Slavery in America

Omar Ibn Seid was a slave in the Carolina’s here in America around the year 1831. He was originally a devote Muslim who had followed the words of the Koran his entire life until he was captured and sold into slavery in America. Although he claimed to have accepted Christianity into his life, if one reads his writings it can be seen that he likely continued his faith in Islam under a superficial Christian guise. Omar writes about how great his masters, the Owen’s, were to him, but one must also note that he was still a slave during these writings and so he may have written more highly of his master because of this. Omar claims that his first master was so bad to him that he ran away until he was captured, jailed and re-sold into slavery to the Owen’s. Omar’s master Jim Owen was a good man says Omar, and he would feed and clothe Omar with similar things that he would feed and clothe himself with. The line that most shows me that Omar had yet to really accept Jesus Christ as his savior was when he said, “ for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth were by Jesus the Messiah.” This tells me that Omar still believes the law of his god is still from the Koran and not the Bible.

William Lloyd Garrison was a white man who believed that both slavery and racism were terrible things that needed to be abolished. He formed a movement to do this known as the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Many other white slave owners felt that Garrison and others who shared his views, helped start rebellions such as the one caused by Nat Turner. However, Garrison writes that the abuses suffered by the slaves on a day-to-day basis were more than enough to cause the slaves to want to rebel against their owners. He also writes that in keeping slaves and slavery around, people were not obeying God’s will and that they would go to hell for this.

In his “Declaration of Sentiments”, William Lloyd Garrison condemned slavery and set forth to abolish it with a list of proposed activities. Garrison points out that our forefathers had come to this land with the intent of all men to be created equally, yet they now owned slaves. He also makes a point in saying that none of the forefathers were ever sold like cattle and treated as such as well. He makes the point of saying that no man should ever have the right to own another man or to treat another man like a piece of property. Garrison was definitely a good man who believed that the time of slavery needed to end; otherwise men would burn in hell for their unholy acts. He mentions that all people should be allowed the same privileges regardless of the color of their skin. Garrison believes that, “Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph,” in the end. Although no immediate changes occurred from Garrison’s help, we can see now that he was completely right in his beliefs and that all men indeed were created equal and should be treated as such. 

Habitat for Humanity and Cystic Fibrosis Fundraiser and Climb

I participated in both the Habitat for Humanity project and the Cystic Fibrosis Fundraiser and Climb. In both of these projects I would describe my role as a volunteer who was doing work for a good cause. There were many pro’s to these service learning projects, the most basic being that we got to help those in need of help and we came together as a group in doing so. The only con that came from these projects was the early wake up times, but this wasn’t really all that big of a deal. All in all I would say that fun times were had by everyone, while we were still learning about the problems like health issues and housing needs of others. I also learned that NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) operate much better whenever they have more volunteers who can give more time and/or money to support their cause, and so I was happy to get to be one of those who may have made the difference. I feel that if more people were taken to service projects such as these that they would be made more aware of how the world around them operates and maybe they would want to make a change. I felt that the other people volunteering had a good time and were more generous than I had expected. Personally, I learned more about myself and just how lucky I am to be healthy and able to go to college. These projects could not have worked with simply one individual, and there is definitely a power seen in working as a collective group to complete these tasks.  Overall these projects would not have been successful if it had not been for the multitude of people who showed up to volunteer their time for a helping cause. I believe that everyone who took part in these projects learned not only about others but also about themselves. Efforts can be made at a local level to help change the way the world is and I think that it is important for people to realize this, as I have. All in all I would say that these projects were very fun and educational and I would definitely go again. 

Revolutionary Culture

A Tory is the same thing as an American colonist who supported the British during the American Revolution. These people were also known as Loyalists. Inglis describes the Rebel’s as being overly concerned with what the Loyalists preach and said that they are acting in violent ways towards their Loyalist brethren. He feels that in the Rebel’s minds, “that those who were not for them, were against them.” Ultimately, the Loyalist ministers had to shut up their churches so as to not be prosecuted by the Rebel’s. I personally am not surprised that an estimated 20 percent of the free population sided with Britain, and I feel that I too may have joined with the Loyalists out of fear that this new and untried government that the Rebels wanted may not work out so well.

Mercy feels that “politicks” commands “the attention of the mother and wife” due to it being so interwoven with the enjoyments of social and domestic life. Mercy doesn’t apologize for “touching on a subject a little out of line of female attention,” because she feels that her husband wouldn’t mind and neither would Fayerweather’s husband. Also, she feels like the arguments for independence have grown too big to be ignored by the women in the colonies. Hannah is describing the Boston Massacre to her friend Mercy, and telling her how horrible it was and how she cannot meet her friend due to all of this. Both of these letters are showing the limitations that women had on them during these times. Both women are scared and wish to change that, but cannot due too social norms being in the way of this.

