The Emerging American Identity Through Early Writings

1
The Emerging American Identity Through Early
Writings

• We Americans are the peculiar chosen people the
  Israel of our time we bear the ark of the
  liberties of the world.
• - Herman Melville, White Jacket

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Question 1 What is American about American
Writing?

• In defining American literature who is the
  American we are defining? Is it
• - The indigenous people who inhabitated North
  America as early as settlers who arrived as early
  as the fifteenth centurey

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First Words

• American literature begins with the orally
  transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics of
  native cultures
• Given the great diversity of native narratives,
  it is impossible to generalize the nature of the
  stories.
• Still, there are many commonalities
• Reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as
  physical mother
• Main characters may be animals or plants
• A sense of balance good will
• Nature is alive and endowed with spiritual forces

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The Language of Exploration

• Reference to the Americas in literature began
  with European explorers.
• But American writing is generally acknowledge to
  begin with the work of English adventurers and
  colonists in the New World chiefly for the
  benefit of readers in the mother country.
• Prominent among this group was Captain John Smith
  whose True Relation of Such Occurrences and
  Accidents of Notes as Hath Happened in Virginia
  since the First Planting of that Colony was the
  first book printed in America.
• Smiths writings were designed to encourage
  Europeans to try their luck in America. Such
  writings portrayed the virgin land as a symbol
  of limitless untapped wealth, fruit ripe for the
  picking.
• This enticement essentially missed the fact that
  the virgin land was not exactly virginal,
  having been inhabited by native peoples for
  hundreds of years before.

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The Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Colonial
Period

• The first separatists to arrive at Plymouth Rock
  on the Mayflower came to America for quite
  different reasons than the colonists at Jamestown
  in Virginia, seeking not material wealth but
  spiritual riches.
• These settlers, like the Puritans that followed,
  left Europe because of religious persecution.
  They intended to live in seclusion in this new
  land to practice their faith as they saw fit.
• From this event emerged one of the most important
  documents to inform American government. Signed
  by the 41 men aboard the Mayflower, the Mayflower
  Compact asserts that a legitimate government can
  only be forged by the consent of those governed.

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The Puritans

• Like the Pilgrims, the Puritans settlers of the
  Massachusetts Bay Colony, came to the New World
  to escape religious persecution.
• But unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans believed
  that they had a chance to establish a new society
  based on religious principles that would prepare
  the way for the second coming of Christ.
• The Puritans of New England intended to be a
  model of religious and civil government .
• Puritans viewed their journey as a very public
  experiment in theocracy.
• Puritan settlers brought their wives and
  children, intending to make the move permanent.
  Many left behind affluent lives and thriving
  business they were committed to the errand
  into the wilderness.
• They viewed the wilderness as dangerous and
  filled with savage people it was their duty to
  clear the land and create a paradise, a Garden of
  Eden, a New Jerusalem

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And More About Puritans

• Puritans were members of the Protestant Church of
  England
• An important tenet of the Protestant Reformation
  was that people did not need priests or other
  representatives of the Church hierarchy to
  mediate between individuals and God. They
  believed, instead, in direct relationships
  between people and their God
• Puritans were Congregationalists each Church
  group would be self governing
• Their attitudes toward entertainment joy and
  laughter are symptoms of sin.
• Their attitudes toward work work itself is a
  good in addition to what it achieves, that time
  saved by efficiency or good fortune should be
  spent in doing further work.

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And Still a Little More

• Puritans were hungry for education.
• Reading and intellectual discourse allowed them
  to understand and execute God's will as they
  established their colonies throughout New
  England.
• Much of their education was self taught
• Between 1630 and 1690, there were as many
  university graduates in New England, as in the
  mother country (aristocrats).

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Puritan Beliefs

• But the most important defining feature of the
  Puritan settlers was their religion.
• You will recall the mnemonic TULIP, which
  outlines the ideas of original sin,
  predestination, and the principles of conversion
  through Gods grace.
• Unconditional Election the idea that God has
  decided which humans will be saved and which will
  be condemned to damnation was a driving force
  behind Puritan behavior.
• KEY POINT No one knows if they are save or
  damned but signs and behaviors may be a clue.

