Puritan Beliefs and Native American Culture

• This summary defines "American" as encompassing all U.S. areas currently, along with all languages and cultures practiced there, while acknowledging that more restrictive or expansive definitions are possible.
• Using the indefinite article "a" suggests that American literature has multiple "histories," encompassing varying texts, authors, perspectives, and chronological references.
• Compiling a history involves making choices among numerous possibilities.

Native American Beginnings

• Learning outcomes: extracting and constructing meaning, interaction and involvement, and critical thinking.
• Pre-Columbian literature includes pre-colonial and early Native American works.
• "Indian" refers to Native American or Indigenous peoples.
• Indigenous populations are referred to as First Nations, First Peoples, or Aboriginals in Canada.
• In Mexico, Central and South America, terms like indígeno/a community, and people are used.
• Add a denomination when available; for instance, “Leslie Marmon Silko is an American writer from the Laguna Pueblo.”
• Central aspects: oral literature, cultural work, dreams significance, elementals personification, dualist thinking, collective authorship, multiple versions of same account/story, aim for harmony.
• Form and style includes oral literature turning into orature, live performances embedded in rituals performed by individuals utilizing speech, call and response, multimedia music, gestures, expressions, repetitions, enumerations and direct audience addresses.
• Translation & remediation involves adapting and transforming indigenous oral accounts into written formats, especially by colonizers/scholars.
• Genres: song-poems, stories, creation stories which explain the world, past/present, common views, trickster accounts which educate, entertain and reaffirm order.
• Other forms are speeches, ritual drama, and formulas for dances and performances.
• Cultural work includes historiography, education, group cohesion, spirituality, celebration, and entertainment.
• Akimel O'odham (Pima) is a Native American tribe from the southwestern U.S. (primarily Arizona) living along the Gila, Salt, and Santa Cruz rivers.
• They engineered the most extensive canal civilization in the Americas, its pinnacle in the 15th century, followed by its decay via draughts, floods, and colonization.
• Song components include dualism, four quarters of the world, harmony, pride and joy, iterations, entertainment, explanation, and spirituality.
• This tribe has oral customs, rituals, and ceremonies, which aim to educate youth on heritage, morals, and nature.
• The Navajo Nation, also called Diné, is located in the American Southwest - Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
• "Long Walk" signifies a forced relocation and internment in the mid-19th century due to conflicts with the U.S. government over land and resources.
• The "It was the wind" song demonstrates personification of the wind and connection between the Navajo people and the natural elements.
• There is a unity of creation and wind is the unifying force.
• The Lakota Nation include the "Thíthunwan" Sioux subgroup located in North/South Dakota.
• Speakers of Lakňótiyapi/Lakota have a song with the connecting element of light.
• Osage ['ouseId3] Nation, meaning "Calm Waters,” is dependent on buffalo hunting, their chant has buffalo appearing, duality, and iterations.
• Tohono O'Odham Nation (Pápago) or "Desert People" are related to the Akimel affiliated with the Sonora desert. They depend on buffalo hunting and have chants to provide support.
• Song of encouragement is an essential practice that supports, renews individuals and community, expresses vulnerability, and builds community.
• David Cusick's "Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations" (Tuscarora) details the origins, legends, and history of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.
• Cusick’s work includes origin stories, historical narratives, and cultural practices, and the Iroquois account which explains world origination.
• The Iroquois account may demonstrate syncretic religion by blending beliefs with Christianity, preserving traditions/practices.
• "Adventures of Ictinike" are collections featuring the trickster from the Lakota Sioux, who uses tricks, deception, and magic.
• Ictinike is an ambiguous figure between good and evil; Rabbit & Ictinike relate to the transformative powers.
  • The stories feature transgression of cultural rules with a didactic element punishing dishonesty/trickery to restore harmony.

