Tucked away on Beacon Hill is the Congregational Library & Archives, a quiet space that holds relics of America’s founding era.
One relic on display is an almanac from 1775, its paper browned from age, with tape piecing together its tattered parts. “The Virtuous Patriot at the Hour of Death” — a dramatic illustration — graces its cover, depicting a man in a bed, surrounded by family and a clergyman, an angel smiling down upon him.
“Through this image [the artist is] giving us this impression that he’s a virtuous patriot. He is dying a good death,” said Tricia Peone, project director for the library.
The archivists here built a new exhibit around how the Protestant Christians of the time viewed the American Revolution as a sacred cause. These almanacs were some of the most popular publications of the time and would have been in virtually every home — so the choice for this cover art is telling.
“It’s a pretty blatant statement about: What are you giving your life for?” said Kyle Roberts, executive director of the library.
The image was so powerful that the library used the angel in the top-left corner, surrounded by billowing clouds, as the main branding for its recent exhibit.
“We call this exhibit ... ‘Sacred Rebellion’ because I think they did feel there was a theological justification for them going off to war, that as a chosen people whose self-government is threatened, it is their responsibility to push back,” Roberts said.
An aid in the push for war
Religion was key in helping legitimize the war effort.
Kate Carté, a professor of history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said that religion helped make the Revolution more about virtue than treason.
“It was an illegal act. And it was important to the revolutionaries to appear thoughtful and steady and moral in the way that they were going about this violent, revolutionary thing,” said Carté, who wrote the book on “Religion and the American Revolution.”
Some of America’s early iconography also leaned heavily on religion, she said. Benjamin Franklin wanted to put an image of Moses on the nation’s seal, who freed the Israelites from slavery, as a liberator of an oppressed people.
“The fact that Moses might potentially free Americans from enslavement to the British — you can see why that’s a powerful image,” she said.
That design didn’t materialize because of the South’s attachment to slavery. But the founders understood the significance of incorporating religion into a political or military cause.
While religion served as a unifying symbol for the Revolution, their personal beliefs were far from uniform.
“Some of the staunchest revolutionaries — Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson — they’re not Christians in the way that we would identify,” said Karin Wulf, professor of history at Brown University.
Religion was also a factor for some who opposed the rebellion. Wulf said many loyalists viewed opposition to the King as opposition to the Church of England.
“There are all these ways in which people see this so differently,” Wulf said.
Icons and symbols
There are also differences in how religious iconography appeared based on various groups. Protestants, for example, traditionally were less likely to rely on imagery in the church, worried that people would start to worship the image rather than the spirit. But Catholic depictions — of saints; or of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — were far more common.
“You would have learned through images of the saints — and that’s how you would understand your relationship to the Trinity ... through art and through imagery,” Peone said. “Protestants, in this period, think that is essentially wrong. So they won’t do it.”
There were other artistic outlets, like song, to bring together religion and revolutionary sentiments.
Among the items at the Congregational Library & Archives is a music book compiled by a teenage girl in colonial Connecticut. It includes a tribute to the Battle of Bunker Hill.
“The final stanza says, ‘Well, we all know we’re going to die… why not die for a cause?’” Roberts said, getting choked up reciting the lyrics. “And maybe you will live, and maybe life will be redoubled.”
