cupotea
Puritan Board Junior
The English Puritans, the Dutch West India Co. and the New World
I am posting this here although it could just as easily go into "Library"...if the leadership thinks that's a better place for it, by all means, I'd be happy for it's removal there.
I am currently reading, or, rather, listening to an audio version of the book "œThe Island at the Center of the World" by Russell Shorto. This is a narrative consolidation of the work of scholar Charles Gehring, busy lo these many years translating over 12,000 pages of legal documents recently discovered and which had lay hidden in the state library of New York in Albany for, literally, centuries until discovered in the 1970´s.
These documents are from the original Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and give valuable and fascinating insight into a period of American history relatively unknown to most.
Shorto talks about the globally burgeoning Dutch mercantile empire, its on again, off again wars with Britain, France and Spain especially as it relates to the essentially economic and business character of the New Netherlands settlement.
On several occasions, he contrasts the character of the Dutch settlement with that of the puritans and pilgrims further north up the coast in New England. Despite some really trite and simplistic dismissals of Puritanism generally and of the "œtheocratic experiment" of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he continually belabors the point that, compared to the stuffiness of English Puritanism, the Dutch were enlightened, liberal, clean and tolerant. The New Amsterdam settlement is rejoiced in as an assemblage of taverns and brothels and warehouses where the residents were not so much colonists as employees, and later after the VOC gave up their monopoly, venture capitalists.
He mentions that both the English up the coast and the Dutch government, both in Holland and in the new world were ardently Calvinist.
Which brings me to the question, which has been rolling around in my head since I started "˜reading´ this book:
Why is Puritanism a distinctly English and later American movement? Why didn´t the Dutch (or the Palatine Germans for that matter, or the Swiss) ever evince the puritan spirit?
I realize that I am attempting to deal in some pretty ambiguous terms. "œPuritan" doesn´t mean the same thing to everyone even though it may probably be safely assumed that everyone on this board at least has a fairly consistent and concurrent understanding of it. But even so, it may take some wrangling for some of us to work out what "œthe spirit of Puritanism" is. For too many the expression would refer to dourness, strict conservatism and, to paraphrase Mencken, a devout interest in making sure that no one ever has any fun. I don´t think anyone here would fall prey to that particular caricature but still, it would probably be good to get a working definition of it and expressions like it.
I mean I know what it means, or I know what I mean when I say it and I don´t think it´s too far off what most here would think about it, to whit, it is characterized by a desire to purify, the church especially, but society generally, of those sins and errors which cause it to fall so far short of the godly ideal.
However you define it, the Dutch didn´t have it. Despite efforts of the States general to legislate certain behaviors in their domains they never really seem to have shown the same zeal the puritans did.
It may have something to do with the essentially plural character of the Netherlands at the time. Despite a Reformed majority, there were still sizeable areas, which still adhered to Romanism (The Brabant, for example). This, and other factors (the early enlightenment hit them hard especially at Leyden, they were essentially a people and nation built on warehousing and trade [Holland boasts few natural resources], etc.) may have led them to a more "œtolerant" view not only of non-Reformed religions but also of behaviors that their English Calvinist counterparts would have found odious.
It is known for example that one thing which really galvanized Bradford and his people to sail for the new world after having settled at Leyden was a fear that too close commerce with these cosmopolitan people would rub off on them and soil them in some way. And indeed, when Bradford finally left, he did so with only a majority of those he had originally gone there with.
Thanks for letting me meander"¦the question is simple but I´ll reiterate: Why was Puritanism a solely English phenomenon? Or, more correctly, why didn´t the Dutch, every bit as ardently Calvinist as the English, develop a similar "˜movement´ to any great degree?
Discuss please!
I am posting this here although it could just as easily go into "Library"...if the leadership thinks that's a better place for it, by all means, I'd be happy for it's removal there.
I am currently reading, or, rather, listening to an audio version of the book "œThe Island at the Center of the World" by Russell Shorto. This is a narrative consolidation of the work of scholar Charles Gehring, busy lo these many years translating over 12,000 pages of legal documents recently discovered and which had lay hidden in the state library of New York in Albany for, literally, centuries until discovered in the 1970´s.
These documents are from the original Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam and give valuable and fascinating insight into a period of American history relatively unknown to most.
Shorto talks about the globally burgeoning Dutch mercantile empire, its on again, off again wars with Britain, France and Spain especially as it relates to the essentially economic and business character of the New Netherlands settlement.
On several occasions, he contrasts the character of the Dutch settlement with that of the puritans and pilgrims further north up the coast in New England. Despite some really trite and simplistic dismissals of Puritanism generally and of the "œtheocratic experiment" of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he continually belabors the point that, compared to the stuffiness of English Puritanism, the Dutch were enlightened, liberal, clean and tolerant. The New Amsterdam settlement is rejoiced in as an assemblage of taverns and brothels and warehouses where the residents were not so much colonists as employees, and later after the VOC gave up their monopoly, venture capitalists.
He mentions that both the English up the coast and the Dutch government, both in Holland and in the new world were ardently Calvinist.
Which brings me to the question, which has been rolling around in my head since I started "˜reading´ this book:
Why is Puritanism a distinctly English and later American movement? Why didn´t the Dutch (or the Palatine Germans for that matter, or the Swiss) ever evince the puritan spirit?
I realize that I am attempting to deal in some pretty ambiguous terms. "œPuritan" doesn´t mean the same thing to everyone even though it may probably be safely assumed that everyone on this board at least has a fairly consistent and concurrent understanding of it. But even so, it may take some wrangling for some of us to work out what "œthe spirit of Puritanism" is. For too many the expression would refer to dourness, strict conservatism and, to paraphrase Mencken, a devout interest in making sure that no one ever has any fun. I don´t think anyone here would fall prey to that particular caricature but still, it would probably be good to get a working definition of it and expressions like it.
I mean I know what it means, or I know what I mean when I say it and I don´t think it´s too far off what most here would think about it, to whit, it is characterized by a desire to purify, the church especially, but society generally, of those sins and errors which cause it to fall so far short of the godly ideal.
However you define it, the Dutch didn´t have it. Despite efforts of the States general to legislate certain behaviors in their domains they never really seem to have shown the same zeal the puritans did.
It may have something to do with the essentially plural character of the Netherlands at the time. Despite a Reformed majority, there were still sizeable areas, which still adhered to Romanism (The Brabant, for example). This, and other factors (the early enlightenment hit them hard especially at Leyden, they were essentially a people and nation built on warehousing and trade [Holland boasts few natural resources], etc.) may have led them to a more "œtolerant" view not only of non-Reformed religions but also of behaviors that their English Calvinist counterparts would have found odious.
It is known for example that one thing which really galvanized Bradford and his people to sail for the new world after having settled at Leyden was a fear that too close commerce with these cosmopolitan people would rub off on them and soil them in some way. And indeed, when Bradford finally left, he did so with only a majority of those he had originally gone there with.
Thanks for letting me meander"¦the question is simple but I´ll reiterate: Why was Puritanism a solely English phenomenon? Or, more correctly, why didn´t the Dutch, every bit as ardently Calvinist as the English, develop a similar "˜movement´ to any great degree?
Discuss please!