The colonies from 1750 to 1776 were populated by hard-working, freedom-loving, intelligent-farmers, adventurous sailors and enterprising producers. For the majority of the party didn't feel that they needed to be guided by the mother country. These were tough years of turmoil and confusion. The colonists wanted independence and freedom. The British felt they needed to pass the buck to someone in blame and felt that they needed to control the colonies. The British control had to feel unfair sense many residing in the colonies were there to escape the control of religion, customs and laws enforced on them by the mother land. The colonists really wanted to find their own way of doing things and yet the British had a firm grip of control over them. Britain enforcing their laws on the colonist pushed them to rebel.
             The time before the 1750s was one of revivalism and discovery which may have made the colonists less weary of what was to the west of them. One of these times was considered the "Enlightenment," when awesome scientific discoveries were made. Many intellectual leaders of the American colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment. Some famous people like Ben Franklin were unraveling the mysteries of nature. The colonists still had some kind of reverential fear of the unexplored land to the west of them. I think this fear as well as the revivalists arriving from England leads to the "Great Awakening."
             The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals that swept over the American colonies. The two major leaders of the Great Awakening were Jonathan Edwards and Whitfield, George. The rest of the clergy/missionary leads in order are William Tennent 1673-1745, Charles Chauncy 1705-87, Eleazar Wheelock 1711-79,
             George Whitefield 1714-70, David Brainerd 1718-47, Samuel Kirkland 1741-1808 and
             Jonathan Edwards 1743. The Great Awakening allowed growth for different religions, other than ...