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Additional Beliefs Typology

• The belief that God's intentions are present in
  human action and in natural phenomenon.
• Puritans believed in cyclical or repetitive
  history they use "types" to compare their
  experiences (the Chosen People) with the stories
  of the Bible- Moses' journey out of Egypt is
  played out in the Pilgrims' crossing of the
  Atlantic, the New World is the Garden of Eden,
  the first settlers are the New Adam.
• God's wrath and reward are also present in
  natural phenomena like flooding, bountiful
  harvest, the invasion of locusts, and lightening
  striking a home.
• It is for people to interpret these signs
  failure to do so is a human limitation.

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Additional BeliefsThe Ripe Fruit/City Upon a
Hill Thing

• The concept of manifest destiny was echoed almost
  as Europeans stepped foot on the virgin soil
  in both their willingness to appropriate the land
  and riches and in
• Without using the words, John Winthrop
  articulated the concept in his famous sermon, the
  Arbella Covenant (1630), when he said
• ... for we must consider that we shall be as a
  city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon
  us ..."
• This image of Puritans as a people with a special
  mission ordained by God justified and ennobled
  Americas westward expansion.
• Additionally, Captain John Smiths sentiment that
  America is a a fruit ripe for the picking,
  confirms unrestrictedexpansion into the New World.

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The Nature of Puritan Literary Works

• All these beliefs inform the writings of the
  Puritans.
• Much of their writing was to defend and promote
  visions of the religious state.
• These writers set forth their visionsin effect
  the first formulation of the concept of national
  destinyin a series of impassioned histories and
  jeremiads
• Even Puritan poetry was in the service of God
• Sermons and tracts poured forth, culminating in
  John Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
  God.

• Some scholars argue that the American voice the
  first attempt at a recorded literature grew out
  of the Puritans practice of examining their
  lives for acts of good and evil. This practice
  naturally shifted into creative writing and
  imaginative expressions. 

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Puritan Literature Cont

• The Function of Writing
• To transform a mysterious God
• To make him more relevant to the universe.
• To glorify God.
• Style of Writing
• Plain
• Serious
• Simple
• Metaphors/Simile/Hyperbole

• Forms
• Histories
• Sermons
• Diaries
• Poetry
• Jeremiads
• Common Themes
• Introspection seeking to understand Gods ways
• Idealism - both religious and political
• Pragmaticism - practicality and purposefulness
• Progress in establishing utopian community

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Behavioral Outcomes of Puritanism

• Belief in these doctrines lead to certain common
  character traits and behaviors among those who
  held them
• Introspection wondering if you are among the
  Saints
• Individualism every person has worth
• A sense of rebellion against injustice but
• A sense of conformity of the governed
• Control the behavior of others
• Morality as center of life
• Optimism all things God visits upon people are
  ultimately good, even if they appear bad.
• Elitism the sense of being chosen
• Patriotism united in a common cause

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Aspects of the Puritanism Evident in American
Life (e.g. The Puritan Hangover)

• Belief that a lowly peasant can communicate with
  God not far to the evolution of ideas such as
  individualism and equality
• A sense of morality married to governance or the
  need for moral justification for private, public,
  and governmental acts.
• Equality in governance a shared common good,
  consensus, classless society
• The Puritan work ethic
• Political activism and orderly methods
• Importance of education and literacy
• The quest for freedom - personal, political,
  economic, and social.
• The city upon the hill - concept of manifest
  destiny.

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The Puritan Hangover

• Implications of the Mayflower Compact
• Right to self governance
• Insistence on limited government
• Contractual relationship between the governed and
  those who lead
• First American social contract
• Willingness of signers to be bound as individuals
  by laws designed for the good of all.
• Paves way for a democratic model.

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The Puritan Hangover

• Implications of Election and the Search for
  Confirmation/Denial
• Self-improvement
• Good works
• Exaggerated emphasis on material wealth (their
  own and their neighbors) sign of election
• Moral Superiority of the Wealthy
• Righteousness, intolerance, intrusiveness to
  safeguard against a false conversion experience
  (church membership)

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Forces Undermining Puritanism 1720

• A person's natural desire to do good
  anti-predestination
• Dislike of a "closed" life.
• Resentment of the power of the few over many
• Change in economic conditions - growth of
  fishery, farms, etc.
• Presence of the leaders of dissent - Anne
  Hutchinson, Roger Williams.
• The presence of the frontier - concept of
  self-reliance, individualism, and optimism.
• Change in political conditions - Massachusetts
  became a Crown colony.
• Theocracy suffered from a lack of flexibility.
• Growth of rationality - use of the mind to know
  God - less dependence on the Bible.
• Cosmopolitanism of the new immigrants.
• Salem Witch Trials

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• The treatment of Hester Pyrnne in The Scarlet
  Letter constitutes the defining portrait of these
  aspects in the Puritan character.

