Description

SAMPLE PAPER

Chamberlain University

HIST 405N United States History

Week 1: Towards an American Republic: The colonial Period

Assignment

Week 1: The Cost of Expansion

Initial Post Instructions

In preparation for the initial post, consider two (2) of the following settlements:

• Southern colonies
• Chesapeake colonies
• Middle colonies
• New England colonies

Then, in one (1) to two (2) paragraphs, address one (1) of the following options:

• Compare and contrast the settlement patterns.
• What forces and ideas shaped their origin?
• Examine the influence of religion on those settlements (e.g., Puritanism, Quakers, and the Anglican Church).

Follow-Up Post Instructions

• Respond to one peer.
• Further the dialogue by building upon their post with information you uncovered while researching.
• Include one (1) meaningful scholarly source to demonstrate much depth. A scholarly source can include your textbook, assigned readings, or additional scholarly research.

Sample Solution

The New England and the Chesapeake colonies were the two major divisions of the thirteen colonies that comprised of America with different patterns of settlement. New England colonies which were mainly founded by the Puritans had highly centralized and religious and educational societies in the form of towns. The concept of a ‘city upon a hill’ made the Puritan society a theocratic society which emphasized on religious respect, self-rule, and common accountability. The Chesapeake colonies for example Virginia and Maryland on the other hand were founded with an economic agenda, specifically tobacco farming. These colonies thus evolved a less centralized and more scattered form of settlement with large plantation being established across the vast lands. This resulted into society that was based on indentured servants and later on enslaved Africans with less focus on togetherness.

It is not out of a coincidence that religion played a huge role in the establishment of both regions. Puritanism dominated almost every sphere of life in New England such as political system, education system and community organization making it a society that was rooted in religious beliefs. On the other hand, the Chesapeake colonies even though they were Anglican were not as religious as the New England colonies and their major concern was business. There was Maryland which was a safe haven for Catholics under the Act of Toleration of 1649, where all Christians were granted freedom of worship. Yet religion in the Chesapeake was not as integrated into the social and political life as in New England where religion played a major role in the society and people’s lives.

Purpose

The purposes of each case study assignment include the following:

• To hone your abilities to research using scholarly sources
• To advance critical thinking and writing skills
• To compile a response to the prompts provided
• To explore a historical topic and make connections to change over time

Available Resources

In your American History course, you will utilize scholarly sources to address the questions in the weekly assignment. Please be advised that History.com, Wiki, Wikipedia, or websites such as cliffnotes.com, studymode.com, coursehero.com, and the like are not deemed scholarly sources. Therefore, use your course text and an additional scholarly source from the Chamberlain Library in your response.

Below is a list of resources you must choose from:

• Textbook: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
• Lesson
• Minimum of 1 scholarly source from the Chamberlain Library resources below:
  • Sources for the Week 1 Case Study topics are available by accessing this linkLinks to an external site..
  • The “Popular Data Bases” within the Library Guide for scholarly sources and videos via Search Popular History DatabasesLinks to an external site. or the History Library GuideLinks to an external site..

 

Week 1 Case Study

Instructions

Pick one (1) of the following topics. Then, address the corresponding questions/prompts for your selected topic. Use the available resources from the list above to support your selected topic.

• It’s highly recommended that you download and use the suggested assignment template for each topic to complete this case study.
• When you complete the template, upload and submit it in the assignment dropbox on this webpage.

Writing Requirements

• Length: 1–2 pages (not including title page or references page)
• Use the standard essay writing process by including an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• 1-inch margins
• Double spaced
• 12-point Times New Roman font
• Title page
• References page
• No abstract is required
• In-text citations that correspond with your end references

Grading

This activity will be graded based on the W1 Case Study Grading Rubric.

Outcomes

• CO 1: Examine change over time in migration and settlement that contributed to diversity within the United States.
• CO 3: Explain the influence of historical events on American culture and society.

Due Date

By 11:59 p.m. MT on Sunday

Sample Paper 

 

 

Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson – Early Pursuits of Religious Freedom

Student Name

Chamberlain University

HIST 405 American History

Dr. Donald Burnette

8^th September 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson’s Early Pursuits of Religious Freedom

Introduction

Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson are recognized as significant personalities in early American history, especially when it comes to the fight for religious tolerance. Williams and Hutchinson were critics of the strict Puritan Puritanism, the leading strip of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the seventeenth century. For their beliefs and actions, they were expelled, but they sowed the seeds that would later form principles of religious freedom and the non-involvement of the church in the American government.

