hey there and welcome back to heimler's history now we've been going through unit two of the ap us history curriculum and in this video we come to the last topic colonial society and structure from 1607 to 1754. and yes i know it sounds bland but oh baby is there some tasty sauce in this one so let's get to it okay so in this video we need to try to figure out the answer to the following question how and why did the movement of ideas and people across the atlantic contribute to the development of an american culture and as is the polite thing to do in any social situation let's talk about religion first but let's back up and set the stage for a minute with the enlightenment now this was a movement in europe that emphasized the thinky thinky parts at the expense of the faithy faithy parts or to say in a way which i sound less like a kindergartner the enlightenment emphasized rational thinking over against tradition and religious revelation now this movement took firm root in the colonies because of a robust transatlantic print culture which spread the enlightenment thinkers ideas to british americans among the more popular of these thinky-thinky people was john locke whose two treatises on government awaken the colonists to the ideas of for example natural rights this was the idea that human beings simply by virtue of existing had rights to life and liberty and property that were given to them not by a monarch but by a creator also folks like rousseau and voltaire and emanuel kant taught the colonists to long for a government in three branches which could check and balance each other additionally they wrote about the notion of a social contract between the people and their government essentially the social contract just meant that the power to govern was in the hands of the people and that they willingly gave over some of that power to a government who would in turn vow to protect the people's natural rights and if that government turned out to be a turd then the people had every right to flush it on which more on the next unit now all these teachings were very good things in the eyes of the colonists and they reveled in them however as i mentioned along with all of this talk came additional teaching that undermined the authority of the bible enlightenment thinkers emphasize that what is knowable in this world comes to us through our senses and therefore scientific inquiry is where our authority lies the bible on the other hand claims that what is knowable starts with god and that our authority comes through revelation by god and so because of the strong influence of the enlightenment in the american colonies confidence in the authority of biblical revelation began to wane and that tension is going to set us up for a great religious revival known as the great awakening so a group of preachers were lamenting this loss of faith in the biblical revelation and they were known as new light clergy and not a few of these clergymen were inspired by german pietism which emphasized the heart over the head with reference to spiritual matter and so the great awakening became a massive religious revival that swept through all the colonies and generated an intense christian devotion and enthusiasm two men were luminaries in the spread of this revival and i need to introduce you to both of them and first is jonathan edwards now edwards was a new england minister and a scholar who was well studied in philosophy and natural sciences and he preached sermons that combined enlightenment ideas with intense religious fervor and under such preaching a revival broke out now if you've ever read any of edwards it's probably his famous sermon sinners in the hands of an angry god which is brilliant in its own way but if that's the only sermon you associate with edwards you won't have a real sense of who he is in fact he was more concerned with the joy of god and the derivative joy of other human beings than any other early preacher that i know of so edwards is the first preacher that you need to know and he lit the fire of the great awakening mainly by preaching from his home pulpit in northampton but now i need to introduce you to george whitfield now whitfield traveled to america from england where he'd been part of the methodist revival there and once he got to america he took the message of god's salvation by grace and jesus christ to all the colonies like he traveled up and down the eastern seaboard preaching in churches and in street corners and in fields all of this was highly unorthodox but people flocked to hear whitfield preach because he was such a magnificent preacher in fact and i love this i once read a report that whitfield was so powerful in his preaching that he could make you weep just by pronouncing the word mesopotamia i love it now as the great awakening spread it had social consequences as well the new light preachers tended to emphasize the democratic tendencies in the bible especially the new testament they made sure that the common people knew that the lack of wealth did not diminish god's favor upon them and additionally these preachers gave colonists biblical ballast to resist the tyranny of wealthy colonial officials and furthermore this environment led to the lasting changes in the colonist's attitude towards the colonial authority for example in light of the growing population and territory and the colonies the british parliament was having difficulty governing this increasingly complex situation so many colonies form self-governing structures like participatory town meetings that were tasked with electing members to their colonial legislature okay so now let's just take everything we've said put it in a pot and get our stew on enlightenment thinkers awakened american colonists to ideas about liberty and rights and democratic government then the great awakening created a nationwide movement that truly bound american society together and it taught them to resist threats to democracy and so although the colonies were experiencing a gradual anglicanization which is to say they were becoming more british-like for example in their political communities they also began to grow frustrated with the british as well and that led to resistance and we're going to talk a lot more about colonial resistance to britain in the next unit but for now let me just mention one resistance movement that provides an example of the growing mistrust on both sides of the atlantic and that was over the practice of impressment so impressment was the practice of seizing men usually against their will and forcing them to serve in the royal navy and so if you were a man and you lived in a colonial seaport city this was a very real possibility for you and while the british thought this was perfectly reasonable service for men to submit themselves to because after all these ships saying sell themselves the americans who found themselves impressed did not agree it was pretty common knowledge that life aboard these british naval ships was dangerous not only because they might engage in battle but disease and malnutrition caused many more deaths than battle and so in 1747 britain was fighting what was called king georgia's war which was part of the war of austrian succession in europe in order to fight this war george ordered a general impressment of men from america and at the news of said impressment americans rioted for three days in response the point i'm trying to illustrate is this that the colonists were becoming more and more aware of violations to their natural rights thanks john locke and they were increasingly rebelling against such violations and that is going to have some pretty significant consequences in the next time period which we shall begin in the next video alright well that's unit 2 topic 7 of apus history now click here if you want to grab a view packet which has more help in this unit including practice multiple choice questions a video reviewing the whole dang unit and study guides to go right along with it and if you liked this video well then why don't you go ahead and subscribe and join the family of beard enthusiasts here and i shall keep making videos to help you along an a-push all right i'm laureate