved labor sustains wealth; marriage links elite status to property and power.
• Abigail Faulkner’s witchcraft petition (Source 4.1):
  • Appeal illustrates masculinized legal structures, religious rhetoric, and the potential for annulment of witchcraft convictions when authorities intervene.
• Sarah Grosvenor and Sarah Osborn (Sources 4.3, 4.9-4.10):
  • Gendered experiences of motherhood, pregnancy, and religious leadership; women increasingly assume public religious roles and seek education for themselves and their children.
• The Great Awakening sources (4.6-4.10):
  • Franklin on Whitefield (4.6) shows Enlightenment skepticism coexisting with revivalist appeal.
  • Edwards (4.7) emphasizes sin, salvation, and fear of hell; Davenport (4.8) provokes controversy through radical acts.
  • Osborn (4.10) documents lay leadership and women’s religious influence in revival networks.

Key Terms and Concepts to Remember

• Patriarchal family; ferne covert; property and labor controlled by husbands/fathers.
• Walking Purchase (1737): dubious boundary expansion that exploited Indian land rights.
• New Light vs Old Light clergy; revivalism and denominational splits.
• Enlightenment; Pietists; Great Awakening; their effects on religion and politics.
• Impressment; bread riots; urban protests; rise of popular politics.
• Middle Ground (White) and Indian slavery in New France (Rushforth).
• Zenger trial and the emergence of a culture of liberty and dissent in urban centers.

Timeline Highlights

• Glorious Revolution (1688) and Salem witch trials (1692).
• 1700-1750: 250,000 immigrants and enslaved Africans arrive; population grows to 2.5 million by 1750.
• 1734-1737: Zenger acquitted; rise of print culture and popular political debate.
• 1737: Walking Purchase; frontier land disputes intensify.
• 1739-1745: George Whitefield’s revival tours; Great Awakening spreads widely.
• 1745 onward: revival tensions intensify Old Light vs New Light; social disruption expands.
• 1747: Boston impressment riots highlight imperial resistance and urban solidarity.

Quick Review Questions

• What factors led to rising tensions within colonial communities in the early 1700s?
• How did social, economic, and political tensions contribute to witchcraft accusations?
• How did the legal and economic circumstances of colonial women change between 1650 and 1750, and how did this differ by race and class?
• What was the Great Awakening, and what were its legacies for religion and politics?
• How did Enlightenment ideas interact with religious revivals in the colonies?
• How did ordinary colonists express political opinions across class and race in the early 18th century?
• In what ways did frontier expansion and Indian-European relations shape colonial society?

Source references used in this note are drawn from: Sources 4.1–4.10 (Abigail Faulkner; Sarah Grosvenor; Sarah Osborn; Gilbert Tennent; George Whitefield; Jonathan Edwards; James Davenport; Eliza Lucas Pinckney; Royall family; and the Great Awakening/Enlightenment debates).