New World Sacred Space

Puritan America & Sacred Space : 

Puritan America & Sacred Space

Who Were the Puritans? : 

Who Were the Puritans? Background Reform movement, emerged in England, 16th century Deeply influenced by the theology/work of John Calvin – Geneva Reformer Critical of Anglican Church and English society Two Wings Pilgrims (Plymouth; W. Bradford) Puritans (Mass. Bay; J. Winthrop)

Two Main Concerns : 

Two Main Concerns Myth, theology, narrative Communal space/meeting house

John Winthrop, ‘City on a Hill’ : 

John Winthrop, ‘City on a Hill’ "Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. ... For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." - John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity," 1630

Winthrop, cont. : 

Winthrop, cont. "We are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it." (Concl. to ‘Model of Christian Charity

William Bradford, Plimouth : 

William Bradford, Plimouth Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pigsah, to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew. - Of Plimouth Plantation, 1620-1647, Ch. 9.

Thomas Morton : 

Thomas Morton In the month of June, 1622, it was my chance to arrive in the parts of New England with 30 servants, and provision of all sorts fit for a plantation: and while our houses were building, I did endeavor to take a survey of the country: The more I looked, the more I liked it. And when I had more seriously considered of the beauty of the place, with all her fair endowments, I did not think that in all the knowne world it could be paralleled . . . . in my eye t'was nature's Masterpiece; her chiefest magazine of all where lives her store: if this land be not rich, then is the whole world poor. - New English Canaan, 1637, Book II, Ch. 1 Anglican bkg neopagan sensibilities toward the land settles at Mare-mount, close to New Plymouth His acts writings, an affront to Bradford and Puritans

Morton : 

Morton “These people are not dull, or slendor witted people, but very ingenious…. I have found the Massachusetts Indian more full of humanity then the Christianis; and haue had much better quarter with them…. The Saints demanded of every newcomer full acceptance of ‘the new creede’ that the Salvages are dangerous people, subtill, secreat and mischievous; and it is dangerous to live separated…”

Transformation of ‘Wilderness’ : 

Transformation of ‘Wilderness’ Snyder Roderick Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind

Old Ship Meeting House : 

Old Ship Meeting House

Old Ship : 

Old Ship

Sandown Meetinghouse, New Hampshire : 

Sandown Meetinghouse, New Hampshire Robert Frost – “clump of houses with a church” Poem lyrics of The Onset by Robert Frost. Always the same, when on a fated nightAt last the gathered snow lets down as whiteAs may be in dark woods, and with a songIt shall not make again all winter longOf hissing on the yet uncovered ground,I almost stumble looking up and round,As one who overtaken by the endGives up his errand, and lets death descendUpon him where he is, with nothing doneTo evil, no important triumph won,More than if life had never been begun.Yet all the precedent is on my side:I know that winter death has never triedThe earth but it has failed: the snow may heapIn long storms an undrifted four feet deepAs measured again maple, birch, and oak,It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;And I shall see the snow all go down hillIn water of a slender April rillThat flashes tail through last year's withered brakeAnd dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.Nothing will be left white but here a birch,And there a clump of houses with a church

Puritans, Pilgrims – Memory & Heritage : 

Puritans, Pilgrims – Memory & Heritage Celebration of 300th anniversary of Plymouth landing Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1921 http://www.plimoth.org/

Reagan, Farewell address : 

Reagan, Farewell address And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

The Frontier : 

The Frontier

New World Narratives : 

New World Narratives Indian wars “The literary subject that best suited the demand of Puritan society for a vision of its unique experience, and the requirements of society’s leaders for an appropriate vehicle of propaganda and doctrine, was the Indian wars. The experience itself was sufficiently unique to make it outstanding as a characteristic of life in the New World…. In such accounts, the Puritans could pit their own philosophy, doctrine, culture, and race against their cultural opposites…. The Indian wars proved to be the most acceptable metaphor for the American experience. To all of the complexities of that experience, it offered the simplicity of a dramatic contrast and direct confrontation of opposites.” (Richard Slotkin) Cotton Mather (d.1728) – “Here hath arisen light in darkness.”

Fusion: Myth, Theology, Conquest : 

Fusion: Myth, Theology, Conquest Colonial Puritan writings analyzed by Slotkin laid the groundwork for the “first American mythology… a mythology in which the hero was the captive or victim of devilish American savages and in which his (or her) heroic quest was for religious conversion and salvation.” Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, 67-69; 21.

James Kirke PauldingWestward Ho 1832 : 

James Kirke PauldingWestward Ho 1832 The first year of his arrival he was only the lord of a wilderness, the possession of which was disputed equally by the wild animals and the red man who hunted them. By degrees, however, the former had become more rare, and the latter had receded before the irresistible influence of the wise white man, who wheresoever he goes, to whatever region of the earth, whether east or west, north or south, carries with him his destiny, which is to civilize the world, and rule it afterwards.