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So question

• Do you see any PARADOXES at work in the teachings
  and behaviors of the Puritans?
• Write down at least three.

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Setting the Stage

• People increasingly questioned the old religious
  values and began to accept a more secular view of
  life.
• The hopes that engendered the great errand into
  the wilderness were dashed.
• Out of the crucible, however, grew a new kind of
  society in which Puritan values and ideas
  persisted but were modified by ideas from the
  European Enlightenment and other sources.

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American Literature of the Enlightenment Period

• 18th century was a period of major change in
  American ideas and ideals
• As with beliefs of Puritans, changes originated
  in England but took on new spirit and meaning in
  colonies.
• Factors that help explain the movement away from
  the severe faith of the Puritans are many.

• Scientists and philosophers began to question
  religious authority. The movement that resulted
  from this shift in attitude was called
• The Enlightenment

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Enlightenment Ideas and Proponents

• Enlightenment philosophers encouraged people to
• Doubt and question what they had been taught
• Think for themselves
• Use reason and observation to analyze the world
• These ideas became popular among the merchant
  class, in Europe, and the American colonies, who
  themselves began to question the rights of kings
  to rule.

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Beliefs of Enlightenment Philosophes

• Separation of church and state.
• Basic human equality
• The universe is governed by natural law
• DEISM or the clockmaker theory belief that God
  created the universe and all the laws of nature
  but once creation was completed, God withdrew
  from involvement and allowed the mechanism to
  work on its own.

• Enlightenment thinkers
• Denied the possibility of miracles
• Rejected the importance of symbolism
• Truth was achieved through scientific study of
  the laws of nature
• Human beings were born to a state of innocence
  and that they were all CREATED EQUAL (Jean
  Jacque Rousseaus concept of natural man)

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New Ideas Taking Root in the Colonial Mind

• Enlightenment thinkers de-emphasized grace and
  pre-destination in favor of moral choice and
  scientific inquiry.
• virtue, order, reason, sympathy
• How do you think religious figures felt about
  this changing view of the universe and how people
  should function within it?
• How might this change the way the common man felt
  about religion and God?

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Deism and Revolutionary Thought

• Many of these thinkers (including Jefferson and
  Franklin) called themselves Deists.
• Man can deduce the existence of a supreme being
  from the fact that the universe exists rather
  than because of what the Bible says.
• Deists also thought that a harmonious universe
  proves the beneficence of God.

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How Different Really?

• Are these people entirely different from the
  Puritans?
• Whats similar?
• How bout
• Natures God
• Individualism
• Introspection
• Personal betterment
• Personal Worth
• Rejection of inherited personal worth
• To name but a few

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Benjamin Franklin and Secularization of Puritan
Beliefs

• Nowhere is the unification of two dominant
  streams of American thoughts more in evidence
  than in the story of Benjamin Franklin, whose
  history merges
• Puritan ideas of morality with
• Enlightenment philosophy

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Franklins Puritan Foundation

• Born into modest circumstance in Boston
• Rose to international prominence through hard
  work and honesty in all his dealings
• Taught Puritan Work Ethic as a child the
  importance of hard work and integrity in all
  business dealings (appears as early to bed, and
  early to rise)
• Self-made success as a printer (again, sheer
  sweat equity)
• Influenced by early studies of Puritan text
• Accepted, without question, the idea that
  personal wealth was the reward of a virtuous life
  (American capitalism?)
• When Franklin describes his self help plan in
  Autobiography, he is not only writing the first
  American self-help book and a prescription for
  people who will follow his lead, he is also
  reflecting Puritan ideas of self-improvement to
  be acceptable in Gods sight.

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Franklins Enlightenment Influence

• As much as Franklin was influenced by his Puritan
  roots, he was much more influenced by the ideas
  of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason
• Human beings had natural right to anything that
  demanded their labor.
• These rights existed before nations were created
• Materialism mixed with a sense of the public good
• A strict Deist rejected religious authority and
  Gods intervention believed deeply in religious
  tolerance
• Moral Perfection Thirteen Virtues one at a
  time.
• Interest in science responsible for many
  inventions bifocals, Franklin stove, lightening
  rod (no patent)
• A diplomat in France during the Revolution and
  responsible for ensuring many American victories.

