NORTH AMERICA

1
NORTH AMERICA

• PRIOR TO 1750

2
FIRST ENCOUNTERs

• 1492- Native Americans first encountered European
  settlers.
• Did you know that Christopher Columbus actually
  landed in the Bahamas?

3
Who really discovered America?

• In 1515 Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the Florida
  Peninsula

• Surprisingly, the first permanent English
  settlement didnt happen until 1607, in
  Jamestown, Virginia.

Actually, Vikings first settled in the Americas
in AD 1000.
4
THE FIRST AMERICANS

• Native American tribes inhabited North America
  from 12,000 to 70,000 years ago.

• Even if it has only been 12,000 years, that is
  still THIRTY TIMES longer than the Europeans, who
  didnt arrive until the late 1500s.

5
SAVAGES?

• Contrary to the popular impression of early
  Native Americans, they usually greeted the
  earliest European settlers as friends.

They taught the settlers about agriculture and
woodcraft.Many settlers survived only because of
assistance and instruction from the Native
Americans.
6
Many Nations

• There were several hundred tribes of Native
  Americans by the 1490s.
• They differed from one another in language,
  government, customs, housing, etc.

7
NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE

• Not much is known about the Native Americans,
  prior to their encounters with Europeans, because
  they did not keep written records.

Most Native American Lit is considered folklore,
stories that generally legends about heroes,
migration, and the creation. Stories were passed
on orally and would vary depending on who was
telling them.
8
AND THEN THE PURITANS CRASHED THE PARTY

• In 1620, the Mayflower carried a group of
  religious reformists from England.

They were called Puritans because they
attempted to purify the church from within.
When this failed, they decided to take their
ideas and beliefs elsewhere. They were also
called Separatists.
9
Puritans, continued.

• They landed in what is now Plymouth,
  Massachussetts.
• Eventually the Plymouth colony was absorbed by
  the larger Massachussetts Bay Colony.
• Their government was a Theocracy, a state under
  the immediate guidance of God.

10
Puritan Beliefs

• Human beings existed solely for the glory of God.
• The Bible is the sole expression of Gods will.

They also believed in predestination, or the idea
that God has already decided who will achieve
salvation and who will be condemned to hell.
-However, the saved didnt know who they were,
so they had to constantly strive to do good, just
in case they were one of the chosen ones.
11
Puritan Beliefs, continued.

• The Puritans felt that they could accomplish good
  only through continual hard work and
  self-discipline.
• When people today speak of the Puritan work
  ethic, they are basically speaking about the
  idea that hard work will bring you rewards.

12
The Great Awakening

• Puritanism began to lose steam in the early
  1700s. More liberal Protestant congregations
  began to gain followers and converts.
• The Great Awakening was a movement in reaction to
  the movement toward less moral constraints.

13
The Great Awakening continued.

• Ministers, like Jonathan Edwards, began preaching
  Fire and Brimstone sermons, which threatened
  their congregations with the fires of hell and
  damnation if they strayed from the church and its
  practices.

14
More Fire and Brimstone

• Though the churches gained thousands of new
  converts, old-school Puritanism all but died out.
• However, the Puritan ideals of self-discipline,
  self-reliance, frugality and hard work.

15
Puritan Writing

• Because they believed that their every action was
  to be for the glory of God, virtually all of
  their writing was either religious or
  self-reflective about how they could grow
  spiritually.
• They did not write fiction nor drama, because
  they considered both to be sinful.
• They did write poetry, but they were almost
  always religious in nature.

16
The Puritan Legacy

• Puritans founded Harvard College, one of todays
  most prestigious schools.
• They set up the first printing press in North
  America

Also, free public schools were established by the
Puritans in 1647.
17
Puritan Writers

• Cotton Mather, a Puritan writer, produced more
  than 400 books (some about witchcraft which
  played a part in the Salem Witchcraft Trials- but
  well come back to that later).

18
Big, Big Business

• Large plantations began to spring up in the
  southern colonies.

• As many as 1,000 people (many of them slaves)
  could live on and work a single plantations.

19
Plantations

• The first black slaves were brought to Virginia
  in 1619, a year before the Pilgrims landed at
  Plymouth.

20
Hand in Hand

• The plantation system and slavery seemed were
  closely connected, though slavery existed in all
  of the colonies.
• Ironically, slave owners were typically Church of
  England members (Protestants), and held to many
  of the hard working ideals of the Puritans.
• (Seriously, did they think Jesus would have
  slaves??? What the???)