Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1325 The first version of the broken mountain

The church-state system in Massachusetts has declined, despite previous major protests against paying church taxes.But Massachusetts remains the most bewildered state when it comes to religion.

As the head of the Masonic Lodge in Massachusetts, Joseph Warren is even more superior on religious issues. He really cannot tolerate people, even non-Puritans, who want to lead the future of mankind.

From the very beginning, many people made it clear: [New England was a religious colony from the beginning, not an economic colony, and a city on a hill was to be established in New England.Merchants should remember this, that the aims and designs of New England have always been religious, not worldly gains].

Calvinist Puritans were originally a group of fundamentalist fanatics.It is said that Catholicism likes to burn people, but in fact, Calvin, the Protestant pope, is much more ruthless than Catholicism when he burns people.

The Salem Witch Trials on this side of Massachusetts - from a class perspective, with too many groups of small producers, homesteaders, hatred of merchants, rich merchants, etc., and opportunistic revenge of family hatred, it was just Under the guise of religion.

And a series of actions such as the massacre of the Quakers and the ban on the settlement of non-congregational members, etc., made this religious obsession firmly inherit the fine tradition of Calvinism's burning people.

It is impossible to avoid "money" when talking about politics, power, and governance.

In the early days, the Congregational Society relied on oligarchy: non-Congregationalist members were not allowed to participate in politics; Congregationalist members also needed to enter the state assembly according to their wealth and social status.

Money, the Puritans don't have tithes anymore.

But the fuck needs to pay [-]% of the income to support the Congregational priests, but it’s not called a tithe; There is no difference between believers, it is called paying pagan tax.

Including John Adams; Samuel Adams, the two fathers of independence, could not join the Freemasons in Massachusetts.

Because they are not Congregationalists, but Unitarians—the trinity of hanging hair does not exist at all, and Jesus is just a prophet.People's conscience and reason judge good and evil, and doing good is only because they have reason.They are heretics.

Of course, the Axiom Society is finished now.It's not because people's hearts are not old, or the world is getting worse.

There are two main reasons.

One: After the witch trials, tax resistance broke out. The resistance here is not the British tax, but the Congregational Church, that is, the tithe, which is not called the tithe, which is stipulated by the small circle of the state government to support priests.Other sects also rose up and refused to pay the small tax.

Without money, there is no power.

The second reason is that the economic base has changed.

The first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, who wanted to build a city on a hill, had a clear idea of ​​what kind of society the Puritans wanted to build.

One: Hierarchy.

[Society naturally has various levels, and there are rich and poor at any time... The poor need to be educated by the rich, just like children need their parents].

Two: Rely on inferior love and use benevolence as the lubricant of society.

[We must not only consider our own interests, but also the affairs of other brothers (the old and the old and the old, the young and the young, and the young). The society must have order, harmony, and fraternity]

Three: Need a special taxi class.

[The rights of the "visible saint" as the protector of the church.No "worldly person" can enjoy it. 】

Four: The authority of the ruling oligarchy cannot be questioned.

[The people are required to guarantee obedience to authority.The function of the town meeting is to ensure that the agreements arranged in advance by the "visible saints" are reached.Minor revisions are possible, but not discussed. 】

This set of things, coupled with the small circle of farmers, churches, oligarchs, and Congregationalists... coupled with witch trials, heresy trials, and paying 10 shillings tax can be regarded as "worldly people"...

In the era of farming, it’s okay to play.

However, with the rise of the brewing trade, the powerful businessmen, the prosperity of the fur trade, the development of the large-scale blast furnace iron industry, the development of the shoe and hat industry, the economic dominance of trade with West Africa, West India, and Southern Europe, etc...

The economic fundamentals have changed, and it's hell if this game can continue to play.

As the saying goes, take history as a mirror.If you read the history of the repression of Neo Confucianism in the early period, the thawing of thought and resistance in the middle period, and the revival of morality in the late period, it is easy to guess what will happen next after the rebellion against the Congregational Society after the Witch Trials.