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Franklins Autobiography

• Autobiography inspiring account of a poor boys
  rise to a high position. It is a how-to-do-it
  book, one on the art of self-improvement.
• Contents It covered Franklins life only until
  1757 when he was 51 years old. It described his
  life as a shrewd and industrious businessman and
  narrates how he owned the constant felicity of
  his life, his long-continued health and
  acquisition of fortune.
• Significance It presents a prototype of American
  success which inspired generations of Americans.
  It is an embodiment of Puritanism and
  enlightening spirits.

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Autobiography and the Emergence of the American
Myth

• Franklin writes very self consciously he is
  very much aware of certain literary COVENTIONS.
• He tells his own story, he is aware he is
  creating an AMERICAN MYTH
• Connect to Audience
• Selects those events from his life that
  contribute to the myth
• Man of humble beginnings who rose to prominence
  through
• Hard work
• Honesty
• His own efforts
• Outcomes
• Blessings of success and happiness
• Lessons learned (self improvement)
• Style
• Didactic style.
• Simplicity, frankness, wit, clarity, logic and
  order.

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SoConsider American Identity Thus Far

• What is an American so far?

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Further Emergence of the American Identity

• The colonists who came to live in what was to
  become the United States of America did not,
  until around the 1770s, think of themselves as
  "Americans.
• Most colonists in the New World identified
  themselves as English citizens. They may have
  come to live in a place far away from England,
  but they still identified with that nation.
• For many colonists, the process of American
  identification took place naturally throughout
  the late 1700s as ideas about self-government
  grew into reality.
• Colonists began to develop a greater national
  identity as various events led them to grow
  frustrated with Englands policies, declare
  independence, rebel against English rule, and
  finally form their own government.
• Ben Franklin laid out the American Myth in the
  late 18th century, but the process of
  individuation began long before.
• It was not until the Declaration of Independence
  that colonists formally and publically (though
  not officially) broke with the mother country.

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The French and Indian War - 1763

• The emergence of an American identity began with
  the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.
• The war left England in control of virtually all
  the land east of the Mississippi River.
• The war doubled the national debt of England and
  quadrupled the cost of administering the empire
  in America.
• The British expected the colonies to help pay the
  costs of the war
• To that end, the British government began
  imposing various taxes and laws on the colonies,
  which colonists felt violated the rights from
  their English heritage.
• As colonists grew more angry with the English
  government, they naturally stopped identifying
  themselves with the enemy country.

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The Roots of Rebellion

• The Stamp Act
• the Boston Tea Party.
• The Intolerable Acts
• Another law gave the French-Canadianand
  Catholicroyal province of Quebec all of the land
  west of the Appalachians lying north of the Ohio
  River and east of the Mississippi. This act
  alienated much of Protestant America.
• These and other acts helped muster broad support
  for a "general congress of all the colonies"
  proposed by the Virginia and Massachusetts
  assemblies.

• The First Continental Congress
• The call for a "general congress" was well
  received
• Adopted a Declaration of Rights Grievances
  against all British acts to which "Americans
  cannot submit" and approved commercial boycotts
  of many goods traded with England.
• The delegates adjourned in late October, agreeing
  to meet the following May if necessary.

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Rumblings of the New Nation

• In England King George III declared the colonies
  were "now in a state of rebellion.
• Events escalated, which led to war.
• Colonists convened the Second Continental
  Congress in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.
• Most delegates still hoped to avoid war with
  England. However, due to the outbreak of
  violence at Lexington and Concord, delegates
  agreed to raise an army and ask the colonies for
  funds to pay for it.
• George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was
  made the Continental Army's commander in chief.
• The delegates approved a petition to the king
  asking for a "happy and permanent reconciliation"
  between the colonies and England.
• The king was not pleased and in August he
  proclaimed a state of rebellion in the colonies.

