«A train of disasters»: apocalypse, xenophobia, shame and false witness in New England crisis of 1680–90s

Abstract

In 1680–90s Puritan New England underwent political and cultural transformations that would eventually turn it from a Puritan «covenanted society», virtually independent of the mother country, into a much more open and secular royal province. The events that shaped the crisis and transformations alike were the establishment of a royal Dominion of New England in 1686 and its downfall in the bloodless Boston revolution of 1689, «King William’s War» with the French and their Algonquin allies and Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. The article touches upon some aspects of colonial culture crisis of the time, such as eschatology, religious intolerance, xenophobia, false witness and shame for the Puritan community, that manifested in the birth of the colonists’ new identity as members of a larger British Atlantic community. The sources are mostly socially significant texts (such as sermons or pamphlets), written by New England Puritan political and cultural elite of the period.

Keywords

• new england
• massachusetts
• connecticut
• new hampshire
• maine
• plymouth
• xenophobia