Adams feels that the ownership of property is an excellent prerequisite to voting because he claims people who don’t own property, “are too dependent upon other men,” and that a man who owns property also holds power in this land. Adam’s ideas would not be very practical today simply because not everyone owns their property, for instance, some people rent or lease their property and would, according to Adam’s, not be allowed to vote. Adam’s feared that if people who don’t own land or women and children were allowed to vote, that this would cause uproar in the colonies because everyone would want more than they need or deserve. He feels that by allowing this to happen that there would be no division among ranks, and that society would be destroyed essentially. 

Common Sense, Freedom, and Slavery

There was at least one reason why Paine's brief pamphlet is believed to be "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era". The reason is, while the average Colonist was more educated than their European counterpart, European and Colonial elites agreed that common people had no place in government or political debates. By aiming for a popular audience, and writing in a straightforward and simple way, Paine made political ideas tangible for a common audience. This brought average Americans into political debate, creating a whole new type of political language. Also, illiterate colonists could hear Common Sense read at public gatherings, thus bringing even the illiterate into this new political world. Paine's new style of political writing avoided using complex Latin phrases, instead opting for a more direct, concise style that helped make the information accessible to all. Thusly, Paine's "incendiary" words were heard even by those common folk who had never learned to read. Paine feels that the true “King of America” should be the laws that govern our country, because he says that “in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King”. I personally agree with Paine and his opinions on all of this being common sense, and I believe that many American’s at that time did as well, simply because they all did eventually come to the agreement that the King of America should be America’s people and not Britain’s.

Here are a few of the accusations made by our Founding Fathers against King George the Third of England in the Declaration of Independence in 1776: He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. Basically, Jefferson is claiming that the King of Great Britain has leaded a series of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having led to the absolute tyranny over the State’s.  Unfortunately, the Declaration of Independence did not change the lives of women or slaves other than that it put the idea in people’s mind that everyone should be equal, which helps out the slaves and women later on in history.

Phillis Wheatley is writing a letter to Samson Occum and claiming that to her it is rather obvious that the freedom of slaves should go hand in hand with the freedom of America from the oppressive British government. Wheatley believes that God implanted a Love of Freedom in everyone and feels that all people are against oppression. She describes the opposite actions of those who claim to want freedom for all men, yet do not have those feelings towards women or slaves as a “strange absurdity”. Wheatley had a reluctance to write about slavery, which perhaps was because she had conflicting feelings about the institution. In this poem in the Great Awakening book pgs. 222-223, I feel that she praises slavery because it brought her to Christianity, but, she also feels that slavery is indeed a cruel fate. Jefferson felt that her poetry was not good enough and that it jeopardized his assumptions about African Americans’ intellectual inferiority to European Americans.

Religious Liberty and American Culture

*I'm not sure why but sometimes the font can only be seen by highlighting it with the cursor.




Religious liberty is a liberty that our nation was founded on, and yet some people may not remember that America has not always had these religious freedoms. Today, in the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally guaranteed right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment of America’s Constitution. Freedom of religion is also closely associated with separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Thomas Jefferson. In the two excerpts that I read, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty by Isaac Backus and The Rights of Conscience Inalienable by John Leland, I noticed the similar feelings towards church and state that Jefferson held. Both Leland and Backus held the belief that religious liberty was necessary for the people of this country to thrive. What frustrated Backus in his appeal for religious liberty was that he didn’t understand how the Great Britain could force people to believe in a certain religion, and thereby taking away a man’s ‘natural right’ to think or believe what he or she desires.

When Backus writes, “…and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also,” he is saying that he feels the government requiring a religious belief from someone is wrong, but he also feels that those people who blindly follow these rules set by the government without any sort of nonconforming are giving up their reason and liberty of conscience. The liberty of conscience is something that Backus describes as each individual’s right to their own conscious mind, and something that the government cannot and should not be allowed to take away. Leland follows suit in his excerpt by also feeling that governments should not give preference to any religious group.  One reason he says this is so is because every man should be at their own liberty to serve God in his or her own way the best they can, and that unless the government can speak for an individual on their way into heaven, which they can’t, they should stay out of religious matters and let men be free. The second reason Leland says is that it would be sinful to let the government or any other individual take away one’s mind because, he says, “a man’s mind should always be open to conviction.” Leland refutes the idea that conformity in religion is necessary to the happiness of civil government by saying  that instead of discouraging people with fines, confiscation or death, the government should let every man be allowed to bring forth their own idea of religion.

All of these ideas expressed by both Backus and Leland and other early separatists’ and Baptists’ appeals are comparable to modern day America. Here in America we believe that a person has the right to choose how they want to live and that includes choice of religion. In my own opinion I am proud to live in a place where you can choose any religion you want and not be persecuted. America should hopefully keep this attitude towards religion as long as it is around.