Obviously, the next step is the revival of religion and the return of moralism.

People who believe in religion do not have multiple heads, and the same thing is also staged in North America.After the witch trials, the thaw of thought and the emergence of new trends of thought eventually led to the religious revival and moral restoration movement that began in the 1730s.

The Axiom Society began to counterattack in an all-round way, repression, repentance, hell threats, self-cultivation farmers' dissatisfaction with the merchant class after the thawing of ideas, and dissatisfaction with the decline of morality... Those old religious things in the past have taken the opportunity to come back .

This movement to "reshape belief in God, reshape the ethos of hard work and get rich destroyed by businessmen and heretics, and reshape morality" is called "the first great awakening."

The first great awakening began in the 30s. The symbolic event was that a large number of priests came to North America from Europe to purify the morally corrupt North America that could not be built into a city on a hill.

It has continued until now.

Both Joseph Warren and John Hancock grew up in this environment.

In such a strong religious atmosphere, some things, maybe even just some common things, will cause great controversy.

For example, Hancock recounted that people in Dashun were worried about the fantasy of a group of self-cultivating farmers who owned private land and allowed free trading of land, and the power of merchants would not be suppressed.

All in all, the population is constantly increasing. If you can't break through yourself and break out of your cocoon to become a butterfly, something will happen sooner or later.

This kind of thing is not uncommon in North America.

Before, when the Axiom Society of Consulting took control of New England, it issued very strict exclusion orders.

Heretics, heretics, and here even other sects belonging to Protestantism but differing in some ideas, if they come to New England, they will be whipped for the first time and hanged for the second time.

For this reason, some pastors, missionaries, and local farmers were tortured and killed.

This very strict population control is also a kind of population control.

However, this control is carried out for purely religious purposes.

Rather than a rational, or a certain conclusion drawn from historical experience, and controlled by this conclusion.

Although, in practice the effect is the same.

Through taxation on outsiders, strict religious control, etc., the population growth rate in Massachusetts is relatively slow.

This unhappiness is relative.

The good climate, the development that has been tossing for more than a hundred years, the use of iron cattle farming technology, the extensive planting of high-yielding crops in the Americas, especially corn, and the continuous sugar calories in the nearby West Indies, all of these have made the natural population growth rate here very high.

Excluding the early period when they didn't know how to farm at all and were helped by Indians.

Throughout the 18th century, the New England region of North America was one of the few places in the world where "women were born without menstrual effects due to malnutrition".In addition, no matter in Europe or Asia, wars, famines, floods, droughts, etc. have occurred every now and then, and women have suffered from malnutrition, menopause and infertility.

Even though heresy and heresy are strictly controlled, and various restrictions are added, the population here is still growing.

And the population growth...

In fact, after the witch trials, the first attempt at a "city on a hill" had already failed.

The Salem witch trials were not just a simple religious issue.

Ma En commented on Muslim religion, saying that every few hundred years, because of the gap between the rich and the poor, the people at the bottom will re-interpret the scriptures and reshuffle the cards in the name of "corruption from above".Purity—corruption—no matter how pure it is, the corruption here is a special word in the teachings of the Green Church, not the corruption in Chinese semantics.

Indeed, religion is bewildering and mindless.

But besides being dazed and brainless, there are also deep-seated economic factors.

Puritanism and Calvinism came into being under the rule of the feudal aristocracy, and it was more in line with the interests of the emerging self-cultivators and small producers.

They encouraged work, thrift, and getting rich.

But the premise is that you need to pass your own labor.

That is to say, in terms of ideology and ownership, they tend to "laborers own their own means of production and get rich through labor".

A usury, isn't he?

Traders, especially traders who speculate, buy low and sell high, don't you?
Land speculation, eh?

