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Charisma and Integration: an Eighteenth-century North American Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Gordon Stewart
Affiliation:
Michigan State University

Extract

The renewed interest in the phenomenon of charisma, which was first given coherent conceptual form by Max Weber, shows little sign of abating. It is probably the most easily comprehensible, possibly the most popular and certainly the most dramatic model which can be utilized in interdisciplinary studies. Moreover, the theory has the apparent attractiveness of enabling students to intensively study one leader and his movement and then draw more general conclusions about that leader's impact on the society in which he operated. In an article written in 1966, Claude Ake gave a timely warning to practitioners who made grandiose deductions from evidence about one leader and then drew firm conclusions about his total society. In particular, Ake, at one stage in his critique, pointed out the fallacy of assuming that charisma usually implies integration of a previously decentralized, regionalized or fragmented society. As Ake correctly noted, this is unenlightening, unanalytical reasoning since ‘the theory seeks to explain how solidarity may be forged [by a charismatic leader]; but it does so by means of a concept which assumes the existence of solidarity’, thus producing ‘a circular explanation of integration’.

Type
Charisma
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1974

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References

1 It would be superfluous, in view of the ongoing series of articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, to repeat here the bibliography of the topic. For this article the most relevant works are Eisenstadt, S. N., ed., Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (Chicago, 1968)Google Scholar; Friedland, William H., ‘For a sociological concept of charisma’, Social Forces 43 (10, 1964), 1826CrossRefGoogle Scholar; GirTord, Ann, ‘An Application of Weber's concept of charisma’, Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions, 1 (Spring, 1955), 4050Google Scholar; Ake, Claude, ‘Charismatic Legitimation and Political Integration’, (CSSH, IX (1966), 113Google Scholar; Tucker, Robert C., ‘The Theory of Charismatic Leadership’, Daedalus, 97 (Summer, 1968), 731–56Google Scholar; Apter, David, ‘Nkrumah, Charisma and the Coup’Google Scholar, Ibid., pp. 757–92.

2 Ake, , ‘Charismatic Legitimation and Political Integration,’ p. 12.Google Scholar

3 Ake, , ‘Charismatic Legitimation’, p. 12.Google Scholar

4 Zenner, Walter P., ‘Aqiili Agha: The Strongman in the Ethnic Relations of the Ottoman Galilee’, CSSH, XIV (1972), 169–88.Google Scholar

5 Henry Alline, born in Rhode Island in 1748, emigrated to Nova Scotia in the early 1760s along with five or six thousand other New Englanders. In 1775 he experienced an emotional conversion and shortly after began to itinerate as an evangelical preacher. He was immediately successful, became extremely popular and by 1783 had established a following throughout the colony. He died in 1784 at the peak of his popularity. On Alline and the religious revival see Armstrong, Maurice W., The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia 1776–1809 (Hartford, Conn., 1948)Google Scholar; Clark, S. D., Movements of Political Protest in Canada 1640–1840 (Toronto, 1959), pp. 5374CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Bumsted, J. M., Henry Alline 1748–1784 (Toronto, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stewart, Gordon and Rawlyk, G. A., A People Highly Favoured of God. The Nova Scotia Yankees and The American Revolution (Toronto, 1972).Google Scholar

6 These settlements are usually referred to as the outsettlements to distinguish them from Halifax which, as a British military, naval and administrative post, remained quite distinct from the farming-fishing areas of the New England emigrants. Throughout the period the outsettlements had few connections with Halifax.

7 Besides the New Englanders there were groups of Scotch-Irish in the Cobequid area and Yorkshire Methodists who had emigrated to Cumberland from Britain in 1774–5.

8 On the emigration and pre-1775 conditions, see Brebner, J. B., The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1969, orig. pub. New York, 1937), pp. 1211Google Scholar; Armstrong, , The Great Awakening, pp. 160Google Scholar; Stewart, and Rawlyk, , A People, pp. 344Google Scholar. Mackinnon, Ian F., Settlements and Churches in Nova Scotia 1749–1776 (Montreal, 1930)Google Scholar. A particularly graphic summary of conditions in the late 1760s is contained in a letter from Winslow, J. to Hancock, John, Chignecto, May 12, 1768, John Hancock Papers 1728–75, Folder 1766–75 (Mass. Hist. Soc). Winslow wrote: ‘You cannot conceive of the distress of the Country in general hereabouts—the Inhabitants are reduced to the Greatest Straits, and many Families have not had a pound of Bread for Weeks together, living upon Potatoes in order to save their seed Grain in expectation of Supplies long ago. But altho' we have had three Vessells from New England, they brought nothing of Provision kind and the People have been obliged to eat up most of their seed potatoes and many of them their Grain, so that they have little or no expectation of a Crop this year, and what they will do, Next Winter, I know not, except they Quit the country; and the future prospect is really distressing, as well as the recent difficulties very great.’ While 1768 was particularly bad, for the whole pre-1775 period the emigrants aimed at only subsistence level fan.iing. There was no social mobility or increased communication as the result of economic progress.Google Scholar

9 Alline, Henry, The Life and Journal of the Reverend Mr. Henry Alline (Boston, 1806), p. 54.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 48, 57, 58, 63, 67, 74, 77, 80, 84, 97, 101, 134, 139, 153.