Colonial Literature

• The colonial period (1620-1800) began when the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.
• The Mayflower carried the Pilgrim fathers.
• Early European settlements occurred in the 16th/early 17th century where England, Spain, France, Netherlands, and Sweden competed along the Atlantic coast.
• In 1664, New Amsterdam became New York, where England, Spain, and France gained control of the Atlantic seaboard.
• By the mid-18th century, England had settlements along the Atlantic coast, France in the middle, and Spain in the West, Southwest, and Florida.
• The 1783 Treaty of Paris transferred French claims east of the Mississippi to England and west of it to Spain.
• After the Treaty of Paris, France disappeared, as Britain claimed Canada, east became free states, and Spain took the west.
• English settlements commenced with Jamestown, Virginia, established as a colony in 1607.
• Established by John Smith/Virginia Company of London to exploit commercial resources.
• Few literate settlers: drinking songs, tales, diaries, Smith wrote an account of the colonies relating to experiences in Virginia, New England, and Bermuda Islands (Summer Isles).
• In 1613, Amonute/Matoaka (Pocahontas) of the Powhatan Confederacy was kidnapped for ransom.
• War broke out where the English sought to force Powhatan into submission.
• They recorded African slaves arriving to Jamestown in 1619 and in 1622, one third of English settlers were killed during the "Indian Massacre”.
• English settlements also included Plymouth Plantation (1620), founded by the Pilgrims.
• Puritanism was a process to purify Anglican religious rituals/ornamentation.
• Under Elizabeth I and James, Puritan reform efforts grew, leading to migration and escaping prosecution.
• William Bradford wrote "Of Plymouth Plantation" (1651), which accounts for the colony’s beginnings.
• 1620: Thanksgiving celebrated the cooperation and gratitude between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people after harvest in 1621.
• The Massachusetts Bay (1630) colony, was founded by mostly non-separatist Puritans who did not want to separate.
• The Arbella ship symbolized Puritan resettlement of the Bay territory religious and cultural impact.
• Tensions grew between the Church of England/Puritans, leading to emigration under Charles I.
• John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630) sermon envisions the colony as a "city upon a hill" that models Christian love and community.
• The 1692/93 Salem Witch Trials occurred because the Puritans believed in witchcraft as a threat.
• During the trails the colony was experiencing social/political conflict and clashes with Indigenous.

Aspects of Puritan Culture

• Predestination is central to the culture focusing on saints/elect versus sinners.
• Saints/elect are individuals 'predestined' by God for salvation based around Calvinist theology.
• Followers engaged in introspection and self-scrutiny ("Am I in God's favour?") resulting in diaries and autobiographies.
• The conception of history and the Covenant of Grace stressed salvation is offered to sinners based on grace.
• There was a sense of mission among Puritans to be the new chosen people in a new Canaan.
• Jeremiads like Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" used Biblical warnings to provoke change.
• Captivity narratives such as Mary Rowlandson reveal Puritan faith and culture.

Cultural Changes

• Cultural changes occurred during the 18th century with the decline of Puritanism with religious revivals and the Great Awakening.
• Enlightenment was growing resulting in growing tensions between Britain and American colonies.
• The American Enlightenment was crucial to the American Revolution.
• Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a publisher, printer, inventor, politician, and diplomat whose "Autobiography" (1768) promoted self-made success as a way to reach moral perfection through self-discipline.
• Prototypical man of the Enlightenment and self-made man promoted self-value rather than religious value.
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) advocated American independence based on reason, advocating against corruption.
• Phillis Wheatly (1753-84): enslaved poet, manumitted in 1773, reflects on journey from Africa to America, views her enslavement as a means of finding spiritual salvation.
• She justifies Middle Passage as “mercy”, promotes conversion but affirms their intrinsic dignity.
  • Manumission frees a person from servitude.
• Hector John is known for "Letters from an American Farmer" (1735-1813) which portrays American life in the late 18th century.
• The letters shape perceptions of the American frontier and the American identity defining an American as a new, unique man who had a new life by transcending previous social status.
• This promoted diversity by departing rigid European social structures.

The American Renaissance

• The American Renaissance included writers such as Walt Whitman.
• Key developments included westward expansion, urbanizations and the literary market.
• The period experienced significant growth in the literary market during this time and romanticism with emphasis on self-expression.
• There was a combination with American content and stages in a Romantic poem that include observation, emotion and reflection.
• Dark romanticism delves into the darker aspects of human nature with American Gothic is the reversing American romanticism.
• Transcendentalism advocated individualism and supremacy of truth which could be found through intuition.
• Emerson called for American independence to combat European traditions.
• Thoreau spoke on civil disobedience and personal responsibility.
• Whitman used free verse to capture freedom an individuality.
• Dickinson captured these views as well.

Romantic Fiction

• American fiction experienced late development due to preference for British books.
• Low aesthetic value novels became common, especially in short stories, while four subgenres emerged with "romance" as a focus.
• Gothic novels provided a nostalgic adventure, as well as American ones.
• The American Adam refers to an Eden-like person who has potential for greatness.
• The "white whale" represents multiple ideas related to civilization and identity.
• Hawthorne focused on supernatural, historical events.
• The works examined early women in a society that began to view people as individuals.

This quiz covers the religious beliefs of the Puritans, including typology, predestination, and the Covenant of Grace. It also explores Native American cultures, focusing on the Osage Nation, Tohono O’Odham Nation, and Haudenosaunee, including their songs, traditions, and historical narratives.