American Literature I Pilgrims & Puritans

1. EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE TO 1700

2. NATIVE AMERICAN ORAL TRADITION
 3 types of tales
1. Origin, Creation, or Emergence Myths
2. Hero Tales
3. Trickster Tales
 6 nations of the Iroquois Confederation
in the northeast (New York area)
Seneca, Cayuga, Onandaga,
Oneida, Mohawk, Tuscarora Iroquois

3. Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation

4. IROQUOIS CONSTITUTION

5. CABEZA DE VACA (c. 1490–c. 1559)
His Relacion (1542) is an early captivity narrative, written as a report
to Charles V of Spain and is the first European account of adventures in
what is now the US (Florida and Texas)
De Vaca’s Christian conquistador attitude changed as he began to
understand the natives better and learned their customs. He is seen as a
“proto-anthropologist” (an early anthropologist because he observed
and wrote about Indian culture: marriage, family relations, funerals,
etc.
His advice to the Spanish: “Thence it may at once be seen, that to bring
all these people to be Christians and to the obedience of the Imperial
Majesty, they must be won by kindness, which is a way certain, and no
other is.”

6. PURITAN DOCTRINE AND LITERATURE
• Pilgrims were Separatist, believed Church of England (Anglican) was beyond reform and
so disassociated from it; poor and less educated than Puritans; founded Plymouth Colony
• Puritans wanted to purify the Church of England from within; were wealthy, well-educated; founded
Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Both groups are often referred to as Puritans, and both groups accepted the main doctrines of Calvinism:
• Natural depravity (all are both in original sin and can do nothing to save themselves.
• Unconditional election. God in his absolute sovereignty, damns some and saves others
• Predestination: God knows from the beginning who has been elected.
• Grace: Mankind cannot earn this saving grace, nor can he refuse it
• God continuously directs the affairs of mankind. (A thriving business might indicate divine favor and
approval.)
• The Bible was the guide for virtually all aspects of life (See typology.)

7. WILLIAM BRADFORD 1590 - 1657
Of Plymouth Plantation
 Written between 1630-1646, but not published until 1856
 Tells of the Pilgrim (Separatist) voyage and settlement in
Plymouth, Massachusetts; the major history of the Pilgrims
 Book I
1. The Voyage on the Mayflower, 1620 (65 days)
2. God’s providence: the foreseeing care and guidance of
God or nature over the creatures of the earth;
a manifestation of divine care or direction
3. Bradford’s Pause:
“ But here I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amazed at this poor people’s
present condition, and so I think will the reader, too, when he well considers the same. . . .
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and
wild men?”

8. WILLIAM BRADFORD, OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION (CONTINUED)
 BOOK II
1. The Mayflower Compact, 1620
first governing document of Plymouth
2, Dealings with the Natives
Samoset, Squanto, Massasoit
Peace treaty with the Indians
3. Thomas Morton of Merrymount
Pagan, “Atheism,” Maypole
Gun dealing and alcohol use
Encouraging indentured servants to leave the Pilgrims
4. Destruction of the Pequots, 1637
5. Bestiality and turning away from right living

9. THOMAS MORTON ()
His work is The New English Canaan (1637)
Morton is an Anglican, a Cavalier, (loyal to King Charles I) pro-Indian, anti-Puritan
The Puritans Observe Merrymount

10. Bradford vs. Morton
A reflection of the larger conflict between
Royalists (Cavaliers) vs. Roundheads (Parliamentarian / Puritans) in England at that
time
BRADFORD’S STYLE
• Plain Style. with little
ornamentation
• Full of Biblical allusions
• Humble, quiet, no showing off
• Historical writing to show the
trials and experiences of the
Pilgrims
MORTON’S STYLE
• Ornate, flowery
• Full of classical Greek allusions,
traditional in Cavalier poetry
• Shows his education
• Satirical, humorous
Critic Kenneth Alan Hovey contrasts the two works of Bradford and Morton: “Both works
are highly rhetorical, but where Bradford uses his rhetoric to magnify God and humbly to
minimize his poor persecuted people, Morton uses his to satirize those same people and to
flaunt the superiority of his own wit and learning.”

