01 Feb The Transformation of Euro-American Society an

HIST553 History of Colonial America

Week 6 Forum

The Transformation of Euro-American Society and Indian Strategies for Survival

In the required reading for this week, Rossel prefaces his thesis by noting, “The period of religious revival falling between the years 1730 and 1745 in Puritan New England is one of extreme change in social organization. The task of this paper will be to analyze the Great Awakening as a mechanism of social change. In one sense, the revival was symptomatic of the extreme functional incompatibility between New England’s dominant religious-political institutional order and its emergent differentiated economic and social substructure. The intensity and magnitude of the revival was indicative of strains inherent in an attempt to maintain a religious-political order which was basically incompatible with the material conditions of a colonial frontier environment. The latent function of the revival was to prepare the way for a moral and social order more in keeping with these material conditions by clearing away many of the ideological and institutional trappings that served to maintain the establishment of religion and its dominance of the polity and the economy. In so doing, the revival gave great impetus to a disposition toward individualism, voluntarism, and democracy already at work in and around New England.” Based upon the essay, what is your personal (and informal) opinion: did the revival give great impetus to a disposition toward individualism, voluntarism, and democracy already at work in and around New England? Briefly explain your answer.

For this Forum, I’m looking for the specifics from the reading AND your analysis of the class (up until this point). So, I’d like to read a good bit of your “voice,” and your ability to put this in the greater historical context.