Writing a New Land

In England during the 1600's there was an uproar in conflict about religion. King Henry changed the standard religion to the Church of England so he could divorce his wife that could not birth him a son. Due to this switch in religion the more "pure" or conservative religious groups were persecuted for holding on to there more old school beliefs. So these persecuted people came to America to start a new life where they would be free to believe what they sought true, they were called the Puritans and The Pilgrims.

One of the first things written in colonies was a piece by John Smith called "The New Land" its purpose was to lure colonist to America to start a new life. That writings that followed this pretty much had the same purpose in mind; the writing had a point or an idea to it not just for entertainment value but had a plausible purpose that could be related to life.

During these early times Religion was the main aspect of Puritans life so books like "The Day of Doom" by preacher Michael Wigglesworth and "The Bay Psalm Book" came out. Another religions based writing was the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards. They believed that teaching children to read and write would keep the devil away so the textbook the "New England Primer" was written.

Other writings that came out during this time were anti slavery tract reads like "The Selling of Joseph" by Judge Samuel Sewall. Also there were documentations like "The Trial of Martha Carrier" by Cotton Mather that was written during the Salem witch trials. "The Daybreaking If Not the Sunrising of the Gospel with the Indians of New England" written by John Eliot this was another important literature written during this time it was a book that they wrote in on there missions to convert the Indians. A lot of other texts during this period were diaries or journals.

The simplicity of these literature writings continued to stay this way up until about the start of The American Revolution. Then a lot of pro-revolution writings came out to inspire Americans to join the force against the King of England. An example is "The Declaration of Independence" it pretty much said how we would be stand to be Americans and not be governed by the British.