Essay On The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening swept the British American colonies in 1730-1740s. A tall and delicate pastor, Jonathan Edwards, proclaimed with a burning righteous that New Englanders were far more invested with profit matters, other than the believing in salvation of God. The colonialist started to be convinced that John Calvin’s religious principles were wrong and good work ethics were the way to “save your soul,” Edwards preaching style was soon being learned “sinners in the hands of an Angry God,” thus sparked peoples convictions and they began to hear Edwards out, which became the Great Awakening in the British American colonies. Four years later George Whitefield, a minister, would shout the name of God with such passion and eagerness that grasped

people with such sublimity. Being a former actor, George Whitefield triumphed the colonies with hid message of human helplessness and divine omnipotence. He persuaded religious skeptic, Benjamin Franklin, than soon after that the whole colony was divided the New lights who practiced the new ways of Whitefield’s view and opening their own colleges and churches, for ex. Princeton University. The Old lights were ministers who stubbornly refused these new practices and worships.
Terms of significance:
1.) Regular movement: A movement in North Carolina, lasting from about 1764-1775, a revolt against the eastern domination of colony affairs; many who were involved with this insurrection were later joining American revolutionaries, for example Andrew Jackson.

2.) Paxton Boys: Protested Quaker tolerance policy against the local Indians, Philadelphia in 1764. Had a march, which the Scot-Iris had a lot to do with. Later lead to the Regular Movement.
6.) The “colonial folkways” during the eve of revolution were still into the European tastes; the simplicity of pioneering, English literature, craftsmanship, and art were strikingly similar in the colonies. Poetry was an art that enslaved Phillis Wheatley possessed. Wheatley was taken to England when only twenty-years-old she had already grasped the idea of poetry and began writing polished verses that revealed the influence of Alexander Pope. The everyday colony lifestyle was very tedious; filled with heavy and constant labor, the diet was monotonous, basic heating comfort was lacking, and no running water in the houses, no indoor plumbing, and the list could go on-and –on. Winter sports were common in the North as compared to the South where card playing, horse racing, cockfighting, and fox hunting were favorite pastimes. Holidays brought joy and enlightenment to the colonies, because they were celebrated everywhere except Christmas, because it was frowned upon in New England as “popery.” The North American colonies developed some

sort of self-government, communication and transportation was improving all throughout. The colonies despite their differences had a lot in common in conclusion.