11. JOHN WINTHROP 1587 -1649
“A Model of Christian Charity”
 A sermon Winthrop gave aboard the Arbella, 1630
 Most famous metaphor, still famous in the United States:
the City on the Hill
“A City upon a Hill” is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light
in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his
listeners,
"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a
hill cannot be hidden."
The metaphor, as used by Winthrop,
looks back to the Bible, but in American
history, it looks forward as the basis of
the philosophy of American exceptionalism.

12. American Exceptionalism
“’American exceptionalism’ is a term used to describe the belief that the United States
is an extraordinary nation with a special role to play in human history; a nation that is
not only unique but also superior. Alexis de Tocqueville was the first to use the term
‘exceptional’ to describe the United States and the American people in his classic work
Democracy in America (1835–1840), but the idea of America as an exceptional entity
can be traced back to the earliest colonial times. Jack P. Greene's analysis of a wealth of
contemporary materials has established that by ‘the beginning of the nineteenth century
the idea of America as an exceptional entity had long been an integral component in the
identification of America.’ Many scholars of the belief in American exceptionalism
argue that it forms one of the core elements of American national identity and American
nationalism. Deborah Madsen, for example, contends that exceptionalism is ‘one of the
most important concepts underlying modern theories of American cultural identity.’ It is
a central part of the American belief system or what Benedict Anderson calls its
‘imagined community.’"
- Encyclopedia of New American Nation
Optional read more: http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/
Exceptionalism.html#ixzz3CmQbjqdS

13. Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672)
The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650)
Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning (1678)
Themes
Motherhood
Love in Marriage
Weaned Affections
Humility
Feminism
Death

14. EDWARD TAYLOR (1642-1729)
Poetic Style
• Craftsmanship and careful revision
• Subject: the relationship between God and Man
• Relays abstract ideas through concrete imagery
• Everyday comparisons: spinning wheel, bowling, God as master
craftsman, domestic imagery

15. Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711)
A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)
• Mary Rowlandson travelled some
150 miles, from Lancaster to
Menamaset then north to
Northfield and across the
Connecticut river to meet with
King Philip/Metacomet himself,
sachem of the Wampanoags. Next
she traveled up into southwestern
New Hampshire, south to
Menamaset, and north to Mount
Wachusett
Themes
• God’s Providence
• Redemption of sinners
• Suffering and trials of a Christian / typology
(comparison to Israelites, Biblical figures)
• Puritan attitude toward Indians
• Jeremiad (The term jeremiad refers to a
sermon or another work that accounts for the
misfortunes of an era as a just penalty for
great social and moral evils, but holds out
hope for changes that will bring a happier
future. It derives from the Old Testament
prophet Jeremiah)

16. Overview of the Captivity Narrative
According to Richard Slotkin, "In [a captivity narrative] a single individual, usually a woman, stands
passively under the strokes of evil, awaiting rescue by the grace of God. The sufferer represents the
whole, chastened body of Puritan society; and the temporary bondage of the captive to the Indian is a
dual paradigm-- of the bondage of the soul to the flesh and the temptations arising from original sin,
and of the self-exile of the English Israel from England. In the Indian's devilish clutches, the captive
had to meet and reject the temptation of Indian marriage and/or the Indian's "cannibal" Eucharist. To
partake of the Indian's love or of his equivalent of bread and wine was to debase, to un-English the very
soul. The captive's ultimate redemption by the grace of Christ and the efforts of the Puritan magistrates
is likened to the regeneration of the soul in conversion. The ordeal is at once threatful of pain and evil
and promising of ultimate salvation. Through the captive's proxy, the promise of a similar salvation
could be offered to the faithful among the reading public, while the captive's torments remained to
harrow the hearts of those not yet awakened to their fallen nature" (Regeneration Through Violence).

17. CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE
• Between 1675 and 1763, approximately 1, 641 New Englanders were
taken hostage (Vaughan and Richter, p. 53); and during the decades-long
struggle between whites and Plains Indians in the mid-nineteenth century,
hundreds of women and children were captured. (White, p. 327:
Vaughan, Alden T., and Daniel K. Richter. "Crossing the Cultural Divide: Indians and New Englanders,
1605-1763." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 90 (1980): 23-99.
White, Lonnie J. "White Women Captives of Southern Plains Indians, 1866-1875." Journal of the West
8 (1969): 327-54.

