Coming To The New World Essay, Research Paper

Coming to the New World was a major advancement in the lives of many Spanish, French, and English people between the years of 1942-1629. The migration effected the lives dramatically. They will come to see that in the coming years almost everything will change from religion to their types of settlement.

The role of religion was very important, for it had an immense power over the European society. Christianity converted all of Europe including the Spanish, French, and English. Christian doctrine provided a common understanding of God. The church provided authority and discipline in the society. Every village had a church, which thought that Satan constantly challenged God by tempting people into evil. Christianity had played an important role in Portugal and Spain, but it divided Europe into Catholics and Protestants. A protestant rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands drained the wealth of the Spanish and gave resources to expand into North America and brought a new impact of European and Indian people.

Over time, the Catholic Church had become very large and wealthy, controlling resources throughout Europe. In 1517, a German monk and professor, Martin Luther, sold indulgences. These were church certificates that pardoned a sinner from punishments in the afterlife. He was excommunicauhujuujjujjted by the pope and threatened with punishment by King Charles I of Spain. He was protected by a northern German princess and could not be arrested. After Luther, came a French theologian from Switzerland named John Calvin. He stressed omnipotence of God and the corruption of human nature. He preached the doctrine of predestination, the idea that God chose certain people for salvation even before they were born. He appeared to Christians and said to people that they needed a personal relationship with God. Calvin believed in a God that gave what he received and also that saintly people could change government. People started to believe on Prodesism and Calvinism; people believed in things that made sense to them. All these things together had an effect on the history of the United States, for these beliefs were brought over. Calvinists won over people all over Europe. The Huguenots in France adopted it, reformed churches in Holland and Belgium, and converted people in Scotland. Following Calvinism, Puritans banned several traditional religious rites, such as Holy Communion, focusing more on sermons and ethics. They also encouraged people to read the Bible, by this, promoting extensive literacy. Consequently, Puritan migrants carried these doctrines to America.

?Luther?s challenge to Catholicism came just two weeks before Cortes conquered the Aztec empire, and the two events remained linked (Brody, 24).? Spain became the wealthiest nation in Europe, for it had all the gold and silver from Mexico and Peru. It also made King Phillip II the most powerful ruler. Since religion played an important role, Phillip, and eager Catholic, tried to wipe out Protestantism in the Netherlands. In order to protect their Calvinist faith, the Dutch and Flemish revolted against Spain. Phillip planned to bring back Catholicism in England and then wipe out Calvinism in Holland, but he failed. He had spent so much of his American Gold on wars that by the time of his death, Spain was in serious economical turmoil. Meanwhile, English merchants promoted settlement in Virginia. fled first to the Dutch Republic, then to New England, and then to the West. Many people, English men and women, thought of the idea of migration to America to escape a new wave of religious conflict. King James I rejected more Puritan and Presbyterian reforms. ?James threatened to carry them out of the land. Radical Protestants took his word and Indies. The voyage was long but they remained driven by poverty and persecution and hope came along with the New World. The influence of religion in the conquest of the Americas played a very important role. The invasion of Europeans in the New World, religious conversion threatened Indian people with the loss of their land, lives, and age-old cultures and traditions. The Spanish forced the Indians to convert to Catholicism and to wok by digging for gold. When Columbus first arrived in the America, he brought along all his beliefs. ?They should be good servants and of quick intelligence?.and I believe that they would easily be made for Christians, for it appeared to me that they had no creed. At this time, Indians in the Americas suffered because they believed in different things. After the people invaded their world, they were forced to practice other religions rather that the ones they really believed in. They suffered a lot with the changing of religion because since the beginning of the Indian Empire they had always believed in Gods practicing a religion and sacrifices. There were several Indians that preferred to die rather than follow the European?s ideas of religion. The Spanish, French, and English caused the Indians to make dramatic changes in their religious beliefs. Indians got an unpleasant effect of the conquest and settlement of the Americas concerning the matter of religious beliefs.

The significance of religion in the conquest and settlement of the Americas was very meaningful. In the conquest of the New World, the significance of religion played an important role because people living in it had to change their ways of thinking and had to adapt to the European beliefs. Many changes in religion happened during the time of the Great Awakening. In 1720, Dutch reformed, Theodore Frelinghuysens? moved from church to church preaching emotional sermons to German settlers. In private prayer meetings he encouraged members to preach a message to growing congregations. Some time later, William and Gilbert Tenant copied Frelinghuysen?s teachings and led revivals among Scots-Irish migrants in the same area. George Whitfield, a young English evangelist, believed ?Salvation came through God.? By this time, religion offered a hope for the afterlife. Religion begins to help people with social and economical changes. Then comes a time when the Patriarchal Order was created. This meant that the father?s orders were destroyed. This was connedted to religion because people felt guilty about not listening to their fathers. Premarital sex grew and people began turning to religion. Their thought that by turning to it their sins would be forgiven. The significance of religion becomes more important because people begin to see it as a refugee. All these points are also important to the significance of religion in the New World. They are meaningful to the settlement of the Americas. It helps one understand how religion helped people with social and economical problems and changes.

There were many effects on religion happening as a result of the European conquest and settlement of the Americas. Some of these were good. Others were not as good.