English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

11/17/05: Religion and Encounter

 

 

  1. Revisit Winslow’s view of Native American religion. 

 

 

  1. Some features of Separatist/Puritan theology and their relation to colonization/encounter.

 

    1. A radical form of English Protestantism. 

 

 

 

    1. Reconfiguration of authority. 

 

 

                                                              i.      Individual conscience

 

 

                                                            ii.      A community of saints. 

 

 

                                                          iii.      The importance of sermons. 

 

 

 

    1. Typological hermeneutics: the interpretation of Old Testament scripture as foreshadowing events in the New, and the interpretation of any biblical event as forecasting current events. 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      Millenarianism

 

 

                                                            ii.      Covenant theory

 

 

                                                          iii.      Captivity/tribulation/Errand into the Wilderness. 

 

 

 

  1. A possible thesis statement (CLAIM), courtesy Richard Slotkin:  “Unlike the Spanish, the Pilgrims did not wish to discover and conquer Indian empires; nor were they interested in discovering an arcadian people in an American garden, living a model of the Golden Age.  What they desired above all was a tabula rasa on which they could inscribe their dream: the outline of an idealized Puritan England, a Bible commonwealth, a city on a hill exemplifying the Word of God to all the world” (Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1800).

 

    1. Slotkin’s EVIDENCE:  “The place they [the Pilgrims] had thought on was some of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and brutish men which range up and down, little otherwise than the wild beasts of the same” (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 25; qtd. Slotkin 38).

 

    1. Slotkin’s WARRANT:  “Thus Bradford’s first thoughts on the New World emphasized the virtual emptiness of the land and dismissed the few Indians present as having little claim to humanity and less to the land” (Slotkin 38).

 

    1. Question: Is Slotkin correct?  Did the Pilgrims desire a “tabula rasa”—a vacant wilderness devoid of civilized inhabitants—“on which they could inscribe their dream” of an exemplary Christian polity?

 

 

 

  1. Robert Cushman, “Reasons and Considerations touching the lawfulness of removing out of England into the Parts of America” (1622)

 

 

    1. Sojourning as the Christian condition. 

 

 

 

    1. Importance of conversion

 

 

 

    1. Justifications for colonization. 

 

 

 

    1. But here’s where Slotkin (maybe) gets it wrong:

 

 

 

 

  1. John Winthrop, “Reasons to Be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New England and for Encouraging Such Whose Hearts God Shall Move to Join with Them in It” (1629).

 

    1. How does Winthrop’s sermon differ from Cushman’s? 

 

 

 

    1. How is his reasoning similar? 

 

 

 

    1. Puritan exceptionalism and American exceptionalism. 

 

 

 

    1. To what extent does Winthrop’s sermon refute and/or support Slotkin’s claim? 

 

 

 

 

  1. John Cotton, “God’s Promise to His Plantation” (1630). 

 

 

 

a.      Similarities to Cushman and Winthrop?

 

 

 

 

b.     The invitation fantasy. 

 

 

 

 

 

c.      Plantation as metaphor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

d.     “Offend not the poore Natives, but as you partake in their land, so make them partakers of your precious faith: as you reape their temporalls, so feede them with your spirituals” (19).

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: Although the Puritan colonists at times desired a tabula rasa— a vacant wilderness devoid of civilized inhabitants—“on which they could inscribe their dream” of an exemplary Christian polity, they were also well aware of the presence of native peoples.  Nor did this presence necessarily trouble them.  Alongside their scriptural rationalizations of genocide, the Puritans fashioned a vision of English-indigenous relations predicated on a recognition that Native Americans were not beasts or devils, but people with souls worth saving and legal rights worth respecting. 

 

 

Next time:  William Wood, New England’s Prospect (1635), in Mancall.  Also bring to class a detailed outline for your research paper.  Your outline should do two things:  1) present a clear, coherent, unified thesis statement; 2) identify the order of ideas presented in your argument, ideally through topic sentences that make a claim linked back to your T.S., identify the evidence that supports that claim, and briefly explains (warrants) how that evidence supports the claim.