This chapter examines the major rebellions that occurred in Spanish America during the era of North American colonial protest and rebellion against British policies and government. It focuses on the revolt of the city of Quito in 1765, the Andean rebellions started by Tupac Amaru in 1780, and the 1781 Comunero rebellion in New Granada, set in the context of Spanish administrative and fiscal reforms under Charles III and Spanish geopolitical conflict with Britain between the Seven Years’ War and the American War of independence. The principal purpose here is to enquire into the origins of the rebellions, their organization and social composition, and the political attitudes and ideas of their participants. In addition to comparing the Spanish American rebellions in terms of their causes, political cultures and political impacts, it also reflects on their contemporaneous relationship to the American Revolution and their place in the wider challenge to European monarchies during the Age of Revolution.

The American federal union was created in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation. Designed to protect the independence and promote the interests of the member-states, it concentrated power over international matters and war in a central government. Although the Articles granted extensive powers to a congress of states, their implementation was left to the state governments. This arrangement proved dysfunctional and by early 1787, the future of the union was in doubt. The Constitution challenged neither the aims nor the purposes of the American union. Instead, it radically reformed its structure. It set up a central government with a legislative, executive and judicial branch and the right to legislate directly on the individual citizens of the American states. By allowing the federal government to operate independently of the states, the problem of the non-implementation of congressional decisions was overcome. Only with the adoption of the Constitution did the American union acquire national cohesion and a central government with the capacity to act with determination and energy against foreign powers and stateless peoples on the North American continent.

Recent scholars have argued that the American founding represents a decisive departure from the classical Christian natural-law tradition. In contrast, the thematic chapters in this volume argue that the background assumptions of American public life during the founding were derived from and compatible with the classical Christian natural-law tradition that developed from the long engagement of Christianity with classical political philosophy, hitting its highwater mark in medeival scholasticisim and retaining its influence through the dominant theological traditions in the North American colonies.

Micah Watson argues that an active conscience is the outgrowth of the evangelical mind. Evangelicalism is the form of Protestantism that relies on the truths of historical Christianity while navigating between mainline Protestantism and fundamentalism. For evangelicals, conscience is founded in the Bible, particularly the writings of Paul. It also flowered in the post-Reformation world, where it was taught that an active conscience signaled a person’s salvation. Conscience also led evangelicals to be active against all forms of sinfulness. In the United States, this contributed to the proliferation of voluntary societies, where Christians who were “saved for service” could exercise their consciences to spread the Gospel or stamp out perceived evils (like alcohol use). Watson traces the history of evangelical conscience into the twentieth century, and he describes voices like Carl Henry and others who sought harmony between the pious strand of evangelicalism, and adherents who were committed to social action. Later in the twentieth century, evangelicals sought peace in society more than saving it. Still, evangelicals continue to oppose perceived social evils, including same-sex marriage.

The best-known case of early American religious migrants is that of Plymouth Plantation. Valorized in US national mythology for enduring hardship to practise freedom of religion, the story of Plymouth is a famous example of the supposed commitment to religious liberty. For the many Christian commentators who have dug deeper than the first Thanksgiving, Plymouth connects the story of the Reformation in England to the founding of the United States, telling the tale of a separatist rebellion against the Church of England that led to exile, suffering, and a Christian founding. A close consideration of Plymouth Plantation’s early history reveals that Plymouth, far from being a unique case of pious commitment struggling with and triumphing over American challenges, experienced all the difficulties involved in exporting the Reformation. Plymouth church confronted all the same challenges of staffing, membership, and religious practice of any migrant church. At the same time, their storied commitment to separatism proved weaker and less permanent than their modern champions like to assert. This case study allows for a reconsideration of the process of exporting Reformation even as it upends one of the most central myths of the American founding.