11 On political conditions before 1776 and the dominant role of Halifax, see Brebner, , The Neutral Yankees, pp. 180211Google Scholar; Beck, J. M., The Government of Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1957), pp. 1921CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gipson, L. H., The Triumphant Empire (New York, 1967), pp. 127–30Google Scholar and the anonymous An Essay on the Present State of Nova Scotia with Some Strictures on the Measures pursued by Government from its First Settlement by the English in the Year 1749 (Halifax 1773 or 1774).Google Scholar

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13 Inhabitants of Barrington to the Massachusetts Congress, 10 19, 1776, Mass. Arch., Vol. 211, pp. 122–24Google Scholar; Memorial and Petition of John Allen of Cumberland, 02 19, 1777, Mass. Arch., Vol. 144, 169Google Scholar; Inhabitants of Maugerville to Arthur Goold, Maugerville, 05 16, 1777, Public Archives of Nova Scotia [P.A.N.S.], Vol. 409; Papers on the River St. Johns.Google Scholar

14 Stewart, and Rawlyk, , A People, pp. 4576Google Scholar; Brebner, , The Neutral Yankees, pp. 255310.Google Scholar

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16 William Ellis to S.P.G. Correspondence Committee in Halifax, Windsor, 09 14, 1776; Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Vol. B–25, Nova Scotia 1760–1786, Letters Received, No. 208, Library of Congress.Google Scholar

17 Extract of a Letter from Allan, John, September 22, 1777 and Report of John Allan, August 17, 1778, in Kidder, F., Military Operations in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia during the American Revolution (Albany, 1867), pp. 228–31, 253–5.Google Scholar

18 Problems in estimating the size of the movement are discussed in Stewart, and Rawlyk, , A People, pp. 121–39Google Scholar. Alline himself estimated his following at ‘some thousands in the province’. By cross-checking from other sources it can be confirmed that Alline never exaggerated his success—on the contrary, in keeping with his ‘messenger of God’ image he never made crude claims of numerical support. See Alline, , A Sermon on a Day of Thanksgiving Preached at Liverpool… On the 21st of November 1782 (Halifax, c. 1783), p. 38Google Scholar; Alline, , Life and Journal, passimGoogle Scholar; Harvey, D. C., ed., The Diary of Simeon Perkins 1780–1789 (Toronto, 1958), pp. 103, 109–9, 113, 177Google Scholar; Records of the Church of Jebogue in Yarmouth, , P.A.N.S., pp. 132–53.Google Scholar

19 Harvey, , ed., The Diary of Simeon Perkins, p. 103.Google Scholar

20 Records of the Church of Jebogue in Yarmouth, , pp. 82187Google Scholar; Scott, Jonathan, A Brief View of the Religious Tenets and Sentiments Lately Published and Spread in the Province of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1784), pp. vi, 205–8, 212–16, 219–22, 257, 266–70.Google Scholar

21 Records of the Church of Jebogue in Yarmouth, , pp. 143, 153.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 138.

23 There had simply not been any other movements in the 1760—even on a restricted basis involving only two or three townships.

24 See Friedland, , ‘For a Sociological Concept of Charisma’, pp. 1826.Google Scholar

25 Alline, , A Sermon Preached at Liverpool, 21 November, pp. 21–2Google Scholar; Alline, , Two Mites, Cast unto the Offering of God for the Benefit of Mankind (Dover, N.H., 1804), pp. 264–9Google Scholar; Stewart, and Rawlyk, , A People, pp. 154–63.Google Scholar

26 For example, Street, Nicholas, The American States Acting Over the Part of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness … (New Haven, 1777)Google Scholar; Sherwood, Samuel, The Churches Flight into the Wilderness. An Address on the Times … (New York, 1776)Google Scholar; Conant, Sylvanus, An Anniversary Sermon … (Boston, 1777)Google Scholar. For an interpretation of evangelical preaching in Revolutionary America, see Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind from the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1966).Google Scholar

27 Alline, , Two Mites, p. 265.Google Scholar

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31 Yarmouth, on the southern tip of Nova Scotia, was particularly isolated in the 1760s yet after Alline's visit ‘news of his success was quickly spread through the Land … which struck consternation Perplexity and Disappointment among sober thinking people in different and distant parts of the Land’. These anti-revivalists then began corresponding with each other to organize against Alline. See Records of the Church of Jebogue in Yarmouth, , p. 146 and pp. 82–9, 92–3, 95, 98, 100–1, 156–7, 179, 182–3, 186–7Google Scholar which contain copies of letters to Scott from Cornwallis, Maugerville and Liverpool. Also Scott, , A Brief View, pp. 266–7.Google Scholar

32 For a discussion of the possibility of divergence over norms co-existing with agreement on values and beliefs, see Glock, Charles Y., ‘Religion and the Integration of Society’, in Knudten, Richard D., ed., The Sociology of Religion (New York, 1967), 75.Google Scholar

33 See Talmon, Yonina, ‘Pursuit of the Millenium: the Relation between Religion and Social Change,’ European Journal of Sociology, 111 (1962), 125–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Geertz, Clifford, ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’, in Apter, David (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (Glencoe, Ill. 1964).Google Scholar