Author Nancy Schultz, author of Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834, describes the burning down of a Roman Catholic convent and elite boarding school in 19th-century Boston; and discusses its causes.
John Turner, a manager of program development at Colonial Williamsburg, talks about the place of religion in colonial society, looking at the Great Awakening, African American participation in religious institutions, and the different denominations represented in Williamsburg.
Patrick Henry, as portrayed by Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Richard Schumann, defends the bill on religion he introduced to the Virginia General Assembly.
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, examines several years of Abraham Lincoln's life, including his election to the U.S. Congress in 1846; his opposition to the Mexican-American War, articulated in his "Spot" Resolutions; and his support of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia and opposition to allowing slavery to spread into the territories. The lecture also examines Lincoln's views on religion and discusses religious and cultural tensions and trends during these years, including the Second Great Awakening, the Mormon War, and anti-immigrant and -Catholic sentiments. This lecture continues from the lecture "Lincoln's Biography, Part Three: Springfield, the Law, and the Whig Party, 1837-1843."
To view this documentary, scroll to "Multimedia Slideshow," and select "Congress and the Mexican War, 1844-1849."
This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, traces the development of religious institutions and trends in antebellum Illinois, beginning with the early days of Western exploration of North America and continuing to the mid-1800s. It focuses particularly on the importation of New England Protestant social reform ideals and the migration of Mormons to Illinois—a migration which led to the rise of the city of Nauvoo and, eventually, to the Mormon War.
Kathryn Kish Sklar of SUNY-Binghamton describes women's rise in political and social power and activism in response to encouragement by antebellum churches. Sklar looks particularly at women's actions in forming anti-slavery societies and circulating petitions.
To view this clip, select "Women Churches and the Development of Antebellum Social Reform Movement" under "Religion and Culture Video."
John Mack Faragher of Yale University discusses the significance of religion to antebellum settlers in Illinois. He looks at the diversity of sects represented and the importance of religion in community-forming.
To view this clip, select "Religion on the Illinois Frontier" under "Religion and Culture Video."
Built between 1821 and 1841, the three mission houses that make up the Museum served as homes and workplaces for the first Christian missionaries to travel to the Hawaiian Islands. The Frame House (Ka Hale La'āu), was shipped around Cape Horn from Boston in 1820 and is the oldest wood house in Hawai'i. The Chamberlain House (Ka Hale Kamalani), built of coral blocks in 1831, was both a family home and storehouse for mission supplies. The third building, also of coral blocks, completed in 1841, today functions as the Printing Office (Ka Hale Pa'i). A working replica of the first printing press to be brought to Hawai'i is demonstrated there on a regular basis. In addition, the Museum grounds are the location of the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society (HMCS) library. Among the library's artifacts are the earliest books printed in the Hawaiian language. These books were used by missionaries and scholars alike in church and school.
The museum offers exhibits, tours, demonstrations, workshops, lectures, and other educational and recreational programs.
I'll set the scene. It's 1901, and a French Protestant (Huguenot) is immigrating to Louisiana. Are there any special circumstances in this situation? For example, I read somewhere that at one time, only French Catholics could immigrate to Louisiana. Any information would be helpful.
Is this scene set in the Twilight Zone? According to historian Jon Butler, Huguenots died out as a distinct religious and ethnic group during the 18th century.
In the five years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, the Huguenot population in France declined from 1 million to less than 75,000, most of whom converted to Catholicism under duress. Huguenot emigrants traveled primarily to England, Germany, and Holland. Most of the Huguenots who arrived in British North America had emigrated first to England. Butler estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 Huguenots came to America by 1700.
The American Huguenots, like the Huguenot emigrants to European nations, quickly assimilated into their host communities. In Massachusetts, South Carolina, and New York, the colonies to which the majority of Huguenots migrated, many attained material success and married outside of their church. Butler blames the disintegration of Huguenot communities in part to “the indelible pathology of 17th-century French Protestantism,” as Huguenot clerics “were poorly prepared to exercise the instruments of church government in exile.” The French Protestant Church in the quarter century prior to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had existed in a weakened state due to the abandonment of national synods, which had left the group without “experience in making decisions beyond the local and provincial level.” Butler also notes that group cohesion in America was especially difficult because the size of the group that migrated was very small.
Sources from the 19th century repeat a story that Huguenots from South Carolina prepared a petition for Louis XIV asking permission to settle in Louisiana when it first was colonized at the end of the 17th century. Louis’ supposed response—that he wanted Louisiana as “a dominion of true believers not a republic for heretics”—is considered by historian Bertrand Van Ruymbeke as “most likely apocryphal.” Van Ruymbeke notes that Huguenots were allowed to migrate to Louisiana, but that the very few who did settle there had to convert to Catholicism.
Following the acquisition of the territory by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase, religious restrictions for immigrants to Louisiana were removed, and the first Protestant church in New Orleans was established in 1805. If a Protestant from France had immigrated to Louisiana in 1901, he or she would have found that large communities of Protestants from areas other than France had settled in the northern portion of the state, and that most of Louisiana’s inhabitants had remained Catholic.
Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 199, 213.
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, “‘A Dominion of True Believers Not a Republic for Heretics’: French Colonial Religious Policy and the Settlement of Early Louisiana, 1699-1730,” in Bradley G. Bond, ed., French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 83, 87.
Charles Edwards O’Neill, Church and State in French Colonial Louisiana: Policy and Politics to 1732 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 256-82.
Images:
"Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral taken from a Pontalba Building balcony," early 20th century, Charles L. Thompson Collection, Louisiana State University Library.
Cover of The Picayune's Little Guide to New Orleans 1902, Anthony J. Stanonis Pamphlet Collection, Loyola University of New Orleans.
This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces the Second Great Awakening. In the first half of the 19th century, the U.S. underwent a wave of religious revivals, the largest outpouring of religious sentiment since the American Revolution.
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