Slide 21: 

Albert Bierstadt, the Oregon Trail, 1869

Frederick Jackson Turner : 

Frederick Jackson Turner Turner proposed that the frontier line was an ever-receding border “between savagery and civilization,” and that the “closing” of frontier marked the end of “first period of American history.” The frontier experience, claimed Turner, produced a new class or order of men, a uniquely American character and set of values: the rugged, self-sufficient and self-made man who carved a new society out of the chaos of a wild land in struggle with its wild and savage indigenous peoples. I appreciate being with people who love the land and appreciate open space. I realize there's nobody more central to the American experience than the cowboy…. You know, when the enemy hit us on September the 11th, they must have not figured out what we were all about. See, they thought we weren't determined. They thought we were soft. They obviously have never been to a national cattlemen's convention before…. I intend to find the killers wherever they may hide and run them down and bring them to justice. They think there's a cave deep enough; they're wrong. They think that we're going to run out of patience; they are wrong…. Either you’re with us, or you’re against us. George W. Bush, ‘President Discusses Ag Policy at Cattle Convention (speech delivered Feb., 2002)

Turner : 

Turner “[T]he people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them. He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and… American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise.” Roosevelt “[T]he people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them. He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and… American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise.” Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion…. That the barbarians recede or are conquered, with the attendant fact that peace follows their retrogression or conquest, is due soleyl to the mighty power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and by which their expansion are gradually brining peace into the red wastes where the barbarina peoples of the world hold sway. – The Strenuous Life, 1901

Frontier Violence : 

Frontier Violence From Scott William Hoefle, “Bitter Harvest, the Frontier Legacy of US Internal Violence and Belligerent Imperialism,” Critique of Anthropology 24.3 (2004): 277-300.

Wounded Knee, 1890 : 

Wounded Knee, 1890 Frank L Baum, Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, Jan. 3, 1891 Baum's first appeal for genocide was printed immediately after the slaying of Sitting Bull and 10 days before U.S. Army troops, supported by Indian mercenaries, killed about 300 Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee Creek, S.D. Here is what Baum wrote: "The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies, inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With this fall the nobility of the redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs.... The whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. We cannot honestly regret their extermination.“ "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians…. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."

Slide 27: 

1923 edition of Canada West Magazine Annette Kolodny The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (1975). The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontier, 1630-1860 (1984)

Kennedy, 1960 Presidential nomination speech : 

Kennedy, 1960 Presidential nomination speech For I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of their own doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto was not "every man for himself"--but "all for the common cause." They were determined to make that new world strong and free, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from without and within.      Today some would say that those struggles are all over--that all the horizons have been explored--that all the battles have been won-- that there is no longer an American frontier.      But I trust that no one in this vast assemblage will agree with those sentiments. For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won--and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier--the frontier of the 1960's--a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-- a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats….      But I tell you the New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are the uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. It would be easier to shrink back from that frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good intentions and high rhetoric--and those who prefer that course should not cast their votes for me, regardless of party.      But I believe the times demand new invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age--to all who respond to the Scriptural call: "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed."

Rumsfeld Address at Fort Carson : 

Rumsfeld Address at Fort Carson

Savagery : 

Savagery “[The frontier] Myth represented the redemption of the American spirit or fortune as something to be achieved by playing through a scenario of separation, temporary regression to a more primitive or ‘natural’ state, and regeneration through violence.” At the core of that scenario is the symbol…. [and] premise of the ‘savage war’…. [B]ecause of the ‘savage’ and bloodthirsty propensity of the natives, such struggles inevitably become ‘wars of extermination’ in which one side or the other attempts to destroy its enemy root and branch…. In its most typical formulations, the myth of ‘savage war’ blames Native Americans as instigators of a war of extermination…. The accusation is better understood as an act of psychological projection that made the Indians scapegoats for the morally troubling side of American expansion: the myth of ‘savage war’ became a basic ideological convention of [American] culture…” - Slotkin

Myth of the West/Frontier : 

Myth of the West/Frontier It has changed historically but not died - It has been creative but also enormously destructive - It should be subjected to ongoing critique. What is the myth of the West? The image of an Elsewhere Largely empty, untouched, virginal ; unbounded In which we can fully realize ourselves (as brave, just entrepreneurs) And from which we can spread our values (as civilized, democractically minded Christians) It is our “manifest destiny” as “chosen people” Cf. the “new” “Bush” “doctrine” Myth is not just falsehood, but rather narrated images, ritually performed, and doctrinally revered Where is the West? Frederick Jackson Turner’s hypothesis: frontier is meeting place between “civilization and savagery.” Sometimes literally west but not necessarily (el Norte) American religious history from point of view of NE (northeast, New England) A great rolling ball with a center or mainline What is the frontier? The constantly shifting boundary. The westerner is always “movin’ on,” “lookin’ for elbow room” Disappearance of. 4 centuries after Columbus it was gone, and “we” were overreaching ourselves, or bouncing back on ourselves. What was the expansive, westering American to do now? Now: outer space; or other global spaces – Taliban and Al Qeda the new enemies on the frontier. On the frontier who is man? Getting rid of old Being tried, tested, brave Men as heroes; women as support Who is an Indian? Like natural objects, e.g., trees. Things in the way. Moors were replaced by Indians. (Now, we’re back to Moors again: Terrorists) Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam, was “Indian” country; first fort – Fort Apache