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American Passages: A Literary Survey
Utopian Promise – Timeline
This timeline places literary publications (in black) in their historical contexts (in red).
1620s
1618-48
Thirty Years Wars of religion across Europe
1620
Mayflower Compact
Plymouth Colony
[5214] Anonymous, IROQUOIS WAMPUM BELT courtesy of, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
1630s
1630
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
Massachusetts Bay Colony
1630-50
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (pub 1868)
1635-37
Antinomian Controversy
1637
Thomas Morton, New English Canaan
Pequot War
1640s
1642
Anne Bradstreet, poetry (1642-69)
English Civil War (1642-48)
1649
Revolution, Charles I executed (1649)
Cromwell’s Puritan Commonwealth (1649-61)
1650s
1650
The Tenth Muse
First Quakers to New England
[3297]Violet Oakley, GEORGE FOX ON THE MOUNT OF VISION – THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS (ca. 1911) courtesy of, Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee & Hunt Commercial Photography.
1657
Halfway Covenant on problem of unconverted youth (1657-62)
1659
Boston authorities hang four Quakers (1659-60)
1660s
1660
Charles II made king
1664
War with Duch; English annex New Netherland (New York)
1670s
1674
Edward Taylor poetry (1674-98)
[1219]Anonymous, THE MASON CHILDREN: DAVID, JOANNA, ABIGAIL (1670) courtesy of, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, 1979.7.3.
1675
King Philip’s War (1675)
1680s
1681
William Penn, “Letter to the Lenni Lenape [Delaware] Indians” (1681)
Pennyslvania founded (1681-82)
1682
Mary Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682)
1688
Glorious Revolution removes Catholic James II;
John Locke asserts principle of consent of governed (1688)
1689
War with France (1689-97)
1690s
1692
Salem witchcraft trials & executions (1692-93)
Judge Samuel Sewall openly prays for forgiveness for Salem trials
1693
Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693)
1700s
1700
Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph, first American anti-slavery tract (1700)
Eighteenth-century secularization of New England, growth of liberal philosophies, deism, scientific rationalism, imperial trade and mercantilism
1702
War with France (1702-13)
1704
Sarah Kemble Knight, Journal (written 1704-05, pub. 1825)
1720
Peak years of British slave trade, involving New England shipping, southern colonies, Caribbean (1720-80)
1730s
1735
Jonathan Edwards, revivalist writings (1735-40s)
“Great Awakening,” a revitalization of piety and enthusiastic religion that swept the British American colonies (1735-40s)
1740s
1744
War with France (1744-48)
1750s
1754
John Woolman, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1745 [pub. 1754])
Emergence of organized religious anti-slavery in England (1750s)
War with France (1754-63)
1760s
1763
French cede Canada and claims to Indian lands east of Mississippi River to British (1763)
1768
Samson Occom, Narrative (1768 [pub. 1982])
Briton Hammon, Narrative first ex-slave narrative
1770s
1774
John Woolman, “Journal” (1774)
1775
American Revolution (1775-83)
1776
Declaration of Independence (1776)
