History And Anthology  Of American Literature
Part I    The Literature of Colonial America
Historical Introduction
The First American Writings & Writers
Puritan Thoughts
Historical Introduction
●1. The discovery of the American continent by Christopher Columbus  in 1492
Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America
2. English and European explorers
The earliest settlers included Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese, each group settling in different parts of the continent and they all contributed to
the forming of the American civilization, but the colonies that became the first United States were for the most part English sustained by English traditions, ruled by English laws, supported by English commerce, and named after English monarchs and English lands.
3. English and European settlements
The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. At last early in the 17th century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American history.
Two Important New England Settlements→ Map The Plymouth Colony
Flagship Mayflower arrives – 1620 Leader - William Bradford Settlers known as Pilgrims 朝圣者,朝觐者,清教徒前辈移民 and Separatists 主张脱离英国国教者  provides for social, religious, and economic freedom, while still maintaining ties to Great Britain.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony Flagship Arbella arrives – 1630 Leader - John Winthro
p Settlers are mostly Puritans or Congregational 公理会教派的 Puritans  clearly establishes a religious and theocratic 神权政治的 settlement, free of ties to Great Britain.
4. The first American writings
●The first writings that we call American were the narratives and journals of these settlements. They wrote in diaries and in journals. They wrote letters and contracts and government charters and religious and political statements. They wrote about their voyage to the new land, about adapting themselves to the unfamiliar climates and crops, about dealing with Indians. All seemed possible to them in the new world through hard work and faith.
1 Captain John Smith
●His reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, were the first distinctly American literature to be written in English. Smith’s descriptions of America were filled with themes, myths, images, scenes, characters, and events that were a foundation for the nation’s literature. He portrayed English North America as a land of endless bounty.
His vision helped lure the Pilgrims and the Puritans who saw themselves as new saints with a spiritual mission to flee the Old World and create a New Israel Jerusalem---Heaven on earth, a New Promised Land, in the America that John Smith had described.
2 The writers of the Southern and Middle Colonies
●The writers of the Southern and Middle Colonies who followed John Smith made their greatest contribution to American literature in the 18th century, in the Age of Reason and Revolution.
●William Byrd II  Thomas Jefferson
Until that time, literature developed slowly, especially in the South. Farms widely dispersed. Towns were few. Illiteracy was high. And there was little of the religious ferment and zeal that inspired such a tide of literature to flow from Puritan New England.
thriftThe First American Writer
●Captain John Smith 1580-1631 was the first American writer and he published eight in all.
●1 A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in Virginia Since the First Planting of That Colony 1608, defending the handling of the settlement and proclaiming the merits of the new land
●2 A Map of Virginia: with a Description of the Country 1612, a guide to the country and an invitation to the bold sprits needed to enlarge and strengthen the English plantations in the new land
●3 General History of Virginia 1624, containing his most famous tale of how the Indian princess Pocahontas saved him from the wrath of her father Powhatan
●Captain John Smith contributed more to the survival of the Jamestown colony than did anyone else. And he saw from the beginning what was eventually to be a basic principle of American history, the need of “workers” instead of “gentlemen” for the tough job of planting colonies and pushing the frontiers westward.

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