American Culture

The birth of the United States and the Puritan legacy

American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is the attitude towards life, believing in being superior to others. Its roots lie in the origins of the colonies: how and why they were founded. The reason for the difference in the North, South, and Mid US is the diverse origin of their people.

The thirteen colonies

French territories were western. Spanish territories were southern, including Florida.

The colonies of the South were Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. Middle colonies included New York, Pennsylvania, the state of New York, and Philadelphia. The colonies of the North were the ones of New England, the Puritan colonies: Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. They were surrounded by French and Spanish territories.

Colonists were young and male and crossed the Atlantic alone, without their families. There were endangered servants, servants who paid their passage by selling their work to the owner. "Give me the money for the voyage, and I will work for you for ten years." By a contract, they had to work for the owner for a certain period before getting their liberties.

There were people from the middle-class. They went to the New World to improve their lives. The majority was English, but there were also Scottish (Presbyterian) and Irish coming from Scotland (Scottish who moved to Ireland). These Irish people were mainly Presbyterian or Anglicans. They were all Protestants, with a difference. The greatest part were Anglican, while in New England they were Puritan.

The Southern colonies

Virginia, Maryland, Northern and Southern Carolina, and Georgia.

Political institutions: Royal, so linked to the English crown. Property, land. Corporations, groups of merchants united in companies, who were mainly shipping companies. These colonies were directly governed by the King of England or by governors applied by the king. Strong dependence on the English crown.

Economy: The economy was a single crop economy. Initially, the most important crop was tobacco, and then rice and later cotton. The main idea was of having huge fields called plantations. The ideas behind corporations were to get the greatest amounts of profits, achievable only through very cheap labor. That’s why there were slaves. The black slave population was, from the beginning, larger than the white population. These merchants didn’t want to found a new nation; they only wanted to use this English land, where they could find natural resources and improve English power worldwide. Cheap labor gave a really great advantage.

Social structure: The minority of the population was made of free men and women, and the majority was made of unskilled laborers, endangered servants, and slaves. Society was stratified according to wealth: plantation owners, smaller landowners, merchants, craftsmen, servants, Indians, slaves.

The presence of large plantations caused the development of rural areas, and not urbanization. Huge territories with very few cities, that were actually big villages.

Religion: Anglican.

Relations with the Indians: They were not interested in Indians. The Indians of the South were organized in very large tribes living mainly in the internal part of the colonies. At the beginning, plantations were close to the sea and there were few plantation owners. It was not necessary to push the Indians westwards. There was enough land.

The Middle colonies

Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

Political institutions: Diverse. The Middle Colonies experienced different kinds of settlements. They were founded by different people. New York was founded by the Dutch, Delaware by the Swedish, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania by the English. In recognition of William Penn’s services, the King gave him a huge piece of land where he could live with his own religion: Quakers. Pennsylvania is characterized by this very tolerant religion. Only here, all free men could vote. They also accepted Catholic people.

Economy: Land was not important. Dutch people were known all over the world for their commercial activity. They exploited valleys and had commercial relations with native people. They also founded an independent fair trading community. It was also important to the Swedish people of the Delaware. The relationship with the crown was very poor; they did not depend on the economy of England.

Social structure: Multicultural society. Culturally, linguistically, and religiously very different. They lived in small settlements in the wilderness, leading to the foundation of small towns governed by counties and local governments.

Relations with the Indians: It was fundamental. Indians knew the wilderness and were good hunters. Colonists signed assignments with native people. At the beginning, Pennsylvania also accepted natives. There was a system of acceptance of native people. That’s why in this part of the US, native people were very strong, and they were the ones who fought till the end. Delaware is nowadays one of the US states where natives have the greatest power of buying their land back and founding a new Indian state.

The Northern colonies

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New England.

Political institutions: They were independent from Britain, like the Middle colonies. They had a very strong system of central and local governments, based on the organization of their Puritan society. In the first years, there was a strong link between religion and government. To be elected governors and be part of the people who lead a local town, you had to be a member of the Church. There was a sort of theocracy. Government didn’t depend on England but on the Will of God, with a very strong biblical influence.

Economy: Farms and agriculture were important, but small and family-run farms. Alongside farms, there were also small industries and manufacturers. Households and small manufacturers. The coexistence of these two aspects was a different system from the other kinds. There was a village and each family had a piece of land outside the village. The land was divided so that each adult male had his own piece of land. A few servants and mainly the entire family worked in the fields. Reliance upon family farming meant they needed no slaves at all.

Social structure: The religious community was fundamental. They created small or clustered settlements which encouraged the growth of vital communities where there was a very strict sense of order. Order was very important, both inside and outside the house. Communities were homogeneous and very similar. The same religion and the same Protestant sect, the one of the Puritans. The Church and the political institution were both responsible for the government of this clustered settlement. The main concern was to preserve social order. Communities based on religious belief. The civil law required that every settler who owned land had to attend church service on Sunday.

Relations with the Indians: They were based on negotiation. Surviving in the wilderness was a problem, so they needed the help of the Indians. Indians helped New England colonies a lot.

Puritans

Different groups in the Protestant world: Anglican, linked to the Church of England (Henry the VIII) – political reason, not religious (Luther). Puritans – inside the Anglican. Separatists – the fundamentals of the Puritans, really extremists. Separatists and Puritans characterize the two most important flows from England.

Separatists: 1620 – Mayflower and Plymouth. Puritans: 1630 – Boston and Massachusetts.

After Luther, in Europe, there was a religious revolution. Every religion gives a different and best way of getting eternal life. For Catholics and Anglicans, the tradition of the Church was not to be completely abandoned; the Church was still very important. Eternal salvation and the Will of God had to be found in the Church as an institution. The individual conscience is not so important. The ancient ceremonies and the ancient truths, communicated by the Church, are valid and the single person must go through the Church to access salvation.

The Puritans are more linked to the rest of the Protestant world, with the relevance of the Bible and of the personal and direct contact with God. Everything must be translated, everyone had to read the Bible, even if they didn’t know Latin. Puritan means to be pure. Purification. The idea was that the Church was corrupted, based on abuse and greed for power and money, only the Bible gave the single person reliable, true testimony of Christ's time and life. And only in the Old Testament could people, by themselves, read the vital truth of life. The Bible is the center. They lived in communities, but communities are democratic; everyone has their own Bible and reads it. Very literary reading: if something was not there, it was not true.

Puritans arrived in the US in 1630. Ten years before, another group of Puritans, the Separatists, the extremes of the extremes, came to the US because they wanted to separate themselves from the Church of England, which was a replica of the Church of Rome. It was corrupted and was not the real Church of Christ. Be separate from someone who is behaving wrong. They believed that they were the true Church. Their goal was “to find the city upon the hill” - Matthew 5:14 and to create a visible community of saints. Quotations from the Gospel to make it clearer and clearer their direct relation with the Bible. They were very strict. If a member of the community didn’t go to service, he was excommunicated, put out of the community.

The myth of the foundation

This is the myth of the foundation. They had no history, no tradition, and no past. They founded their own myth. Their simple crossing of the Atlantic became a myth. A myth creates a celebration. The myth was created.