hey there folks welcome to video number 2 this time we're gonna take a quick look at the Enlightenment in America along with the Great Awakening two movements that play big roles in changing the American mind it would help eventually lead the American colonies to become their own country and declare their independence from Great Britain so what was the Enlightenment well it did not start in North America it actually started and was already a movement a process that was going on in the 1700s in Europe and what it was was a challenging of the traditional views about the world and mankind humankind you had scientists and philosophers who are expressing new ideas or were revisiting old ideas about everything from human nature and government and law about religion and many other topics and they drew these ideas from their own experiences they drew them from texts and philosophers from Africa from the Middle East and from Asia and they really began to publicize a lot of these ideas they said things like the world was governed by natural laws like the law of gravity you may be familiar with that one and that these actually controlled our day to day world not luck and not miracles there was actually science behind the world that was around us and even science within us so the Enlightenment made its way to America how well because of all the settlers the colonists who were coming over from places like England to North America the Puritans in particular really stressed literacy and public education now this was in order to read the Bible but this actually helped with the spread of Enlightenment ideas because a lot of these ideas were in book form and so these books would come over to the colonies and be shared by the colonists and discussed by the colonists you had Americans like Benjamin Franklin who popularized using experiment experimentation scientific experiments and reason to find the answers to common questions about the world Thomas Jefferson also was a well-known figure of the Enlightenment in America he argued that people have natural rights the government's must respect and protect and some of these beliefs would become part of the Declaration of Independence which we'll talk more about in just a few minutes here's a well-known portrait of Benjamin Franklin what a must well known this was the basis for his portrait on the hundred dollar bill and this is the image of Thomas Jefferson that was made when he was the president he actually ended up being the third President of the United States so the Great Awakening was going on as well around this time so as Enlightenment ideas spread in the colonies religious influence decreased however we had this wave of new clergymen pastors reverends and ministers one of the most famous being Jonathan Edwards who became very famous for their intense and emotional sermons and this led to new interest in religion in the 1730's and the 1740s in fact there was so much interest that large religious meetings that were called revivals were held so these would be held outside of churches and taverns and meetinghouses rooms that were big enough for a wide range of Americans to attend you had not just men but women slaves people from all walks of life all economic classes who were interested in hearing these sermons and hearing these new ideas about religion and here's a painting that tries to capture what one of these meetings would have been like where you have the pastor standing up on the chair and you know she have a very mixed crowd you have people discussing what he's talking about you have men and women and looking at their clothes you can see they come from all walks of life rich and poor and middle class listening to this pastor so the what Great Awakening had some other impacts on the colonies first of all you had new Christian denominations or new groups that were formed such as Methodists and Baptists which he may have heard of these groups in a way challenged the authority of the Church of England the official Church of England that was headed by the king of England and they also challenged old Puritan views like the Puritans who had settled in Plymouth this increased interest in higher education as well you remember the Puritans wanted to be able to read the Bible so they can interpret the Word of God for themselves and share those ideas with themselves or at least understand what their preachers were saying but this would lead to many colleges like Princeton being opened and these colleges were created to Train ministers or you eyed colleges like Dartmouth which were opened to educate Native Americans and in a way to Christianize them here's a picture of Princeton today if you ever have a chance to go up to New Jersey visit Princeton this is what you'll see and again the college was originally founded to Train ministers but of course now it offers a wide range of courses and majors there so let's take a look at the Enlightenment verse the Great Awakening how are they similar how are they different so the Enlightenment emphasized reason thought processes what do you know about yourself what do you observe well the Great Awakening emphasized a more emotional expression what does your heart say what do you feel in your gut your instinct and things like that what does what does God the Holy Spirit say to you and how do you express that both inspired the questioning of authority and they stressed the importance of the individual so the Enlightenment emphasized using reason to understand yourself don't just take what anybody tells you about yourself what do you think about yourself what do you think about yourself based on the world around you and the Great Awakening challenged church authority because it basically said that church authorities are not essential for you to understand God you can develop your own relationship with God you can read the Bible you can pray you can think about that without having somebody else do that for you and this would inspire colonists to question the British control of their lives these ideas challenging the authority of the English church challenging the authority of Parliament the king the English government these were ideas that would help lead to the American Revolution through pamphlets like common sense which we'll talk more about in just a second as well as the Declaration of Independence which made clear some of the ideas that would lead to the American Revolution so let's talk about common sense the pamphlet which was written by this guy Thomas Paine this is a portrait of him Thomas Paine was actually born in in Great Britain but made his way to the American colonies he was actually Scottish and he argued in this pamphlet which is a very short book he argued that the American colonies did not need Britain that they could form their own country and in fact would be better off on their own Britain according to Paine was abusing its power was abusing its control of the American colonies and was tyrannical there like a dictator very cruel dictator and oppressed the Americans and the colonies but America America separate from Great Britain could create a more equal society and economy than they ever could with Great Britain in charge so these were all ideas that challenged the authority the power of the British government on American society on the American colonies and on their economy now this was a very short pamphlet it was published in 1776 but it was very popular it was one of the best-selling books best-selling documents of all time and more importantly it was read by many members of the Second Continental Congress and these were the men who at the time were deciding whether or not to declare independence from Great Britain many of them read it and when they got together they ultimately decided to vote for independence and they came up with this document the Declaration of Independence there it is in fact it's right down the street from us at the archives if you ever catch the 70 or 79 to the end you can go and see the Declaration of Independence yourself the original handwritten version this is a typed version that came out later so Declaration of Independence was mainly written by this guy Thomas Jefferson who was also joined by folks like Benjamin Franklin as well as John Adams who would be the second president and other members of the Second World Congress so he actually wrote it Jefferson and his colleagues began writing in while the Second Continental Congress was still debating whether or not to separate from Britain so this was just written as a possibility in case the American colonies declared their independence and the reason was to explain why the colonies were declaring their independence they didn't just want to say we're done we're through they actually wanted to give a reason why they were declaring their independence from Great Britain and there it was based on many Enlightenment ideas like the ideas of John Locke who was an English philosopher John Locke had previously written that people have natural rights to life liberty and property and this directly influenced one line in the Declaration of Independence the Jefferson wrote where he changed Locke's original idea to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that's a phrase you may be familiar with that is an Enlightenment idea the Declaration of Independence also argued another Enlightenment idea that if government does not protect those rights those rights to life liberty the pursuit of happiness then the people that are being ruled by the government can overthrow that government and create a new one that does Jefferson also declared in the declaration that all men are created equal now this is a statement that has created a lot of controversy the way we interpret it now is very different than what Jefferson originally meant Jefferson originally meant that all free citizens are political equals that is most likely what he meant today we have a different interpretation of this and we'll talk about this in class about what this statement means to us in the present day the Declaration of Independence would go on to list all the wrongs that were committed by the English king and by Parliament towards America that violated violated their unalienable rights unalienable rights means rights that you are basically born with these are rights that you know you have that you know you have because you use reason nobody has to tell you you have these rights you know you have these rights and so the Declaration of Independence after all this is what basically is what created an independent United States of America our own country and we'll take a closer look at this document in class because this is when the United States really comes into existence all right thanks for watching the next presentation we'll take a look at the American Revolution and everything that went on while the Declaration of Independence was being written