Michael

Professor - please be aware that when I posted the revised versions of responses 1 and 3 this afternoon, all the past versions of my responses disappeared. I have no idea how this happened. If this is an issue, please let me know and I can drop off the hard copies of your revisions so you can see what I changed.

REVISED (2nd revision) Response 3 - How does Franklin's or Crevecoeur's vision of America (and the role that religion should play in it) differ from that of the Puritans and the Neo-Puritans?

In __Letters from an American Farmer__, J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur describes America as a melting pot, and the new American as a new man with new principles, which includes a new outlook on the role of religion in society. This new role included religion being less of a way of life and more of a part of life, with future Americans feeling less religious zeal than their forefathers. This religious indifference as opposed to religious zeal was due to the arrival of different settlers with different religious backgrounds, and as the children of these settlers began to marry, religious backgrounds were combined, thus lessening their original strength from generation to generation These ideas as presented by Crevecoeur contrast the views of the Puritans and Neo-Puritans concerning the role of religion in American society.

The Puritans came to America from England in order to escape religious persecution and to practice their religion freely. All aspects of their lives were intertwined with their beliefs, which can be described as intense religious zeal. Their beliefs were focused more on the community than on the individual.

As time wore on, more and more settlers came to America, which included people with different religions. According to Crevecoeur, this mixing of religions results in religious indifference in subsequent generations of the country: “Each of these people instruct their children as well as they can, but these instructions are feeble compared to those which are given to the youth of the poorest class in Europe. Their children will therefore grow up less zealous and more indifferent in matters of religion than their parents (602).” The idea of religious indifference as described in the preceding quote is a stark contrast between the religious zeal of the Puritans who first settled the country.

Crevecoeur also believed that the new American man was to be much more concerned with his own interests instead of the community: “Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor; his labor is founded on the basis of nature, //self-interest//; can it want a stronger allurement?” (Page 598) According to Crevecoeur, the new American is influenced by his self-interest much more than the interest of the community. This idea is in opposition with Puritan beliefs that placed community over self.

In conclusion, as America progressed, so did the ideals of the country, including the role of religion in the lives of the people. When the Puritans first settled in America, their religion encompassed all aspects of their daily life. According to Crevecoeur, the country is moving away from this sort of religious zeal, instead becoming a nation of individuals who value their self-interest, and that the mixing of people from different religions has created a lack of religious zeal that is completely opposite of the strong religious zeal practiced by the Puritans.

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REVISED (2nd revision) Response 1 (7.27.10) - Select two of the following figures and discuss the dreams and/or nightmares that they project upon the American landscape and the people who inhabit it. Be sure to indicate how these projections differ--Columbus, Bradford, Morton.

William Bradford and Christopher Columbus both project their own dreams and nightmares into their descriptions of America, which includes the landscape and the inhabitants of the new world. In many ways, their descriptions were heavily influenced by their own personal beliefs about the unknown.

Before arriving in America, Bradford describes the landscape of America in Chapter IV from __Of Plymouth Plantation__ in an optimistic tone, as vast and fruitful for habituation. However, towards the inhabitants of America, Bradford does not seem to have the same optimistic sentiment: “…being devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and brutish men, which range up and down, little otherwise than the wild beasts of the same (108).” This passage illustrates Bradford’s interpretation of the unknown. His mind has most likely been filled with these nightmare visions of the inhabitants due to myths and legends of unknown territories. Additionally, Bradford has most likely heard or read of first-hand accounts from explorers who have come across the natives and who probably exaggeratingly portrayed them as savage beasts. Therefore, Bradford is projecting these assumed nightmare visions of the natives onto his view of what he expects to see when his party lands in America.

Bradford and his fellow settlers arrive in America during winter, therefore Bradford describes the harsh conditions, and confirms his beliefs about the natives as he depicts them as “savage barbarians, when they met with them (as after will appear) were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than otherwise (115-116).” However, as his journal continues, Bradford details the natives running away from members of their party every time they came near them, suggesting they were fearful of the settlers, not vice versa as he originally described before arriving in the new world. They eventually find an area of land suitable for habitation, which included crops left there by the natives. The back and forth relationship between the natives and settlers continues throughout the rest of the journal. Bradford’s dream vision of the land of America was not to be, at least not at first, due to the harsh conditions of the winter. His nightmare vision was at least partly true, but he did not expect the natives to show fear in their initial encounters.

As opposed to Bradford, Columbus did not base his descriptions of America on myths and legends he may have heard, as Columbus was the first to actually see the landscape and the inhabitants. However, as Columbus’ original intent was to find passage to the West Indies, not to find America, the images he depicts were his own dream projections that he hoped would impress the royalty of Spain, who had financed his trip, and who he wanted to finance more endeavors. In his letter to them, titled “Letter on Discovery Lofty Lands and Most Beautiful of a Thousand Shapes” this dream projection is apparent: “In it there are many harbors on the coast of the sea, incomparable to others which I know in Christendom, and numerous rivers, good and large, which is marvelous. Its lands are lofty and in it there are very many sierras and high mountains…(Handout).” These descriptions seem more idealistic than realistic. Columbus may have been describing his dream of what paradise should look like, the paradise described in the story of Adam and Eve, and reported it back to the royalty of Spain in order to impress them, which would in turn inspire them to invest in future journeys.

Columbus also describes the natives in a much lighter tone than Bradford, recounting how they helped him and his men: “…they are so artless and so free with all they possess, that no one would believe it without having seen it. Of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no (Handout).” However, this description again seems more idealistic than realistic, as it seems hard to believe these natives would be so accommodating to strange travelers they had never seen before. Yet, this letter is designed to impress the financers of his journey, and future journeys, so Columbus did not want to paint the natives in a negative light. Therefore, the descriptions are his dream of what he hopes natives would be like.

These two projections differ in that Bradford’s is a more nightmare-type description of the natives, and a more realistic view of the landscape as opposed to Columbus’s idealistic, dream-like view. In opposition to Bradford’s description of the natives, Columbus’ description of the natives asserts that despite being uncivilized, they are helpful and not dangerous. Bradford also describes the initial fear the natives had towards the settlers. Also in contrast is the image of the harsh winter in Bradford’s work, as opposed Columbus’, which of course landed in the perpetually sunny Caribbean, therefore no harsh conditions could even be imagined, much less described. In both these cases, Columbus and Bradford could not help but describe America in nightmare or dream-like scenarios because the land was so unknown and mysterious to them. It is human nature, when a place is completely unknown, for people to project their own vision of what it could be, as seen in their dreams and/or nightmares, as Bradford and Columbus do in this case.