Puritanism, the Wilderness, and the Frontier
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16308299 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alan Heimert (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1953 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 361 |
| Publication date | 1953-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The New England Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0028-4866 • E-ISSN: 1937-2213 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/362849 |
| OpenAlex | W2009554495 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
THE notion of subjugating an American wilderness had no place in aspirations of English religious dissenters who came to New England in years after 1620. John Robinson's last letter to Leyden emigrants charged them to preserve their ecclesiastical polity.l Ten years later John Cotton assured Winthrop's company of God's favor for which hath beene a maine meane of peopling world, and is likely to be of propagating Gospell. 2 But he spoke of no American wilderness; like Thomas Hooker he gathered evidence that Lord would imminently withdraw from England.3 Peopling world and propagating gospel were parts of general Protestant purpose of carrying fruits of Reformation to New World. The Massachusetts Bay group left with a more particular aim in mind, that example contained in city set on a hill of Winthrop and Peter Bulkeley. But no one attached significance to their wilderness-destination, certainly nothing comparable to animism which overcame Puritan thinking about wilderness in course of century. Their concept of American wilderness, we must conclude, was not, as it were, carried to America on Mayfloweror A rbella, but came out of that wilderness itself. For Puritans America was to be the good Land, as Winthrop put it, a veritable Canaan. The Atlantic, if not Red, was their vast Sea, and successful conclusion of their voyage, end of their tribulations, their emergence
Archaeology · Biology · Environmental ethics · Frontier · Geography · Wilderness · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American Environmental and Regional History · Archaeology and Natural History · Ecology · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1973 - 2023 (51) |
| Highly cited | No |