Roger Williams’ Early Life and Political Ideology

Roger Williams came to Massachusetts in 1631 as one of the ministers belonging to the Puritan church. He soon gained a reputation for holding unorthodox beliefs that differed from the Puritan doctrine. Williams argued that the state has no right to compel people to observe religion because it is the duty of civil authorities to provide justice, not religion. He favored the doctrine of tolerance, which states that people are allowed to worship in their own way without interference from the state (Seiple, 2020). In 1636, due to being expelled from Massachusetts for his religious opinions, Williams started the Rhode Island colony for the same purpose: to support nonconformists and tolerance in religion as well as later fair treatment of indigenous peoples.

Background and Views of Ann Hutchinson

Ann Hutchinson was a midwife and a woman of faith who was also involved in questioning Puritan theologies. Upon her immigration to Massachusetts in 1634, Hutchinson was able to start having meetings in her house, where she encouraged believers to directly hear the word of God without the intervention of ministers. For this reason, as much as she encouraged people to seek spiritual experiences, she was accused of heresy based on her beliefs that emphasized individual experiences rather than structured religion (Westerkamp, 2021). Like Williams, Hutchinson was ejected from Massachusetts, and she settled in Rhode Island, hence making the colony famous for accommodating people of different religions.

Peculiarities of the Mainstream Puritan Views

Williams rejected the divine right of the King of England, and Hutchinson did not believe in predestination as taught by the Puritan church. Specifically, Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans believed in mandatory religion, and government and churches throughout the colony exhibited strict organization, with church Tories being of considerable influence. Williams stated that government interference in religious issues tainted the church’s holiness, while Hutchinson questioned the clergy through insistence on revelation from the Lord directly without using any form of middlemen. Stressing such ideas called for the destabilization of the social and religious structure of the colony and, therefore, the banishment of the writers.

Contributions to Religious Toleration and Separation of Church and State

The impact of Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson on religious freedom and the establishment of a clear dividing line between the spheres of religious and state authorities was significant. Regardless of Williams being a separatist, he founded Rhode Island as a colony where everyone could exercise their religious freedoms without government interference, which later became the basis for the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In advocating for personal religious experiences over organized religion, Hutchinson stressed the value of individual freedom by the early nineteenth century (Fowler, 2021). Together, they assisted in developing the ideological underpinnings of the American concept of religious tolerance.

Combined with other activists, such as Hutchinson’s defiance of the religious authorities and the infringement of religious and political power, the foundations of the rights of religious freedom and the division between church and state in America. Williams’ experiment in Rhode Island proved that a society could coexist without a state religion influencing other colonies and contributed to the Constitution’s First Amendment. Hutchinson stressed the supremacy of the conscience as a private matter while denying the competence of the institutional Church in this question, which contributed to the establishment of religious liberty as an individual entitlement (Corbett et al., 2023). Both of their contributions remain relevant to this day as a reminder of the fundamental concept of safeguarding the individual’s rights against the tyranny of religion and the state.

Conclusion

Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson played a crucial role in laying the groundwork for the protection of the rights of religious pluralism in America. They were the pioneers of sorts who dared to resist the oppressive Puritan dogmatism that dominated New England at the time and paved the way for the ideas of religious freedom that were incorporated into the Constitution of the United States of America later. The acts of Williams in creating Rhode Island as a safe haven for non-conformity to the Church of England, as well as Hutchinson in propagating personal freedom of choice as regards religious beliefs, underscored the valued aspect of religious tolerance and freedom from(state)interference. Their stories remain relevant as strong messages of the importance of preserving individual rights and freedoms as well as the effect that people’s courage to stand up against the regime has on society.

 

References

 

Corbett, P. S., Janssen, V., Lund, J. M., Pfannestiel, T., Vickery, P., & Waskiewicz, S. (2023, July 6). U.S. History. OpenStax, OER Commons. Retrieved January 2, 2024, from https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history

Fowler, R. B. (2021). Enduring liberalism: American political thought since the 1960s. University Press of Kansas.

Seiple, C. (2020). The essence of exceptionalism: Roger Williams and the birth of religious freedom in America. In Religion and American Exceptionalism (pp. 12-18). Routledge.

Westerkamp, L. (2021). Anne Hutchinson. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.