Great Awakening Rationalism

Colonial America experienced significant changes during the late seventeenth and early eighteen centuries. The most important changes included the development of cities to became the main ports, and Southern part of America was transformed to be a major contributor to colonial America’s economy. These changes resulted in the rise in population with thousands of immigrants coming in large numbers due to the growth and improvement of the agricultural estate.

Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a visionary, yet petulant, dialogue with American letters. The result became African American literature that is prosperous; thereby developing a social insight to their personal experiences and history. Although men are predominantly recognized in history for being well educated and powerful, women have played a great part in shaping America to what it is today. Phillis Wheatley, and Maria W. Stewart, were true Christian African American women that have portrayed historical events though literature. Wheatley and Stewart hold similar ideals for African Americans, however, their personalities are profoundly different. To illustrate, if there was a color

Religion among the colonies was now becoming less denominational. Attendance at the Church’s were already low; but with the new aspire of personal Religion, the numbers than dropped dramatically. Another name for an Orthodox Clergymen back then, were “old lights.” These “old lights”, disapproved and despised of personal spirituality and refused to take part of it. Many members of Presbyterian denominations packed their bags and went in search of smaller places. Expectedly, the so called "old lights" and the "new lights" had several arguments concerning many issues. These constant disagreements caused the two major denominations to completely spilt, this spilt evoked the breaking of the policy of established

In addition to establishing himself as a credible narrator and using anecdotes with repetitive diction and imagery, Douglass also highlights how religion was enforced in slavery. Every slave owner that Douglass belonged to was hypocritical and deceival towards their faith. This is frequently used through all his anecdotes to persuade the reader that slavery is full of non-sense and that the “devoted, peaceful, just, and kind owners” were full of lies. “He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty. He would make a short prayer in the morning, and a long prayer at night; and, strange as it may seem, few men would at times appear more devotional than he…My non-compliance would almost always produce much confusion. To show himself

The document by King Affonso I, titled Letters to King Jao of Portugal was written in 1526. During King Affonso’s reign, he saw many benefits of creating strong trading relationships with Europeans, specifically Portugal. To create a powerful alliance between the Kongo and Portugal the royal family converted to Christianity and allowed the process of importing European products. However, the importation of European goods appeared to diminish the economic society of the Kongo. In the letters to Portugal from King Affonso, he explains how the merchants who came to his kingdom are permitted to sell goods that are prohibited in the Kingdom of the Kongo. King Affonso I also states that the merchants from Portugal are taking natives and people who

In Albert Raboteau’s Slave Religion, I expected to read a book dripping with rant-filled commentary. Judging the book solely on its cover, I would not normally pick up –or even read– a book that did not jump out at me from the design on the cover, and this book did not jump out. However, Raboteau’s depiction of the life of the slave did jump out at me. In elementary and high school, teachers briefly touch on the topic of slavery and its role in America, but religion is never touched on with slavery –at least my teachers never taught them together. So finally getting to learn the two side by side, it was fascinating to see how Africans created a version of their own religion of Christianity. The methods that slaves took to survive the cruelties

Cotton too has a sermon that is well known, and it is called “God’s Promises to His Plantation”. It is essentially a pep-rally. He begins with a lovely sermon and goes on to explain that the soon-to-be-American’s are people of destiny, people who are important and remembered in history. They’re special and different, another instance of American exceptionalism and the overall overwhelming pridefulness both the United States and the back then Puritan’s share.

Frederick Douglass had multiple masters over the course of his life. Half of his masters were good and some were bad. The worst and cruelest were religious slaveholders who used religious scripture to explain why they beat and whipped the slaves. In reality they were hypocrites. Douglass gives multiple examples of how religious slaveholders showed hypocrisy. The first being from one of his slaveholders Master Thomas, he whipped a young woman while reading a quote from the scripture to explain his reason for whipping her. The next example was with his other Master Mr.Covey, he would go to church and preach the word but come back beating slaves and going against the almighty God. The example that is shown is again shown with Mr.Covey, he was guilty of compelling his woman slave to commit the sin of adultery. These are examples shown through Frederick Douglass that religious slaveholders are indeed the worst.

“That this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system”, and that Frederick Douglass does in his eponymous autobiography. Douglass throws light by dispelling the myths of the slave system, which received support from all parts of society. To dispel these myths Douglass begins to construct an argument composed around a series of rhetorical appeals and devices. Douglass illustrates that slavery is dehumanizing, corrupting, and promotes Christian hypocrisy.

In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

Religion and its relationship to slavery is a contradictive subject, whether it was forced upon slaves or was a form of hope and freedom is still commonly debated about to this day. However, these individuals were devoted Christians in the abolitionist movement who all

The Age of Exploration, starting from the 15th century and lasting until the beginning of the 17th century, was a period of time in which the Europeans explored the Americas and Africa while searching for a more efficient trade route with Asia. However, the Europeans did not just discover this lands, but also made use of them and the native population.The causes of the Age of Exploration were “God, Gold and Glory” which effects were the expansion of Christianity, importation of precious resources into Europe and colonization of new lands.

Fredric Douglass wrote, “What to the Slave is Fourth of July” in 1852. In this speech to the American public, Douglass states how great of a country American “was” and how great the forefathers “were”. In contrast to those statements he professes his reasoning for freeing slaves. However, Mary Rowlandson wrote, “A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” in 1682. This captive narrative takes place during the King Philips war, and depicts how the native Americans treated their prisoners of war. Although from different eras, both Douglass and Rowlandson use similar techniques such as religion, repetition, and sentimentalism to show that being held captive and slavery is wrong.

Allen Dwight Callahan’s The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible connects biblical stories and images to the politics, music and, religion, the book shows how important the Bible is to black culture. African Americans first came to know the Bible because of slavery and at that time the religious groups would read it to them instead of teaching them by letting them encounter it for themselves. Later the Bibles stories became the source of spirituals and songs, and after the Civil War motivation for learning to read. Allen Callahan traces the Bible culture that developed during and following enslavement. He identifies the most important biblical images for African Americans, Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel and discusses their recurrence and the relationship they have with African Americans and African American culture. In chapter one Callahan described the ways enslaved African Americans first encountered the bible; he goes on to describe that these encounters with the Bible where facilitated by colonist, the African Americans couldn’t encounter it

To understand the history of slavery in the United States the historical background needs examining. How did the slaves get from Africa the new country? Why were the people brought here? What purpose did slavery serve? Only three percent of the international slave trade arrived in the new colonies. Many African was sold into slavery because their family owed a debt and they had no other means to pay for it. Sometimes an individual voluntarily enter into a service contract, so they can pay off debt. Furthermore the individual would work for a specified period then eventually gain their freedom. When the first Africans slaves came to the new colonies they operated under a similar arrangement. “ these first African arrival, Angolan