Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

2Seventeenth Century English
Colonial Literature
2.1 LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to
• Understand both the shared and distinctive motives leading to dierent
European groups’ traveling to and settling in the new world.
• Understand how their respective founding charters shaped the ideologies
of the dierent European settlements in the new world.
• Understand the adverse eects on the relationship of the English and the
Native American tribes of the ongoing European expansion of English
colonies in North America.
• Understand the signicance of the Pequod War and the so-called King
Philip’s War.
• Identify the introduction, growth, and eects of African slavery in the
colonies.
• Understand the signicance of Puritanism to seventeenth century
literature and culture in the new world.
• Identify the aesthetic features of the Puritan plain style in literature.
2.2 INTRODUCTION
The Puritans tend to be overrepresented in the histories and literature of the
seventeenth century English colonies in North America; however, they were hardly
the only group from England to travel to the new world. Some groups came for
similar reasons as the Puritans—to practice their religion freely—though many
came for secular reasons. The Jamestown colony in Virginia, a territory which
originally included not only the current state of Virginia but also the northern
parts of North Carolina up to the Long Island Sound in New York, was founded
as a commercial venture. In addition, people with commercial interests in the
new world traveled alongside William Bradford’s pilgrims on the Mayower, and
considerable tension existed between settlements with secular interests and those
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