18. REASONS FOR INDIANS’ ACTIONS
•revenge
•ransom
•replacement of tribal numbers decimated by war and disease
NARRATIVE AUTHORS’ RHETORICAL PURPOSES
•Religious expression
•Justification of westward expansion
•Nineteenth-century: cultural symbol of American national heritage
•Popular literature
•Reinforcement of stereotypes

19. STEREOTYPES
a. Spanish: Indians as brutish beasts
b. French: Indians as souls needing redemption
c. English in Virginia: innocent exotics
d. Puritans: Satanic threat to religious utopia
THEMES
•Fears of cannibalism
•Fears of scalping
•Hunter-predator myth: captive as cultural mediator between savagery
and civilization
•Judea capta, for Puritans: Israel suffering under Babylonian captivity.
•Freudian view: captivity becomes adoption
•Myths

20. LITERARY CONVENTIONS
•Abruptly brought from state of protected innocence into confrontation with evil.
•Forced existence in alien society.
•Unable to submit or resist.
•Yearns for freedom, yet fears perils of escape.
•Struggle between assimilation and maintaining a separate cultural identity.
•Condition of captive parallels suffering of all lowly and oppressed.
•Growth in moral and spiritual strength.
•Deliverance.
PATTERN / STRUCTURE
•Separation: attack and capture
•Torment, ordeals of physical and mental suffering
•Transformation (accommodation, adoption)

21. Metacom, Son of Massasoit Cover page of Rowlandson’s Narrative

22. EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE 1700-1800

23. ELIZABETH ASHBRIDGE 1713-1755
Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge
(written in 1754, 1774 first publication)
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2980003W/Peculiar_power
Genre: spiritual autobiography
“Spiritual autobiography is a non-fictional form which rose to prominence in seventeenth-century
England, although its roots can be traced as far back as such works of the early Christian tradition as St.
Augustine’s Confessions. The form’s basic concern is to trace the progress of an individual believer
from a state of sin to a state of grace, where the conviction takes hold that salvation has been
guaranteed by God. Given the concentration on the individual, the form appealed most to Protestants, in
particular the more militant sectarian movements (Baptists, Quakers, etc.) who broke away from the
Church of England over the course of the seventeenth century - a period of marked religious division in
English history.”
The Literary Encyclopedia: Exploring literature, history, and culture
http://litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1377

24. ELIZABETH ASHBRIDGE (CONTINUED)
Major Themes, Historical Perspectives, and Personal Issues
 Choice between husband and conscience
 Threat to patriarchal order
 Conflict in religious doctrine between Anglicans and Quakers
 Quest for religious freedom
 “Elizabeth Ashbridge’s Account underscores the importance of life-writing as a tool of
female vindication in a patriarchal culture. For its candor and emotional power, for the
integrity of the religious sensibility it conveys, and for its illuminating portrayal of
domestic relations in colonial America, the narrative merits a significant place in our
literary history.”
- Liahna Babener and Wendy Martin
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, 5th edition

25. “Timeline
1732: Ashbridge sailed to New York as an indentured servant, owned first by a woman in the slave trade and later by the
ship's captain.
1735: After a failed attempt to travel to England, they moved to Boston in 1735, then back to Rhode Island later that year,
where Ashbridge once again joined the Church of England.
1740: Ashbridge’s religious beliefs caused much turmoil in her marriage, and, in a drunken stupor, Sullivan enlisted himself
as a soldier and left for Cuba in 1740.
1746: On May 7, 1746, Elizabeth married Aaron Ashbridge, a well-known member of the Quaker community in Chester
County, Pennsylvania.
1752: After becoming an authoritative speaker at the Goshen, Pennsylvania Quaker meetings, she appeared with other
prominent Quakers such as John Woolman, Jane Fenn Hoskens, and Anthony Benezet at the General Spring Meeting of
ministers and elders in Philadelphia in 1752.
1753: In 1753 she became a recorded minister of the church and, with the consent of her husband, traveled through England
and Ireland speaking at meeting houses testifying to her spiritual journey.
1755: Elizabeth Ashbridge died in 1755.” --“Elizabeth Ashbridge,” Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Ashbridge