Blog 4 and 5: The Great Awakening

Before reading Thomas S. Kidd’s book The Great Awakening: the Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America I had only heard of the Great Awakening enough to know that it was some type of religious revival period or something. However, after reading some of the chapters in Kidd’s book I now feel as though there was much more to this period of time. After some reading and searching on the internet I have found more information on both the Great Awakening. Apparently, in the mid-eighteenth century, Americans experienced an outbreak of religious revivals that changed colonial society. The Great Awakening was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected a jump in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations. I believe that Thomas Kidd’s book provides a much more complete view of these revivals, now known as the Great Awakening, and their dramatic effects on American culture. Historian Thomas S. Kidd tells the interesting story of early American evangelical Christianity through the lives of influential figures like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield as well as many other previously unknown people. In fact, according to the textbook and the two primary sources, George Whitefield had a very large role in the beginning of the Great Awakening.

After reading the two primary sources George Whitefield Comes to Middletown and the Grand Itinerant along with the Colonial Religion and the Great Awakening section in the textbook, I feel as though all three are telling similar stories. The textbook’s accounts of how the Great Awakening was influenced by George Whitefield and others are very accurate when compared to the primary sources. I believe that the textbook rendition of the Great Awakening gives an accurate account that coincides well with the short primary sources, and that the only disconnect between the primary and secondary sources comes from the fact that the primary sources only speak of George Whitefield, whereas the textbook gives a much more thorough account of the Great Awakening.

“One question readers may ask at the outset is why the Great Awakening happened” (xvii). This question is a difficult one to answer because there was no single formal start to the movement now known as the Great Awakening. As far as I can tell, the Great Awakening started when the New England colonies began having a multitude of “free thinkers”. Because of the education that these people received they were able to start questioning England and soon they began revolting. This explanation is as close as I can get to explaining how or why the Great Awakening took place.

Blog:3 Puritans at Play

Daniels attempts to give a historical account of how the puritans played. Do you feel like Daniels is successful with his work? 

A: Yes, he explains what was going on, the changes that are being made, and what time period things are taking place. By doing all of these things I find that Daniels is successful with his work.

In Section Four, Men and Women Frolic Together, Daniels covers topics such as puritans and dance, romance, sex, and alcohol (pages 109 – 159). Did anything from this section surprise you? Explain. What motivated puritans to engage or not engage in the above list?

A: After reading pages 109-159 of Puritans at Play by Bruce C. Daniels, I found that the Puritans lives were constantly changing with the times. This fact is still true because cultures all over the world have been and continue to change with time. Thus it did not surprise me when Daniels comments on how the Puritans began living less restricted lifestyles and instead began to imbibe in romance, sex, dance, and alcohol. Puritans were motivated to engage in these activities in the same way people today are, in that the urge to perform these activities is a part of human nature. Although in modern day we have become quite lenient with these activities. The Puritans however were lenient, but to lenient so as to disrupt others who discouraged these activities. Puritans engaged in sex, romance, dancing, and alcohol, but they did so in a more religious and mild manner than we do in modern times.

Do you feel that he gives an accurate account? If not, expand on what is missing (and/or faulty).

A: Bruce C. Daniels does give an accurate account to a degree, in that he explains how things were happening from the side of the people reforming. I do feel however, that Daniels fails to write from the perspective of the Puritans who disapproved of these actions and in doing so, Daniels write a rather one-sided version of what took place.

Comparing the cultural atmosphere you grew up within and the puritan world Daniels describes, what are some of the differences/similarities of opinion on topics such as dance, romance, sex, and alcohol?  Do you think there has been a progression of ideals or not? Explain.

A: When one looks at the society described by Daniels in his book Puritans at Play, and compares it to the cultural atmosphere of today many similarities and some differences can be seen. On the topics of dance, romance, and sex, there has most definitely been a progression of ideals and freedoms. Dancing is viewed all over the world and is not considered scandalous in most scenarios, minus adult dancing. And the topics of romance and sex are discussed on TV, radio, and the internet all the time. Not to mention the fact that books have been written based entirely on romance and sex and have sold millions even if they were pieces of crap (cough...Twilight...cough..). Although romance, dance, and sex have progressed in modern society, alcohol can still be seen as somewhat restricted. For instance, one could argue that the U.S. government deciding the age 21 is appropriate for alcohol consumption, is more restrictive than the Puritans of the past who could be seen allowing their "women, children, and even ministers to drink". So, although the cultural atmosphere of today is more lenient in most ways, one can still see a case where Puritan beliefs were held with less restriction than those of today when looking at alcohol.