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The Declaration of Independence

• By the following summer, the Continental Congress
  was under increasing pressure from the most vocal
  radicals in the colonies to move to independence.
• In June 1776 a group of delegates was named to
  draft a declaration, but the actual writing fell
  largely to Thomas Jefferson.
• The Declaration of Independence, celebrated by
  Americans every year on July 4, was in large part
  a recitation of every grievance against English
  colonial policy that had emerged since 1763.
• The Declaration of Independence committed the
  colonies to wage a war that was already under way
  (for one year)
• The war would drag on for more than five years
  before England gave up the struggle.

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Facts about the Declaration

• Purpose was NOT to declare independence but to
  proclaim to the WORLD the reasons for declaring
  independence.
• Attempts to lay before the WORLD the causes which
  impelled the colonists to separate
• Went beyond justified engaging in rebellion
  against a rightful (and some think divine)
  authority a king. Think how serious a matter
  that would be.

• Shows a general philosophy upon which the case of
  the colonies would rest.
• Enumerate specific grievances that would cause
  rebellion
• Show that these causes existed
• Show that the kings deliberate and persistent
  purpose was to establish an absolute tyrany over
  the colonies
• Show that the colonies had been temperate and
  measured in their response.

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In essence

• The framers of the Declaration presented their
  case.
• Having formulated a philosophy of government that
  made revolution right under certain conditions,
  they endeavored to show that these conditions
  prevailed in the colonies, not on account of
  anything which the people of the colonies had
  done, or had left undone, but solely on account o
  the deliberate and malevolent purpose of their
  king to establish over them an absolute tyranny.
  The people of the colonies must, accordingly
  either throw off the hyoke or submit to be
  slaves.
• As between these alternatives, there could be but
  one choice for men accustomed to freedom

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Structure of the Declaration

• The work is written in the form of an argument
  with three parts
• What is
• What we wiil do
• Why we must do it
• It includes all the forms of rhetorical
  persuasion
• It works like this
• 1. Preamble context when in history
• 2. Intro reasoning that drives argument
• 3. List of grievances (indictment of George III)
• 4. the denunciation of the British people
• 5. Conclusion/resolutions

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Structure of the Argument

• Argument
• Thesis
• Ethos Pathos
  Logos
• Evidence Evidence
  Evidence
• Conclusion

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Rhetorical Forms

• Ethos the authority/credibility behind the
  argumentmen of good sense, good character, goo
  will
• Pathos emotion, empathy for the people who have
  suffered tyranny (literary devices)
• Logos appeals to reason, lays out the hard
  facts of the case. Follows a line of reasoning
  that explains why they must rebel

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Note the mastery in the persuasion

• Syntax
• Diction
• Images
• Parallelism
• Personification
• Catalogues
• Anaphora
• Repetition
• Alliteration

• Note
• Speaker
• Occasion
• Audience
• Point of View
• Thesis (where is it?)
• How is it a perfect essay?

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The Spark of Revolution

• As anger with the Mother Country grew, war
  erupted, independence was won from England, and
  the united colonies formed their own government.
  Thus, identification with Britain naturally
  lessened.
• Beyond government and war, everyday life in the
  American colonies was occurring (people were
  building homes, working, forming communities)
  and thus the emergence of an American society was
  taking place.

46
Words of the Dispossessed

• For all the focus on equality and the natural
  rights of men, Enlightenment ideas did little to
  elevate the status of the most marginalized
  citizens within the new settlements.
• They did not prevent the growth of slavery
• Nor did they promote equality for women

47
Slavery in America

• Nothing could have been more disingenuous to the
  principles of Enlightenment then the growth of
  the slave trade in the southern colonies.
• Slavery in America rose gradually. Some causes
• New England settlers immigrated for an idea while
  Virginia and the Carolinas were settled with
  profit in mind
• No wealth in precious metals or gemstones but
  plenty of wealth to be found in tobacco and rice
  very labor intensive
• Reduction in number of indentured slaves from
  England (plague, fire in London)
• Slavery was driven by economics, but to justify
  it, people began to assert the theory that
  Africans were subhuman and inferior to all whites

48
The Slave Experience

• Much of what we know about slavery comes to us
  from the slaves themselves (slave narratives)
• Olaudah Equiano autobiography by a freed slave
  living in England, uses vivid and disturbing
  imagery to describe conditions aboard a slave ship

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The Literature of the American Revolution

• Colonists began to develop a greater national
  identity as
• various events led them to grow frustrated with
  Englands
• policies, declare independence, rebel against
  English rule, and
• finally form their own government.