The covenanter sensibility across the long atlantic world

Abstract

This article introduces the Covenanters and posits them as a phenomenon that was both transatlantic and chronologically transcendent rather than simply as Scottish and seventeenth century. Covenanter beliefs and practices lived on, and Covenanter peoples dialogued with one another over three centuries in Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the USA. Each generation reached back across the Atlantic and across time for inspiration and meaning in contemporary confrontations with the secular world. We argue that sensibilities history provides a fitting framework for understanding how this unique cultural group remained an ongoing Atlantic experience from 1638 until the twenty-first century. © 2013 Board of Transatlantic Studies.