26. Pontiac
“Pontiac, an excellent military strategist, instigated and led
the greatest Native American uprising ever faced by the
British in colonial North America. His call for a pan-tribal
alliance nearly succeeded in stopping white encroachment
onto Native American lands, and served as a model for
later resistance efforts led by Little Turtle, Tecumseh,
and Black Hawk.”
"Pontiac." The American Mosaic: The American Indian
Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 12 Sept. 2014.

27. Samson Occom
• Samson Occom was the first Native American
to write and publish a work in the English
language and was a noted Christian preacher
in the 18th century.
• Occum was a famous Mohegan Christian
Native American who became the first
formally trained and ordained Christian
Native minister. He was known as "minister
to all the tribes of New England" and "the
great Indian man who takes care of Indians."
Occum was converted to Christianity in 1741
by Reverend EleazorWheelock and educated
in Wheelock's family, studying English, Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew.

28. Logan “In 1774, a series of bloody incidents occurred between Indians and whites
living in the Ohio River valley. According to an account by Thomas Jefferson
in his Notes on Virginia (1784-85), white settlers were outraged by robberies
committed by Indians. In retaliation, white soldiers killed many innocent
Indians, including the family of Logan, chief of the Mingo Indians, who was
known as a friend of the whites. Led by Logan, the Indians launched a war
against the white settlers, scalping a large number of innocent men, women,
and children, but were finally defeated by the Virginia militia in October
1774.
After the decisive battle, Logan refused to join the other chiefs as a
suppliant before the victorious whites. Instead,he sent the following speech to
Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia. When Lord Dunmore returned
from the expedition against the Indians, he brought the speech with him, and
according to Jefferson, ‘It became the theme of every conversation in
Williamsburg.’ It was printed in the Virginia Gazette, reprinted in papers
across the continent and even in publications in Great Britain.
Jefferson reprinted the speech in his Notes on Virginia to refute those
Europeans who ‘supposed there is something in the soil, climate, and other
circumstances of America, which occasions animal nature to degenerate, not
excepting even the man, native or adoptive, physical or moral.’ Jefferson
offered Logan's speech as proof "of ,the talents of the aboriginals of this
country, and particularly of their eloquence.’ He asserted ‘that Europe had
never produced anything superior to this morsel of eloquence.’"

29. Native American Oratory
Native American leader Tecumseh, who
combined military skill and oratory
brilliance to fashion one of the biggest
Pan-Indian alliances, is fatally wounded
at the Battle of the Thames in October
1813, during the War of 1812.

30. Red Jacket
“Red Jacket considered himself, first and foremost, an orator. An
avowed traditionalist, he is most famous for his speeches
denouncing the presence of Christian missionaries on the
reservations and for opposing the sale of Indian lands. Never
actually appointed a sachem, he nonetheless became a very
influential Seneca chief. Red Jacket's speeches are among the most
compelling explanations of [Native American] sovereignty in U.S.
history. In addition to his significance as a political figure in the
early national period, Red Jacket became popular because he was an
extraordinarily dynamic speaker. His speeches, of which dozens are
extant, are notable for their sarcasm and disarming humor. “
“Red Jacket's most famous speech, a reply to the
Reverend Jacob Cram in 1805, was one of several
speeches he gave in the early 1800s that explained
why the Indians did not want Christian missionaries
in their midst. The speech is noteworthy for his
condensed history of white–Native relations and his
objection to Cram's attempt to "force your religion
upon us." Although the level of sarcasm is difficult to
gauge, Red Jacket told Cram that the Senecas
might ask him back only if they saw that Christianity
could soften the habits of the white frontiersman
living on their borders”.”
“Red Jacket.” The American Indian Experience: The American
Mosaic. ABC-CLIO Solutions. Web. 9 August 2014.