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By the middle of the 18th century, the colonies developed characteristics that can best be described as Americanism. These characteristics came from the concept of Enlightenment. Enlightenment means the acquisition of new wisdom or understanding enabling clarity of perception. It was basically a transition from a religious look on life to a scientific look on life. The actual era of enlightenment lasted from about the late 1600s to the late 1700s. A man by the name of John Locke took the idea of enlightenment and applied it to humans; it was called the Social Contract. From this era of reason came five Americanisms from the colonists. They were Belief /Existence of Actual Representative Government, Religion, Social Mobility, Superiority of American Education, and Embracement of the Enlightenment. When the Americans learned of the Enlightenment they were exposed to what is called the Great Awakening.

In the early 1600s America had a severe lack of visual government. The colonists had to take orders from the parliament due to the fact it defeated the monarchy in complete and total power over America (The colonists still had to listen to the Monarchy, the parliament just had some say so has well). The colonists developed assemblies because they did not feel secure with Parliament all the way in Britain, and half the time the English government ignored the Americans because they were focused on other things. The Social Contract also helped the colonists. It stated that the Government exists

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only with the consent of the people, The function of the government is to protect the people’s Natural Rights, and The people must replace a government that fails to protect the rights. The enlightenment had some effect on the colonists’ government but not drastically.

Religion was a major factor that was affected by the Enlightenment. Before the enlightenment the Puritanism was the major religion. Puritanism talked about how everything had to do with God. With the enlightenment however this was changed. The enlightenment caused the Great Awakening which changed the idea of how religion was taught. There became different segments of Puritanism and other religions; the New Lights and the Old Lights. The Old lights believed that god started earth and let man discover everything else. Basically it followed the idea of enlightenment. The New lights formed a drastic religious group in which they talked about how wicked it was to go to hell. New lights welcomed all people to listen to them;