The 1492 Project is a multi-part series to analyze America’s Catholic Founding.
The American founding was Catholic.
While this statement may seem jarring, it is a truth that must be acknowledged. America is a Protestant country today, but its founding was Catholic. There are, in fact, two Americas: Catholic America, founded in 1492, and Protestant America, founded in 1776. Initially, the two Americas fought against each other, and Protestant America won, now called the “American tradition.” The true American tradition is Catholic.
The two Americas framework gives a clear view of American history: Catholic America is our unwritten constitution. The history, the first explorers, the names of cities, the early philosophy, and architecture all have a deeply Catholic founding.
American history must be reframed to reflect this truth in hopes that our nation can revert to its Catholic founding.
Catholic America
Catholic America was discovered on October 12, 1492.
Christopher Columbus providentially landed the same day as the feast day of Our Lady of the Pillar in the Bahamas, where he christened the island of San Salvador. The long and treacherous voyage conducted by the devout Catholic discovered a new world full of natives who had not heard of the Gospel. Despite sailing to find a quicker trade route to Asia, the more important goal of the voyage was to convert more souls and expand Christendom. Columbus’ journal shows his intentions for the journey were evangelistic:
I gave them many beautiful and pleasing things, which I had brought with me, for no return whatever, to win their affection, and that they might become Christians and inclined to love our King and Queen and Princes and all the people of Spain; and that they might be eager to search for and gather and give to us what they abound in and we greatly need.
Numerous religious orders, including the Franciscans, joined Columbus. The members of the order would protect and convert many natives to Catholicism. After his subsequent voyages, Catholic America blossomed as Spain sent more explorers and conquistadors, such as Hernando Cortez and Hernando De Soto, to Latin America. Queen Isabelle would call the new territories the “Northern Rim of Christendom”
The French would also begin creating their colonies in the New World. French missionaries like St. Vincent de Paul, Fr. Jacque Marquette, S.J., and Jean Ribault would cross the continent, converting the natives and establishing New France. New France established colonies such as Louisiana and helped baptize other parts of America.
Catholicism would come to dominate the American continent. There was a duty for the Spanish and French Catholics not to merely conquer but to convert the land. The Spanish and French colonies had concern for the temporal and spiritual treatment of the Natives and eventual Africans brought to the colonies. Catholic America evangelized, discovered new land, built Catholic societies, and expanded Christendom with the blood of many martyrs. While it fell short of a vision of a united Catholic nation due to political factors, it shows the history of America began as a Catholic event.
Protestant America
Catholic America would not last long.
The Protestant “Reformation” began in 1517, leading to the shattering of Christendom that would destroy Catholic America too. The “Reformation” would cause religious divisions, wars, and violence that would plague Europe for years to come and find its home in America.
England, which had become Protestant, would hear news of the new world's riches and send their colonies to America, while others would flee to escape religious persecution. Colonies like Jamestown would be established in 1607, followed by the Puritans who founded the town of Plymouth in 1620. The Puritans landed hoping for a new land and believed they were on a providential mission.
Their mission, however, was deeply anti-Catholic. Puritans believed the Church of England had become too Catholic in its beliefs and left to practice their preferred version of Christianity. The Puritan philosophy, based on Calvinism, involved beliefs in “hard predestination” and “material success as a sure sign of moral superiority.”
John Winthrop, a leading advocate for reformed Calvinism, pushed these beliefs in the colony. Winthrop promoted that the Massachusetts colonists were making a new covenant with God. In his famous “City Upon a Hill” sermon, Winthrop stated that God guided their mission.
We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “the Lord make it like that of New England … Beloved there is now set before us life and good, Death and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his Ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with him, that we may live and be multiplied.
While this sermon calls to mind American Exceptionalism, it has a more profound theological connotation. It believed in Puritan superiority based on its idea of predestination. The Puritans believed that a New Covenant had been made with God, and their religion was to bring about a new promised land. Catholicism was incorrect, and the only way forward was through their “reformed” Christianity.” Those who stood against their beliefs were predestined for hell, as evident in how the Puritans treated the natives and dissenters. Eventually, the discovery and success of Plymouth would send more colonies to early America.
As more British citizens traveled to the colonies, conflict began with the Catholics in the French and Spanish colonies. Disputes over trade routes, resources, and land began to boil over, culminating in the Seven Years’ War, or The French and Indian War. The outcome of the war solidified the fate of America. England would emerge victorious, and Catholic France would cede much of its territory, including Canada, to the British. Catholic Spain would preserve most of their colonies, but the war solidified their weakened status, which would continue the decline of the Spanish Empire.
This conflict resulted in the birth of a new power: Protestant America.
As opposed to Catholic America, Protestant America had liberalism built-in. Protestant America, through Puritanism, brought hyper-individualism, a material focused work-ethic, and poor theology into America. It rejected theological truths that started in the “Reformation” and allowed the fruits of heresy to grow in America. The end goal for Protestant America was conquering. Protestant America believed America was the “New Promised Land,” while Catholic America knew the promised land was already fulfilled. Protestant America would grow, with Catholics a minority in a hostile country. America had been baptized into Catholicism but forced to apostate the true faith.
How we frame our nation’s history is important to the future of the Church in America. The two Americas distinction gives Catholics something greater to strive for. Despite all, America’s true founding was in 1492. Once American history is properly reframed, American Catholics can begin reverting America to its Catholic founding.
While perhaps the case for a Catholic American founding is overstated, this article is an important reminder of the Catholic history and influence that has been with America, even before it's well-known protestant founding. I do think it's safe to say that America as we know it today was primarily born of British protestants, but it would be completely wrongheaded to ignore the vast influence that Catholicism had. Traditional Western thought and political philosophy were shaped by Catholicism, the earliest European explorers to America were Catholic, and even among the early founders there were a few Catholics. Politically-minded Catholics should keep this in mind, as this article urges.
I would say Protestant America started in 1607 with the founding of Jamestown not 1776.