Puritans in America: Were they perfect?

The Puritans were a religious group that wanted to do one thing--purify the Church of England by getting rid of all traditional Catholic practices. They viewed themselves as “a model of Christian charity”, according to John Winthrop, but I don’t believe they actually were. As we study the Puritans, and what they accomplished in their time of settlement, we will answer the question of if they really were a perfect model or not. In class, we read over many documents, both primary and secondary sources. We read primary sources from John Winthrop, which read him claiming that God had claimed the land for them.

Puritans were a religious group that wanted to purify the Church of England by ridding all traces of traditional catholic practices. King Charles I was King James I's son. When he took the throne it became obvious that he had even less tolerance for religious difference than his father. Once Charles I became king, it was clear he had a very high dislike for the Puritans. The Puritans left to settle in New England because they weren't liked by Charles I at all. When they first settled there, they intended to live there in peace, to love other settlers like a brother, and to always help one another. “To do this we must work together as if we were one man. We must treat other settlers as brothers. We must enjoy each other. We must make others’ problems our own.” It was also said to make one another’s problems their own, and to work together as a community.

Before leaving England in 1630, John Winthrop and other Puritans attended a sermon by Rev. John Cotton, who said "god promised his plantation" saying they were chosen people. “The settlers can plainly see the influence of God leading them from one country to another. God makes room for a people to live there when he drives those who live there away by a just war.” He is saying that God is leading the Puritans to New England, and if there are settlers there, it is justified to wage war against them. And, after a short while in the New World, they waged war against the Pequot tribe. It was an all-out massacre, and they ended up burning the entire village down, which consisted of ⅓ of the total population. It was unjustified in my opinion because it was a complete and utterly brutal massacre that killed hundreds, if not at least thousands of Pequots for no good reason. They were too brutal with their attack. One thing that also struck my interest was how poorly women were treated in Salem. Anne Hutchinson was put on trial for speaking her mind, and defied the church by interpreting the bible for herself. She was given no rights and was put on trial immediately. As a woman, she was expected to cook, clean, and care for the children around the household. And also, related to trials, the witch trials were just as unfair, if not more so. If the girls screamed, and accused someone of being a witch, they were put on trial, but 9 times out of 10 they were executed.

So, overall, the Puritans were not a perfect model of Christian charity they thought they were. In fact, they were the near opposite. Although they left England because Charles I didn't like them, they had no religious rights in America and they didn't own any land because of God. They completely massacred the Pequot colony, because they believed that they were justified into doing so because God sent them to that land and the Pequots were blocking it. They, however, crossed the line when they waged war and burnt the village down. The women were also very highly oppressed, and treated very poorly. They had almost no rights, and some were put on trial for even speaking their mind. The Salem Witch Trials were also one big last example. Basically, no matter how religious, how well-respected that person was, if they were accused they were eventually going to be executed.

The Pequot War:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFfxRm8ZXsw (Part one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G92duTgaZ_A (Part two)

Salem Witch Trials: Life in Salem in 1692

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/life/

Jamestown DBQ

Jamestown seemed at first to be a promise of new life and a new, safe lifestyle for all. However, this was not the case, because of the 110 original settlers, only 40 survived. The reason the English came to the Americas is to establish the first permanent settlement. A group of investors called The Virginia Company. The first settlers were men of the ages 17-35. Most were lower classmen, more so poor people. Early Jamestown was a colonization of English people in America that lasted from 1607 to 1611. What is so confusing about this is why so many of the colonists died in such a short period of time.

One of the first causes of death in the Jamestown were environmental issues. One of the issues was that when the English settled, they did not settle far enough upstream. When high tide arrived, it sometimes mixed with the freshwater in the stream, creating brackish water. Brackish water causes poor health if people used it as their water supply. Also, they happened to land in it’s longest unbroken period of drought. Without rainfall, it was very difficult to impossible to water crops for food. Brackish water and lack of rainfall were a detriment to the settlers and the environment during the years 1607 to 1611.

Another cause of death in early Jamestown was the lack of settler skills. One of the issues is that, in 1607, out of the 110 settlers that traveled, 82 of them had occupations, but 47 of them were ‘gentlemen’. That is over 55% of the total people with an occupation. ‘Gentlemen’ were people born of wealth who were not used to working with their hands or working at all. Another problem is that there were no females whatsoever in both trips in 1607 and 1608. Females had many important jobs in the community, which were caring for the young in homes, creating clothing and furniture, and also for medical care. Another thing the English lacked was proper skills of organizing a trade and being civil. “In 1609 Francis West and 36 men sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to try to trade for corn with the Patawomeke Indians…” Although it sounds as if the English meant for a peaceful trade, the document also states this: “Though West was able to load his small ship with grain, the success involved ‘some harshe and Crewell dealinge by cutting of towe of the salvages heads and other extremetyes.’” It seems the English took to violence rather than negotiating or acting civil.

