Errand into the Wilderness

The Unlikely Origins of American Democracy

Salem Possessed
February 1692, Samuel Parriss daughter possessed
- Sarah Good

Arrests did not calm fears

- Court of Oyer and Terminer

Trial of George Jacobs

The implications
1. Ooops!
1697 Day of Atonement 1711 Restitution to survivors and heirs

2. Reason triumphant?
- Church/state separation - Natural Philosophy (science) - Age of Enlightenment
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Last gasp of the medieval world?

I. Puritan Paradox

Undemocratic, theocratic society lays the foundations of American democracy, progressive tradition

A. Puritanism and American Culture

1. cultural empire 2. Emphasize education, reform & progress through cooperative action
Abolition Temperance Feminism Transcendentalism/Unitarianism communalism Evangelicalism

3. A Model of Christian Charity

John Winthrop, 1630

The Mission: City on a Hill

Americans chosen by God American exceptionalism

4. When the mission fails

- recrimination, paranoia - tendency to persecute - Failure contradicts covenant

The Crucible
- Arthur Miller

Joseph McCarthy

II. The Puritan Dilemma

A. Something about Mary

1. Reformation in England
Henry VIII Bloody Mary I

1535

Elizabeth I

James I

B. The Ghost of John Calvin

1. Reform of the High Church
- hierarchy v. assembly
What is a church?

2. Predestination
a. Advantages
- natural egalitarianism
antinomianism

Religion as Revolution

b. Awful logic of Calvinism

C. Your cheatin heart

1. Cheat #1 a. The Covenant

John Cotton, 1636

b. Mayflower Compact, 1620

- community first

2. Cheat #2

Conversion process
[prominent role in American Protestantism]

3. Cheat #3
Visible Saints / the Elect Max Weber

D. Cheaters sometimes prosper

1. Full church membership
a. receive sacraments b. baptize children (membership) c. vote on minister d. political rights
Egalitarian, democratic(?)

III. Things fall apart

The failure of the Puritan Mission

A. Internal division
1. Egalitarian but intolerant
Roger Williams Anne Hutchinson

B. Prosperity
1. Diverse New England economy
- rise of the Yankee trader

Whaling and commercial centers

C. Population Growth
4. Westward migration
- shrinking farms

5. Visible Saints thing comes back to bite them

- Gods favor - capitalist ethic conquers communal control

D. Judgment Day deferred

1. English Commonwealth, 1649-60 2. Cromwells betrayal 3. the Restoration, 1660

Oliver Cromwell

E. Loss of Confidence
1. Lack of conversion (3rd generation)
- fewer church members - fewer voters

2. Halfway Covenant (S. Stoddard) cheat 4

- vote, but no sacraments

By 1700, Puritan church not so pure

IV. Utopia Undone

A. The Cheese and the Worms

1. Now my charms are all o'erthrown
- Prospero, The Tempest

- Malleus Maleficarum 1486 - Folk knowledge; magic - rise of Modernity

B. Wrath of God
1. King Philips War, 1675-76 2. 1680s smallpox epidemic 3. 1684 Royal Colony
loss of political control

C. Satans Sisters
- Tituba - Sarah Good - Sarah Osborne West Indian homeless beggar elderly; alone; poor church attendance had illegitimate, mixed-race child; opinionated elderly; dispute with previous minister 3 husbands; non-demure; worked in pubs

- Martha Corey
- Rebecca Nurse

- Bridget Bishop

D. Do we know why?
1. Lysergic acid
(LSD)

Little Ice Age

2. Economic/social rivalry

- Village v. Town
- pro v. anti Parris - Putnams v. Porters - traditional v. mercantile

E. The Upshot
1. Puritans fail upward 2. Communal ideals build democratic tradition
- rights based on inclusion in community
- participatory democracy

basis of independence

3. Theological conformity (covenant) & individualism (Visible Saints)

- economic liberty & social contract

4. New England fertile ground for American liberal tradition

Abolition Feminism Transcendentalism Temperance Public Education Public Services

Red vs. Blue regions?

Competing definitions of Liberty