Hear the winding tale of early Christian history in the Americas with a special focus on the thirteen colonies.  Right from the start the Americas were full of Christian diversity including Catholicism, the Church of England, Puritans, Baptists, and Quakers.  In this lecture you’ll see how this diversity led to an unprecedented level of religious tolerance and flourishing.  Other significant issues in this period include the horrors of the slave trade and the treatment of native Americans as well as the impressive success of the Great Awakening under the preaching of George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.
This is lecture 12 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.
—— Notes ——
Founding the Colonies

Catholicism in the Americas

Spanish claims included American west coast, Florida, and much territory in central and South America (Catholic)
French claims included eastern Canada (Quebec) and the territory of Louisiana (Catholic)
1634 Catholics founded “Mary land”


1607 Virginia founded as first English Colony

founded as joint effort by the Virginia Company to make money (Tobacco export)
brought Church of England to New World


Separatists founded New England

1620 Plymouth settled (from Brownists who were sojourning in Holland)
1630 Puritans establish Massachusetts Bay Colony fleeing from Archbishop Laud
1648 Cambridge Platform: Westminster Confession w/ congregational polity
No religious freedom
1636 Harvard founded for training of Puritan ministers
1631 Roger Williams (1603?-1683) arrived
1639 Williams founds first Baptist church in RI


1681 William Penn founded Pennsylvania (Penn’s Forrest)

he was a Quaker who tolerated all monotheists
many people outside of England moved to Pennsylvania including Moravians, Lutherans, German Reformed, Amish



 
Immorality

tobacco

1602 an English doctor wrote Chimney-Sweepers or a Warning for Tabacconists warning about health risks
1604 King James wrote a tract against tobacco
1617 Virginia exported 10 tons; 1622 30 tons; 1627 250 tons; 1639 1,500 tons; 1688 colonies exported 14,000 tons; 1771 52,000 tons


rum

1667 Boston’s first distillery
1774 Mass had 63 distilleries, producing 2.7 million gallons of rum a year
RI had more than 30 distilleries
colonists preferred rum made in the West Indies so they sold it in Africa and to Indians


Golden Triangle

molasses bought in New England to make rum
rum sold in Africa to purchase slaves
slaves sold in West Indies to purchase molasses


slavery

1619 first Africans came to VA as indentured servants (work for a set time to pay off travel debt)
by 1680 racial slavery
insanely inhumane conditions on slave trader ships

Falconhridge: “The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. They are far more violently affected by seasickness than the Europeans.  It frequently terminates in death, especially among the women.The exclusion of fresh air is among the most intolerable.  Most ships have portholes for air.  But whenever the sea is rough and the rain heavy, it becomes necessary to shut these and every other conveyance by which air is admitted.  The fresh air being thus excluded, the Negroes’ quarters very s

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