Summary of American Literature in Colonial Period

Dessy Peruanti

A 3200 900 33

HEAL Class A

Summary of American Literature in Colonial Period

          American literature in colonial period was occurred slowly than British. The revolution of American occurs between England and England’s colony in America. In colonial period, American country doesn’t United States of America. The England’s colonies are Connecticut, New York, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, etc. In 1607 is the first of settlement which can keep stay in Jamestown, Virginia. They are interesting to stay at Jamestown, because they challenge with the wealth and experience.

            In 1620, the British who called Pilgrims Fathers (the people who contra with Church’s view) stays at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They are interested to make society be nice than finding gold. Over the next century, Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay Colony were joined by other colonies, including Pennsylvania, settled largely by Quakers fleeing persecution in England; Connecticut, established by a man fleeing persecution by the Puritans in Massachusetts; Maryland, which the English king granted to an English Catholic named Lord Baltimore; and Georgia, which had been established for English debtors.

  * The picture of Mayflower’s ship which carry Pilgrims Fathers to America.

            By the 1760s, England and its 13 American colonies were quarreling over settlement, government, and taxes, especially those imposed by the Stamp Act of 1765. Finally, in 1775, skirmishes broke out in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. In 1776, Thomas Paine rallied colonists with a pamphlet called Common Sense, and Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Over the next five years, General George Washington led the Americans against the British. In 1781, a surrender of some 8,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia--coupled with growing resentment against the war in England--led the British to give up the colonies. England officially recognized American independence in the Treaty of Paris, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin and others in 1783.

“From the establishment of Jamestown to the Treaty of Paris and to some extent even afterward, American culture strongly resembled British culture. As literary critic David Shields has noted, American taste in both commercial goods such as wigs and snuffboxes and in literature closely paralleled British taste. It would be a mistake, however, to think of America as merely a transplanted England.”

All of the colonists had to settle for far fewer high-brow cultural diversions than their counterparts in London, Paris, or Vienna. Plays, concerts, and museums were all rare in the colonies, even in the major cities--Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston. Still, Americans found entertainment in folk music, conversation, a handful of books, and newspapers. By 1750, every major city had a newspaper, and by the first half of the 18th century some colonists could even borrow books from America's first subscription library, established by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

*The image of Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin is the famous promoter of literature in Colonial Period. 

He is also the one of leader American Revolution. He is a multitalented man. His jobs are journalist, publisher, author, etc. He starts 12^th years old in journalist’s world. He as a volunteer in his brother’s publishing house. His written about developing for colonial are widespread.