01:512:205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Plymouth Bay, John Calvin, William Laud
18 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Chapter 3: Settling the Northern Colonies, 1619-1700
1. The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism
1. Denouncing the authority of priests and popes, Martin Luther, in 1517,
ignited a fire of religious reform (the Protestant Reformation) that spread
throughout Europe for more than a century, kindling the spiritual fervor of
millions—some of whom helped to found America
2. John Calvin of Geneva elaborated Luther’s ideas in ways that profoundly
affected thought and character of generations of Americans
1. Calvinism became the dominant theological credo not only of New
England Puritans but of other American settlers including Scottish
Presbyterians, French Huguenots, and the Dutch Reformed church
2. Calvin spelled out his basic doctrine in 1536 in Institutes of Christian
Religion in which he argued that God was all-powerful and all-good;
humans were weak and wicked because of sin
3. Since the first moment of creation, some souls—the elect—had been
destined for eternal bliss and others for eternal torment
4. Good works could not save those whom predestination was hell
5. But neither could the elect count on their predetermined salvation and
lead lives of wild, immoral abandon and thus, gnawing doubts about
their eternal fate plagued Calvinists (signs of conversion)
6. Conversion was thought to be an intense, identifiable personal
experience in which God revealed to elect their heavenly destiny
3. The Calvinists doctrines swept into England just as King Henry VIII was
breaking his ties with the Roman Catholic church in the 1530s, making
himself the head of the Church of England
4. Henry’s action stimulated some English religious reformers to undertake a
total purification of English Christianity (Puritans)
1. Many Puritans came from the commercially depressed woolen
districts and Calvinism with its message of reassuring order in the
divine plan, fed on this social unrest and provided spiritual comfort
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
2. As time went on, Puritans grew increasingly unhappy over the slow
progress of the Protestant Reformation in England; they burned with
zeal to see the Church of England wholly de-Catholicized
3.
4. All Puritans agreed that only visible saints should be admitted to
church membership but the Church of England enrolled all subjects
5. This meant that the saints had to hare pews with the damned and
a tiny group of extreme Puritans, known as Separatists, vowed to
break away entirely from the Church of England
5. King James I, a shrewd Scotsman, was head of both the state and the
church in England from 1603 to 1625 and he quickly perceived that if his
subjects could defy him as their spiritual leader they might one day defy
him as political leader (in fact they beheaded his son, Charles I)
6. James therefore threatened to harass the Separatists out of the land
2. The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth
1. The most famous congregation of Separatists, fleeing royal wrath,
departed for Holland in 1608; they longed to find a haven where they
could live and die as English men and women as purified Protestants
1. America was the logical refuge, despite the early ordeals of
Jamestown, and despite tales of New World cannibals
2. A group of the Separatists in Holland, after negotiating with the
Virginia Company, at length secured rights to settle under its rule
2. The crowded Mayflower, sixty-five days at sea, missed its destination and
arrived off the rocky coast of New England in 1620 with a total of 102
people; one had died en route and one had been born (Oceanus)
1. Fewer than half of the entire party were Separatists; prominent among
the nonbelongers was Captain Myles Standish who later rendered
indispensable service as an Indian fighter and negotiator
2. The Pilgrims did not make their initial landing at Plymouth Rock, as
commonly supposed, but undertook a number of surveys
3. They finally chose for their site the shore of inhospitable Plymouth
Bay; this area was outside the domain of the Virginia Company, and
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
consequently, the settlers became squatters because they were
without legal right to the land and without specific authority
3. Before landing the Pilgrim leaders signed the brief Mayflower Compact
1. Although setting an invaluable precedent for later written constitutions,
this document was not a constitution at all
2. It was a simple agreement to form a crude government and to submit
to the will of the majority under the regulations agreed upon
3. The compact was signed by 41 adult males, eleven of them with the
exalted rank of mister though not by the servants and two seamen
4. The pact was a promising step toward genuine self-government, for
soon the males were assembling to make their own laws in the open-
discussion town meetings—a great laboratory of liberty
4. The Pilgrims’ first winter of 1620-1621 was harsh and only 44 out of the
102 survived but when the Mayflower sailed back to England in the spring,
not a single one of the band of Separatists left to go back
5. God made his children prosperous so the Pilgrims believed; the next fall
brought bountiful harvests and with them the first Thanksgiving Day in
New England; in time the colony found its economy in fur, fish, and
lumber—the beaver and the Bible were the early mainstays
6. Plymouth proved that the English could maintain themselves in this
uninviting region; the Pilgrims were extremely fortunate in their leaders
1. Prominent among them was the cultured William Bradford who was
chosen governor thirty times in the annual elections; among his
worries was his fear that independent, non-Puritan settlers might
corrupt his godly experiment in the wilderness
2. Bustling fishing villages and other settlements did sprout to the north
of Plymouth on the storm-lashed shores of Massachusetts Bay
7. Quiet and quaint, the little colony of Plymouth was never important
economically or numerically; its population numbered only seven
thousand by 1691—Plymouth would merge in 1691 still unimportant
3. The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth
1. The Separatist Pilgrims were dedicated extremists—the purest Puritans
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
England puritans but of other american settlers including scottish. Presbyterians, french huguenots, and the dutch reformed church: calvin spelled out his basic doctrine in 1536 in institutes of christian. Jamestown, and despite tales of new world cannibals: a group of the separatists in holland, after negotiating with the. Massachusetts area and the newcomers brought their charter along: for many years, they used it as a kind of constitution, out of reach of royal authority and they denied that they wanted to separate from the. England; not all of them were puritans and only about 14,000 came to. Massachusetts many were attracted to the warm and fertile west. Indies, especially the sugar-rich island of barbados: many prosperous, educated people immigrated to the bay colony, including john winthrop, who became the colony"s first governor, winthrop accepted the offer to become governor of the.
