"The Great Awakening of the 1740s was a religious revival of dramatic scope and violence that swept through the mid-Atlantic colonies, transforming 18th-century American society. The origins of the Awakening, however, argues Marilyn J. Westerkamp in this important revisionist study, were far removed from America in time and place. Examining the revivalist movement in Scotland, Ireland, and the middle colonies over a 135-year period, Westerkamp shows that the Awakening had its roots in Scots-Irish revivalism and travelled with Scots-Irish emigrants to the North American colonies. Hardly the spiritual innovation that it is sometimes represented to be, the Awakening was thus but one development in a longstanding revivalist tradition." [from Goodreads]
pt. 1. Telling the story -- "Drive the heathen out of the land" -- "Some hot headed ill advised persons" -- "The same spirit & frantic rage" -- "Persons of undoubted probity & veracity" -- pt. 2. Retelling the story -- "I never heard one word of it till it was just over" -- "A mighty noise and hubbub" -- "Shot, scalped, hacked, and cut to pieces" -- "One of those youthful ebullitions of wrath" -- "The innocent were destined to share the fate of the guilty" -- "A zone of vicious racial violence" -- pt. 3. Killers and abettors -- "The most respectable of men" -- "They had possession and would keep it" -- "Eternal shame & reproach" -- pt. 4. Death and reconciliation -- "The remains of the victims of a terrible crime" -- "Slaughter'd, kill'd, and cut off a whole tribe" -- "Who was left to mourn for these people?"
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,
Date of Publication
1980.
Physical Description
iv, 89 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Notes
Chapters include: Founding documents, William Penn's problems, Stormy politics, Problems of society (black and slave issues), Territorial delineation, westward expansion and Indian affairs, The French and Indian War and its consequences and The Revolutionary period.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-391) and index.
Summary
"Religious and national diversity characterized the settlements of the Delaware Valley almost from the first arrival of Europeans, and America's first pluralistic society evolved from this colony established by William Penn on the western shore of the Delaware River in 1681. Penn himself set forth a new, ideological basis for pluralism and tolerance, and this transformed a tentative, pragmatic pattern of relative harmony and tolerance into official policy. The English culture transplanted to Pennsylvania was itself fragmented. Quakers and Anglican, for example, had very different religious, social, and cultural values. Colonists from different parts of the British Isles-the Welsh, the Scots, and the Scotch-Irish-did not share common experiences or cultures. The 'Swedes' were both Swedish and Finnish in origins and culture and, while often designated 'Germans' or 'Palatines' by English-speaking Pennsylvanians, emigrants from the Rhineland spoke different dialects, practiced a wide variety of religious observances, and had little in common historically or culturally. Penn's ideals, ideas and policies set in motion forces that had significant effects on the development of this extremely heterogenous colony. This book explores the ways in which the implications of Penn's ideals were gradually worked out in Pennsylvania and how a stable and generally tolerant society was created."
