ABSTRACT
The longing for direct contact with spiritual forces was widespread in colonial America, affecting people of European, indigenous and African ancestries. The documents in this chapter are accordingly diverse—theological writings by Johann Arndt and George Whitefield, an excerpt from the autobiography of free black evangelist John Marrant, advice from the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake to his people, an imagined dialogue between prophet Joanna Southcott and the Devil, a description of the spiritual exertions of the Iroquois convert Kateri Tekakwitha in New France, and the story of the first sighting of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City—but all speak to ways that various spiritual longings might pose a threat to existing social hierarchies. Divine beings were not always respecters of the order that authorities wished to preserve, yet spiritual outpourings seemed all the more authentic if they touched—and elevated—those otherwise perceived as lowly.
