Colonial Development the Progression of Essay

However, at the same time the onset of what many scholars regard as the first truly national event within the history of the fledgling United States of America took place throughout the 1740's, and indicated that the traditional religious beliefs that mandated a strict following of God would not so easily be overturned. The Great Awakening largely begin when George Whitefield, an Oxford-trained Anglican minster who came to Georgia in 1738, began touring through the lands pronouncing that people had limited time to repent before they were consumed by the fires of hell. This perspective certainly adhered to that which was shared by many of the pilgrims and puritans who initially began the colonies in the 17th century. Jonathan Edwards was another influential factor in this movement, and delivered a number of influential sermons during the early years of the 1740s in which he claimed damnation awaited anyone who would not readily repent before God.

The crux of this situation, and its relation to the freedom of thought in both religious and political situations, was that the Great Awakening very well may be considered a response to the Enlightenment. However, the result of the Great Awakening, particularly in light of the current thoughts and sentiments disseminated by Enlightenment thinkers, is that there was a substantial increase in religious toleration. People did not have to go found other colonies -- and states -- if they did not conform to the rhetoric of the Great Awakening, the way they had to during the 17th century if their religious views were different than those that governed the colony they were in. Instead, there was an increased separation of the realms of church and state as had never before been present in the colonies.

This separation, or the independence of the old, traditional ways of thinking, would soon slip out of religion and intellectual affairs and eventually find its way into politics, as the principles of the Enlightenment would eventually influence the founding fathers to separate the colonies from British rule. Therefore, an increase in political liberty can be attributed to the maturation of the early part of the 18th century. In terms of economic liberty, of course, the colonies still depended upon the triangle trade as a major source of revenue and as a means of subsistence. British principles of mercantilism still governed the colonies in the 18th century as they had during the 17th century, although with more and improved methods of production (illustrated in New England with its prowess in the shipping industry and demonstrated in the South with increased slave labor) the economic support structure of the colonies gradually improved as…