The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America

Early American Studies

by Chris Beneke (Editor), Christopher S. Grenda (Editor)

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.

Genres: Religion, American History

408 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2010

About the author

Dr Chris Beneke is an Associate Professor of History and Director of Academic Integrity at Bentley University, Massachusetts, USA.

He holds a PhD from Northwestern University (2001), and a BA from Cornell University (1994).

Reviews

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology does a fine job of showing the complex relationship of religious tolerance and intolerance in the colonial era. The Founding Fathers and their predecessors did not possess a twenty-first-century understanding of religious liberty. When they spoke of "liberty of conscience," it was often for Christians (or Protestants) only. The book's editors argue that, over time, religious diversity became the one religious commonality in all of the colonies. Yet this does not mean everyone welcomed this diversity. This messier narrative, trying to untangle the good and the bad in America's religious heritage, is harder to teach, but truer, I suspect, to the real nature of life in early America. The book's deep historiographic debates and rich prose make the volume better suited to an advanced seminar than undergraduates.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent compilation of historical essays exploring the topic of religious toleration and intolerance in Colonial America. Provides a complex look at the tension between Protestants and Catholics in the colonies, the struggles of minority groups to practice, religion of enslaved Americans, and the complicated balance Native Americans had to strike with colonists. If you have any interest in religion in America, this is a must-read.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The United States is a land of Protestant religions. The First Prejudice discusses the intolerance toward Catholics, Jews, and some of the less main stream Protestant faiths. The book comprises a collection of twelve essays on various topics.