Journal for Bradford

"It would be hard to imagine a historian better prepared to write the history of this colony." (Norton Anthology, p.104)

William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation is a fascinating document. The "pilgrims" are so familiar to us in their cardboard-cutout iconic form, with their big hats and shoe-buckles that we don't think about the reality behind the myth. We all know that the ship they sailed in was called the Mayflower,and that the Indians helped them survive the first winter, which they celebrated in the first Thanksgiving. We rarely think of them outside the context of turkey and pumpkin pie. But Bradford's history makes us realize how unimaginably hard that journey was, how bleak the prospect that greeted them when they finally reached land after the grueling two month journey across the north Atlantic. As he says "they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor." (Norton, p. 115). It is clear from Bradford's account that the Puritans themselves did have a grand sense of destiny, of manifesting God's will. Indeed it is hard to imagine them undertaking their dangerous journey into the unknown without such a sense.
Bradford's omissions are as interesting as his revelations. He does in the end acknowledge that the Indians were very instrumental in their survival, but that doesn't stop him from describing them as merciless savages bent on destroying them. Another thing I fond interesting was the treatment they got from the crew of the Mayflower, which hints at the contempt with which they were regarded in England. One of the sailors kept taunting them that they were going to perish on the voyage and that he looked forward to throwing them overboard. As fate would have it that sailor turns out to be the first to die and get thrown overboard. The Puritans, of course, see the hand of God: "Thus his curses landed on his own head; and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon them." (p. 114). That is their belief system, but I think it reveals too the helpless rage of a people accustomed to persecution.

Ann Bradstreet was a member of the party that founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, leaving England to start a new life on an unknown continent at the age of eighteen. In spite of her frail health she bore eight children and endured the hardships of frontier life, often managing the household alone as her husband was involved in the administration of the colony and was frequently away.

She was carefully educated by her doting father and proved to be a very accomplished poet. Her work was published in England without her knowledge in 1650, making her the first published American woman, no small distinction for a colonial, Puritan woman in the middle of the seventeenth century.

"Although she may have seemed to some a strange aberration of womanhood at the time, she evidently took herself very seriously as an intellectual and a poet. She read widely in history, science, and literature, especially the works of Guillame du Bartas, studying her craft and gradually developing a confident poetic voice. Her "apologies" were very likely more a ironic than sincere, responding to those Puritans who felt women should be silent, modest, living in the private rather than the public sphere." http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Bradstreet/bradbio.htm

Though there is much in her poetry that reflects her Puritan beliefs, what strikes me about her work is the universality of the emotional content. Her subject matter is the stuff of daily life in the feminine sphere: children and marriage and home and the death of loved ones. Her work contradicts the stereotype many of us have of the Puritans as stern and full of loathing for all that concerns the temporal world. Her poems humanize the Puritans. She expresses a love of life and joyfulness that we do not expect and reminds us of the universality of human emotions. "In Here Follows some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666" she describes her grief and anger at the loss of her possessions, and her struggle to accept her loss.

"Here stood that trunk, and there that chest,
There lay that store I counted best.
My pleasant things in ashes lie,
And them behold no more shall I." (p.212)

She expresses her resolve to accept her loss in terms that we would characterize as typical of her Puritan beliefs:

"I blest his name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was, and so it's just." (p.212)

But after all, we all have to accept loss, Puritan or not.

Journal for Edwards

The picture that Jonathan Edwards paints in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a truly terrifying one. It almost seems blasphemous because God is portrayed not as loving and compassionate but as a ruthless and sadistic tormentor, devising a multitude of horrible punishments against which sinful mortals have no hope whatsoever of protecting themselves.
In this sermon the Devil is not the source of evil but a mere functionary, awaiting the orders of God to proceed with the torment of any particular human soul. "The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him." (Edwards, p. 427)


"This sermon has been widely reprinted as an example of "fire and brimstone" preaching in the colonial revivals, though the majority of Edwards's sermons were not this dramatic. Indeed, he used this style deliberately. As historian George Marsden put it, "Edwards could take for granted...that a New England audience knew well the Gospel remedy. The problem was getting them to seek it."[19]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(theologian)


This is an important observation. Edwards is not in fact sadistically tormenting his listeners but trying to arouse their repentance with a rhetorical device that they would recognize as such. The parishioners that he is addressing know very well that they have an opportunity to escape the horrors he describes by accepting Christ as their Savior. What is puzzling to me about born-again theology, not being familiar with it beyond what I have seen in the media, is that it does not seem to be a voluntary experience. The believer must be somehow emotionally overcome, affected directly by the liberating truth. It seems like that also would be something that was dependent on grace, rather than an experience that you can will to happen because you are afraid of damnation.

Journal for Jefferson

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/thomasjefferson

Thomas Jefferson was undoubtedly an exceptionally talented and accomplished man. His stature in American history is unparalleled, greater even than that of George Washington. Apart from authoring the Declaration of Independence, he founded the University of Virginia. He designed his beautiful residence at Monticello, as well as the Virginia State Capitol and the original buildings of the University of Virginia. He was a knowledgeable horticulturalist who was closely involved in the cultivation of his lands. He was an able statesman, serving as governor of Virgina, congressman, secretary of state, ambassador to France, vice president and president.

