Anyone watch Colonial House last night? It's really interesting!

The Rep. Baptist/Texan preacher(from Waco) vs. the Liberal California professor and minister/biblical historian.

The Baptist guy and his family were given the highest position of governor in the community, and the California guy and his wife (she's also a professor) were given the second highest status as minister. And then there is the atheist family....

It's pretty interesting. Right now they are all too exhausted with simply surviving to have the luxury of a major disagreement along religious/political lines, although there are low rumblings of trouble to come. At least the previews seem to indicate that's about to change.

The Baptist's very devout and well-liked eldest daughter lost her fiance in a car wreck while she was doing this pilgrim gig (and apparently her eldest brother was injured too). So the entire family left. But the father returns alone to continue his role as governor of the colony. I'm wondering whether he will become more of a dictator/zealot due to the loss his family suffered (a sign from God that he must 'toe the line and spread His word' sort of response).

Anyway, its more topical than you'd think and ought to be interesting. Part two is on tonight. Parts three and four are next Monday and Tuesday PBS.

because she was upset with the way the country was headed. I wished the camera would have shown the reaction of the Baptist.

I wonder why the liberals did not attend the group dinner the first night?

who is 9 and we both really enjoyed it, can't wait to see part 2 tonight, forcing people to go to church, it will be very interesting.

sociological and class factors can't help but come out in the mix, despite the fact that they are supposed to be living 400 years ago. I love these series. I think they are fascinating, much better to my mind than the regular TV reality stuff. My favorites were the 1900 house folks, though.

that was on. Thank goodness for pbs. Also it's nice to have something to watch with my kid that she might actually get something from.

My husband and I watched it with great interest. He has been a re-enactor for years, first doing World War II and American Civil War and now he does Viking. We also belong to the Society for Creative Anachronism which is historic re-creation. That's as hardcore as I want to get, but he revels in the down-and-dirty stuff. Anyway, we both liked the program. I really liked it when the one woman said that she was concerned over the direction the country was going in. And when she commented that one of the girls was bright and funny and it bothered her that she took none of the credit for it but said that God was responsible. Tonight's episode should be interesting what with the governor handing out red letters showing that you had committed a crime. If I am remembering correctly B meant you had blasphemed. And he gets quoted on camera as saying that he wants ". . . to build a city on the hill." If I had been on the show I would have tried for an "H" - as in heretic, or a "W" - as in witch.

I wondered if he hadn't taken advantage of his time away from the colony to do some reading up. It's not only a biblical reference but a colonial puritan one as well, invoked by John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630. Here's the context, for anyone who's interested:

"...for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world...." (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/winthrop.htm)

Thank you. I knew that I had heard the phrase before but thought it was quote from one of Jonathan Edwards' sermons.

Fascinating. The "Frontier House" series from last summer (Canadian-made) dealt with many of the same themes.

Add on edit: I wonder if the "governor"/Waco Baptist minister got a little nudge from the producers to inject some "social values"?

the colony will fail without some leadership. And that would mean death for many if not all.

There are, in fact, times when Democracy is not an appropriate option.

Aboard a ship or during an expedition, for instance.

These people have goals... surviving through a harsh Maine winter and also turning a profit. Their survival would be FAR from certain.

Remember, these are people supposed to be people who came over to START a colony... not residents who have been born into an established community. They would have had NO back up support.

It was interesting to learn that colonies without women failed.

Having the Native Americans on the show seems rather profound on all sides.

In this case they were assigned their roles, but I wonder who might have emerged as a leader were they to be left to their own devices?

And how would that play out if women were treated as equals and were also candidates for leadership if they had the aptitude and trust of the others?

At any rate, I think you can live Democratically and still have leaders and some heirarchy provided that the group operates like a family...or an extended family...and there is mutual trust and respect (even if there are disagreements). The Colonists in these small enclaves were like a family or tribe in that they were dependent on one another for survival and were probably not inclined to leave if they had a disagreement. These days we've set up our lives so that we don't "need" others......at least for survival. We call it "independence".

and attitude is due to their being aware that they aren't really playing for keeps: that if they don't get the corn in, for instance, they still won't really starve to death. Then again, I seem to recall reading of at least one instance (it might have been Jamestown or Roanoke) where the settlement failed in part because the settlers just didn't want to be bothered with planting when there were "fortunes to be made".

The writer David Freeman Hawke suggests that the southern colonies as a whole suffered from this: the men who came there were interested primarily in making a fast buck, so they'd put in their crops, use up the land, and then move on when it was exhausted, and there was no benefit to them in developing schools, stable communities and governments, or even bothering to fix up the buildings they lived in; whereas the New Englanders, who were also fixated on material wealth and prosperity (in fact may have been moreso, because prosperity was seen as a sign of God's favor) produced the opposite effect in their colonies because they were focused on the concept of church community.

that they must be able to get the crop in to pay back their investors. The last thing one would think about after being dumped into the wilderness is paying back investors.

where they identified him as a Baptist preacher from Texas, but I started wondering about his politics when he was emoting about his son getting sick and made the comment about the colonists coming over here to "build a new life for themselves without the State telling them what to do" and I thought, yep, he's gotta be a Conservative or right-winger of some sort.

there are small loan programs to alleviate poverty in 3rd world countries... and they ONLY give start up money to women because the women are more likely to pay back the loan and make a go of it.

Apparently, cause of responsibility of home/kids, women go for stability and NOT quick buck.

Also, about colonists having a hard time working... they were drinking tremendous amounts of alcohol. No wonder it was hard for them to get moving. :)

And as for not thinking they were playing for real... it would seem to be a factor...

but having someone, an authority figure, telling you to get off your ass and get to work... can be VERY motivating.

And as for the alcohol, I started to wonder where it was about the time that a few of the people started complaining about how exhausted and hopeless they were starting to feel. If I had been on the show they probably would have caught me breaking into the storehouse to violate the sanctity of the keg!

1900 House, Frontier House, Manor House and now Colonial House. Really interesting stuff for a history major.

I haven't seen the "Scarlet Letter" episode yet, of course, but judging from the previews I have to say this: I think it's to his credit that he's doing it. Certainly from a historical standpoint religious dissension and forgetting your place in the social hierarchy absolutely WERE NOT tolerated by the puritans, and some of the people there need to figure that out.

On the other hand, I think the governor was just itching to do that kind of thing anyway. Did anyone else notice that he was talking about disenfranchising the women even before any of the serious problems started? I hope the strong-willed colonists keep testing him, because I'll be very interested to see how he responds.

and this is one of the things I love most about these shows... the psychology.

Very absorbing.

...I was looking forward to the liberal showing up the conservative. After seeing it however I believe the baptist minister was the best choice for governor and was clearly the best leader for the colony. I was so predisposed to dislike him but at the end of the first show when he returned I felt that leadership was returning. The colony needs him and from what I have seen on the previews I would surmise that he is responding to the seeds that were sown in his absence.

That he'd love to see PBS or the BBC do "Tenament House", set in a late 19th Century tenemant building environment.

I might have the mental/emotional fortitude to achieve staying power as a participant in one of these shows, but I doubt very much I'd have the physical strength for it.

After observing this community I truly appreciate people like the young servant from England (who lives with the Baptist family). His humor and positive energy is SO important to that group. And if he left I'm sure they would all recognize it and feel a great loss.