One last reason the English died so quickly was because of their relationships with the natives. In the previous statement, when the English were confronted with a trade of corn, they responded with violence and ended up decapitating two of them and dismembering many others. There is no evidence in the documents to support why the English used force rather than peaceful trade. Perhaps they used force because they didn’t understand the Indians and did not know how to interact with them in any other way. The surviving Indians would most likely want revenge on the people who killed their own and took their crops forcefully.

Although Jamestown seemed as if nothing could go wrong, many things obviously did. There were many, many issues in the surrounding environment, including brackish water and water with festering waste. Another problem was how poorly their settler skills were. 55% of people who had occupations were gentlemen, who had no skills with labor whatsoever. Finally, the way they treated the Natives was very poor, and the Natives most likely tried to retaliate against them and take revenge. The English were basically overall terrible and had no settler skills, lived in a bad environment, and treated the Natives poorly.

Dennis B. Blanton, “Jamestown’s Environment,” Center for Archaeological Research, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 2000.

Adapted from “The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts,” Science, April 24, 1998.

Adapted from John Smith , The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, Book III, 1624.

Ivor Noel Hume, The Virginia Adventure, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

The Conquistadors

There are many sides and differences to the first meeting of Moctezuma and Cortes. However, what really happened, and what was meant is much different than what was recorded in textbooks, and many other documents written by historians. We, as a class, read 4 passages--a textbook passage, and 3 documents written by professional historians. First, the textbook excerpt gives an excerpt on the document on the arrival of Cortes. In class, we read a set of questions determining what the document was about, and what it was stating had happened. We then looked at the other three documents, and it was clear that the textbook document was very different from the other three documents, written by professional historians and first-hand sources.

Upon the arrival of the Spanish, according to the textbook edition, the Aztec, apparently very much Moctezuma, greeted Cortes with great respect, great honor, and believed him to be a god. They offered him lots of gold, and even the throne. They told him he resembled their god Quetzalcoatl, and  told him he was their true, indisputable leader. However, this is not really what happened. When the Spanish and Cortes arrived, Moctezuma did welcome them with warmth, and gave them gold and all those things, but this was not his true intention. It was a part of the Aztec culture to say the opposite of what you actually mean when meeting new people, as a way of respecting them. Cortes misinterpreted this, as he had no way of knowing that this was their custom.

Reading these different documents and learning the differences in the documents, I learned the severe importance of knowing the perspective and bias of each story. I learned that without doing research on the author or the background of that author, you may be given either false or biased information. For example, when reading the textbook’s document, I, at first, believed the information I was reading. I thought it was a bit weird, almost crazy, that Moctezuma would believe him to be their God and true ruler. Once doing more research and reading the other documents, I learned that the textbook information was either biased or false, and that I should always do research to answer my questions.

The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of ideas, foods, crops, people, animals, and cultures between the New World and the Old World after the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. It started after Columbus’ first expedition to America in 1492. From then on, each expedition was working bringing more newer ideas to the country at a time.

Throughout this whole exchange, there were moments of suffering, but also benefits. Many benefits. Mostly, the benefits were towards the Old World, or Europe and the African allies. One of the great benefits was the transfer of cash crops such as tobacco and cacao beans. They also enslaved lots of people, and brought them back to the Old World.

Although there was success for the Old World, there was unfortunately more suffering for the New World. So much disease was spread so quickly that an estimated 90% of the population was killed. The rest were unable to help themselves, so they suffered. The Europeans, unknowing that it was their diseases that spread to the Americas, called the Natives weak, and incompetent.

The Columbian Exchange, although it seemed to be a success for all, was really an “unequal exchange”. It was an unequal exchange because, although the Old World and the New World both received very good crops and items, the Old World receiving tobacco, cacao beans, tomatoes, and turkey, and the New World receiving livestock, citrus fruits, sugar cane, and the honeybee, the Old World gave the New World something worse: Disease. Horrible diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and malaria infected and killed an estimated 90% of the population. The remaining were unable to help themselves. So, although it may seem otherwise, the Columbian Exchange was certainly the Unequal Exchange.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

Christopher Columbus, at first, may seem like the person we all think we know him to have been; the wonderful explorer who discovered the new world, known as America, that we live in today. However, that was not the case whatsoever. Columbus, while he was an explorer, did not intend to discover America, nor did he name it America. Columbus thought he had landed in the continent near India, and that the Natives living there were, in fact, Indians. His objective was to find gold, and he did whatever he had to in order to achieve that goal. He enslaved the Native people against their will, forced them to do hard labor, and killed them for sport, when they had been so nice to him and had saved him. He was brutal, and was hungry and desperate to bring gold back to the king and queen of Spain.

