Trauma and Radical Protestant Identity in Early New England

When buffeted by inflation, drought, legal conflict, or other forms of trauma, religious minorities in early New England relied on unpredictable forms of communication in order to maintain contact with like-minded individuals and groups. Quakers and Baptists wrote letters or sent informal messages knowing that they might meet with surveillance, interception, or even that segments might find their way into polemical literature. They also knew that any written form of communication would probably be circulated among families and congregations, and could become significant devotional resources. For both political and religious reasons, therefore, their accounts of trauma are written with multiple audiences and uses in mind. For example, when Rhode Island Baptists communicated with Massachusetts Baptists they felt the need to offer religious and legal counsel while framing hardship itself as a strengthening, rather than weakening, experience. Most of all, they urged the cultivation of holy affections, a mode of discourse that served both to promote their legitimacy to outsider groups and to encourage piety within the extended community.

Articulating the expectation for cheerfulness and patience in trauma formed a central theme in both Quakers and Baptist communication as they maintained bonds with far-flung groups. Though diverging in important ways, both communities relied the religious emotions as a site for evaluating and promoting authenticity. The ability to experience joy in pain formed a staple of their identity as they negotiated the volatile landscape of early New England and worked for legal and institutional stability. Analyzing these efforts to articulate and shape the religious emotions during times of trauma leads to a deeper understanding of radical Protestant networks and of the muddled interconnections between devotional and political life in early New England.