Open a plantation, or directly have the money to buy a bunch of indentured slaves to develop the farm, right?
The Puritans did promote the development of capitalism in Europe, because what is the situation in Europe?What ownership?What noble serfs?Puritanism, representing owner farmers, petty bourgeoisie, and petty bourgeoisie, is naturally progressive.

But in Massachusetts, especially under the previous church-state system, progressive or reactionary?What was the attitude of the Puritans towards usurers, merchants, speculators, and land buyers?

What does the city on a hill that John Winthrop wants to build look like?In other words, what kind of ownership system and what kind of class are the main factors, and the city on the top of the hill is conceived?
What economic fundamentals changed in New England before the Salem Witch Trials?

On the one hand, the population began to increase and the land began to be scarce.

Conflicts between the newcomers and those who came after gradually arose.

The traditional feudal inheritance system, a patriarchal system in which one son inherits the family business and the rest finds food for themselves, creates conflicts between newborns and newcomers, whether they are newborns or newcomers from outside, and the old people before.

Originally, there were no landlords here.

When there are many people, the one who comes first becomes the landlord.

There is another very embarrassing question.

That is, the first batch of people who came here really felt the religious persecution in Europe.They could really die in Europe.

And the offspring, the new generation, have passed the most difficult start-up period, and they simply cannot empathize with the suffering and persecution felt by the first generation.

At the same time, if there are more people, the city will be scored.

The separated towns are getting farther and farther away, and the control ability of the church is getting worse and worse. The younger generation is no longer so concerned about religion. Instead, they think that the axiom will ask us to collect taxes?It is impossible for me to go to the churches and roads they built in those old cities, so why should we pay for them?
Moreover, the property inheritance system, patriarchal clan system, inheritance law, and the fact that the good land was almost gone, and the bad land was distributed later, all made people give up their pursuit of "the first version of the city on the top of the hill". .

On the other hand, it is still a contradiction between small producers, petty bourgeois and capitalism.

Well, everyone has their own private means of production, such as land, or I am a shoemaker's shoe repair tools.

We are all chosen by God.

Get rich by working hard. If I work hard, my corn will have a higher yield than yours. If I work hard, no grass will grow in my field. If I work well, people will come to my shoe shop.

Let's build a place where everyone has their own private means of production and land, and everyone gets rich through labor and devotion to God.

But the result?

Bankers, merchants, buy low sell high, lenders...

They weren't even Congregational Puritans, a bunch of Unitarians or Quakers or some other weird faith.

They are morally corrupt.

They are about the same as vampires.

They did not get rich by labor at all.

However, did God punish them?

On the contrary, what I saw was that they made a fortune one by one, occupied land, speculated on land, bought and sold land, lent money, collected money, sold goods, lowered food prices, used indentured slaves and slaves to run large farms, and congregationalists Marriage of the upper class...

Originally, everyone was farming, owner farmers, and brothers of small producers.Help each other, support each other with fraternity, work hard to survive, and get rich through labor.

Now the rich and the poor appear, and they are getting bigger and bigger.

The kind of private ownership that deprives others of the fruits of labor has begun to continuously attack their original private ownership of labor and means of production. This is really a kind of disillusionment in faith.

Puritanism, as the fundamental religion of Jesus, they are full of discrimination and dissatisfaction with moneylenders, businessmen, etc.

Their class base is owner farmers and small producers.

The Salem Witch Trials, which started with poor women who ate ergot-laced rye, were just a spark.It soon developed into a mass orgy of discontent and confiscation of the merchants, wealthy, and moneylenders.

After the Salem Witch Trials finally ended the long witch hunt, the first edition of "City on a Hill" was officially declared shattered.

Now, a group of outsiders, pagans, and even atheists are telling them that the first version of the city on the hill cannot be built.And if you don't break the cocoon, you will definitely go to the reincarnation of uprising in the future; and don't talk about religion, just talk about reason and experience that the increase in population will definitely cause accidents, which has nothing to do with religious belief...

(End of this chapter)