I believed people should not continue to celebrate a holiday in his name anymore. He was not at all how our teachers said he was. He was a brute, and did whatever he wanted to achieve his goal of finding gold. He enslaved, beat, possibly tortured, and killed the Natives for sport. He not only unintentionally found the Americas, but they were not named after him in any way. He was not even the first explorer to land on the supposed “New World”. His intentions were for the greed of his own personal gain, and not to benefit the knowledge of the world of any of those around him. For those reasons, I believe Christopher Columbus day is a lie and should not be celebrated anymore.

Scientific Revolution

The scientific revolution was a great change in the way science and scientists viewed things, such as the human body and how it works. It started with the scientific method. The scientific method was a 6 step method on how to test and/or prove a theory you may have. Back in the 1500's, a new, popular exploration that was happening was the study of astronomy. Two very important astronomers were Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei. Copernicus was a very important astronomer because he was the first to discover that the solar system was a heliocentric one. The idea was revolutionary, even though it went against the beliefs and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo redefined those discoveries by basing it off of Copernicus'. He used a large telescope, and discovered 4 moons of Jupiter, and even more so how the moons and the planets orbited. Back then, not only was the belief of how the world worked different, but chemistry and medicine worked differently too. Robert Boyle was a chemist. He created the formula pv=k, and also the air pump. He discovered the process of combustion, and also made the principles of observing the world around you. Leonardo da Vinci was a surgeon who dissected 30 deceased bodies to learn more about their muscles, brain, lungs, and heart. It didn't go over well with the Roman Catholic Church, but it did play a major role in how we view our bodies today. Throughout the lives of all these astronomers, chemists, and medics, the Roman Catholic Church stayed in one place. They stuck to their beliefs that the earth stayed immobile, while all other bodies in the universe revolved around it. The discoveries that chemists and surgeons such as Andreas Vesalius and Robert Boyle were against the church's discoveries, teachings, and beliefs, so they tried their hardest to cover up their stories and discoveries, however, the word spread too fast, and many people knew before long. Being a merchant for da Vinci, Vesaluis, and William Harvey themselves, I have learned much about their discoveries.

When I first heard about the spreading news about Leonardo da Vinci, Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey and their discoveries on the human body, I was very critical. Not only was what they were doing going against the Church, but they were using actual corpses! It sounded completely disgusting and immoral. I didn't know what else to feel except angry, and disgusted. But, after some further research, I realized that the church was wrong, and was using too much force in trying to stop this and cover this up. The more I learned about this, the more fascinated I became in their study of the human body. Becoming more and more intrigued, I discovered that Vesalius had written a book called de Humani corporis fabrica. It contained all sorts of findings and discoveries on the human body. The church made it seem as if only they were right, all the time, and anyone who went against their teachings or beliefs were to be punished. However, it seemed to me that what da Vinci and Vesalius were doing wasn't doing any harm; in fact, it seemed to be doing good. Vesalius was appointed the lead physician of the holy Roman emperor Charles V. So why was it so bad, if it was gaining him special attention and giving him roles of higher importance?

cover image of Andreas Vesalius' "de Humani corporis fabrica"

Printing Press during the Renaissance

Before the reformation, the spread of news around Europe was very slow, and often wasn’t very successful. However, after the printing press was invented, the spread of ideas and information became a lot easier, and a lot more successful. Many more copies of books were printed much more quickly, and many people learned to read this way. The spread of the reformation and any information became a lot more possible after the invention of the printing press.

This is a representation of a modern-day representation of how people would communicate their information in the days of the renaissance. This is through the eyes of two ordinary people, and it is an act of fiction.

@calvinismguy News is spreading that Protestantism has a new branch, called Calvinism! #johncalvin #weird #interested

@catholiccivilian I know, it predetermines whether or not you go to heaven or not. But, work hard and you might prove that you’re heaven-bound! #heaven #excited #hardworking

@calvinismguy It is my lifelong dream to get into heaven, I have sinned many times in the past. I should consider Calvinism…#calvinism #hopeful

@henryfan123 Henry VIII just got married a second time… #unusual #desperate

@ihatehenry He’s just trying to get a boy child so he can have an heir. There’s nothing wrong with that! #henryisthebest #greatness

@henryfan123 Dude...word’s spreading he beheaded his wife...how is that okay in any way?! #insane #crazy #hell-bound