Nichols 1 Ashley Nichols
Third edition
AMH2010-02 Ms. Tarah Luke 26 January 2012 Analysis of Document 4-2 (essay #1) Document 4-2, of Reading the American Past (3rd edition), is a memoir of John Dane, a Puritan member of the migration to New England. In this diary type excerpt, Dane discusses the trials, tribulations, and mercy of God he experience as a Puritan, throughout his life. This document is important not only to the Puritan people in the 17th century traveling to New England, but also to people today wishing to gain an understanding of some of the difficulties people, specifically Puritans, faced traveling from England to New England. Dane is a man of Puritan background, meaning he came from a family that strictly believed that everyday life was filled with goods and evils, which gives him the credibility of being a good source to other Puritans during that time wishing to travel to New England. This document begins with the beginning of his life, where the Puritan foundations were laid and helped shape him into the man he became, strong-willed and God-fearing. When he turned eighteen, he broke away from the yoke of his parents and, like many other middle-classed Englishmen, ventured onto New England, the place he believed would offer him freedom from temptations. This Document memoir of Dane goes through each specific trial of his life’s temptations of women, dancing, drinking, and other acts ignoring God’s ways and essentially offers itself as a
Nichols 2 template for other Puritans seeking ways to overcome temptations. It allows for Puritans during that time period that time to acknowledge what lies in New England and ways to combat any temptations that may be found. It also teaches ways to be as God-fearing as possible even when it may seem as though there is no mercy in the seemingly foreign New England. This memoir is also a firsthand source from the past which acts as a window into the past for anyone seeking information of the Puritans journey from the known England into the unknown New England.
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