In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson eloquently and beautifully proclaimed that all men are fundamentally equal and possess certain rights that are God-given and inalienable. Yet as a major landholder Jefferson was the owner of hundreds of slaves. He was a typical slaveowner too, treating his slaves with the customary cruelty. To me this is such a fundamental flaw that it cannot be laid aside when looking at Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps if were only going to admire Jefferson for his talents as an architect or statesman, we could separate his slaveowning from his achievements and regard each separately. But when his greatness lies in his position regarding human rights, I don't think we can do that. What he set forth in the Declaration of Independence was a radical departure from the custom of allegiance to a monarch. We cannot then excuse the fact that he owned and sold slaves on the basis of custom or "the times". It is in direct contradiction to his passionately expressed convictions, and in my opinion it would be hypocrisy in us not to hold it against him. I think it taints his legacy in a very profound and serious way.

The White House web site tells us that "although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803." It seems Thomas Jefferson was skilled at suppressing his qualms when it was in his interest to do so.

Journal for Paine

"Common Sense was one of the first decisive calls in the Colonies for independence and revolution. The logic and language influenced the writing of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. The sixteen essays collected in The American Crisis rallied the public and the demoralized army during the dark period of the revolution between 1776 and 1780. George Washington, knowing that Paine’s potent voice could lend persuasion and articulation to the cause of independence, ordered the pamphlet to be read to all the troops. Paine was the most influential propagandist of the American Revolution."
Thomas Paine Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition


"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will, arise which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested." (Norton, p. 631)

Paine was in some ways a perfect candidate for emigration to America. A disaffected and talented man who had failed at all the pursuits available to him, he arrived in Philadelphia in middle age at precisely the moment when his uncompromising political vision and his rousing eloquence were most needed. He was able to step off the boat and remake himself immediately.

The American quarrel with Britain was largely an aristocratic one. The landowning elites who sat on the colonial legislatures did not want to be subservient to the British Parliament or subject to their taxes. The working poor were largely removed from this contest, and the American population in general was quite divided on the issue of loyalty to the Crown. A leader was needed who could bring the fight to the ordinary people and enlist their support in the struggle. The landed elites were not going to fight a war on their own. Paine was the perfect voice for rousing the populace and stirring their indignation.

It is interesting that Paine's language deals in the general and the universal. A lifetime of intelligent inquisitiveness and discontent had led him to develop general ideas about justice and authority which were applicable to the American situation. In the end he was not a typical American immigrant who settled in the new country to make a new life. He did not stay in America, he moved on to the next struggle, the next fight for liberation.

Journal for Wheatley

"Once Phillis Wheatley demonstrated her abilities, the Wheatleys, clearly a family of culture and education, allowed Phillis time to do study and write. Her situation allowed her time to learn and, as early as 1765, to write poetry. Phillis Wheatley had fewer restrictions than most slaves experienced -- but she was still a slave. Her situation was unusual. She was not quite part of the white Wheatley family, nor did she quite share the place and experiences of other slaves."
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/aframerwriters/a/philliswheatley.htm

It is tempting to say that Phillis Wheatley was very fortunate. She was treated kindly by her owners, who recognized her intelligence and ability and saw that she was well educated at a time when most white women were not. She was even sent to England by the Wheatleys for her health. She was emancipated by her master and married the man of her choice. She had the confidence to write to George Washington and Benjamin Franklin came to pay her respects when she was in London. Compare her with Harriet Jacobs and she was blessed by fortune.

We cannot forget, however, that she was kidnapped at the age of eight and sold into slavery. She endured the terror of the slave ships that Equiano describes so vividly in his autobiography. She must have felt terribly torn between anger and gratitude, bearing the scars of that trauma amid circumstances that she could not fail to see were remarkably fortunate for a slave. It seems to me that she decided to dedicate her talents to gently and artfully making white people see the humanity of blacks, and to remind them of the teachings of their own religion:

"Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain
May be refined, and join the angelic train."
from "On Being Brought from Africa to America", (Wheatley, p. 753)

I know that many readers react negatively to her work, feeling that she is over-assimilated, that her mind is colonized. I read an article that made the case that her Christian imagery was actually subversive. I don't have enough Biblical knowledge for that kind of reading, but it was certainly a very interesting thesis. In any case I think that given the circumstances of her life and the constraints that we she was under to publish her work at all, as a woman, let alone a slave, the conciliatory tone and character of her work is understandable.

Journal for Equiano

"Equiano's personal account of slavery and of his experiences as an 18th-century black immigrant caused a sensation when published in 1789. The book fueled a growing anti-slavery movement in England." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano

"Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language they spoke, which was different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave of my own country. When I looked around the ship and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate. Quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, and I believe some were those who had brought me on board and had been receiving their pay. They talked to me in order to cheer me up, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair. They told me I was not." (Equiano, p. 683)

This paragraph reminded me of all the countless images that have been created in the Western mind, through various forms, from novels and stories and cartoons to films and even humorous commercials, of Africans as cannibals. The innocent white men have been captured in deepest darkest Africa, they are in a big pot suspended over a raging fire, surrounded by frightening and incomprehensible savages who are preparing to eat them. This piece of writing from Equiano's autobiography takes that image and turns it on its head, where it belongs, and shows us exactly who was barbarously terrorizing whom. It is like the image of the black man as a sexual menace to the white woman, whereas it was the black female who was at the mercy of the white master.

Equiano's narrative shows the horrors of slavery through the innocent eyes of a cherished and happy child who is plucked away from his family, and carried further and further into an unimaginable and incomprehensible world of increasing terror and despair. His description of the Middle Passage is particularly horrific and unforgettable. It is no wonder that this book was instrumental in the success of the abolitionist movement in England.