The First Prejudice : : Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America / / ed. by Chris Beneke, Christopher S. Grenda.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn Press eBook Package American History
• MitwirkendeR: Beneke, Chris,; Corrigan, John,; Goodfriend, Joyce D.,; Grasso, Christopher,; Grenda, Christopher S.,; Juster, Susan,; Landsman, Ned,; Murphy, Andrew R.,; Pencak, William,; Pointer, Richard W.,; Sensbach, Jon,; Stanwood, Owen,
• HerausgeberIn: Beneke, Chris,; Grenda, Christopher S.,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Early American Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (408 p.)

In many ways, religion was the United States' first prejudice-both an early source of bigotry and the object of the first sustained efforts to limit its effects. Spanning more than two centuries across colonial British America and the United States, The First Prejudice offers a groundbreaking exploration of the early history of persecution and toleration. The twelve essays in this volume were composed by leading historians with an eye to the larger significance of religious tolerance and intolerance. Individual chapters examine the prosecution of religious crimes, the biblical sources of tolerance and intolerance, the British imperial context of toleration, the bounds of Native American spiritual independence, the nuances of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, the resilience of African American faiths, and the challenges confronted by skeptics and freethinkers.The First Prejudice presents a revealing portrait of the rhetoric, regulations, and customs that shaped the relationships between people of different faiths in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. It relates changes in law and language to the lived experience of religious conflict and religious cooperation, highlighting the crucial ways in which they molded U.S. culture and politics. By incorporating a broad range of groups and religious differences in its accounts of tolerance and intolerance, The First Prejudice opens a significant new vista on the understanding of America's long experience with diversity.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- PART I. Ideologies of Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America -- Chapter 1. Faith, Reason, and Enlightenment. The Cultural Sources of Toleration in Early America -- Chapter 2. Amalek and the Rhetoric of Extermination -- PART II. Practices of Tolerance and Intolerance in Colonial British America -- Chapter 3. The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America -- Chapter 4. Practicing Toleration in Dutch New Netherland -- Chapter 5. Heretics, Blasphemers, and Sabbath Breakers -- Chapter 6. Persecuting Quakers? -- PART III. The Boundaries of Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America -- Chapter 7. Native Freedom? -- Chapter 8. Slaves to Intolerance -- Chapter 9. Catholics, Protestants, and the Clash of Civilizations in Early America -- Chapter 10. Anti-Semitism, Toleration, and Appreciation -- PART IV. The Persistence of Tolerance and Intolerance in the New Nation -- Chapter 11. The ''Catholic Spirit Prevailing in Our Country'' -- Chapter 12. The Boundaries of Toleration and Tolerance -- Notes -- Index