When the Colonists Fasted for Independence

In the years before 1775, the American colonies were often filled with tension. Colonists were increasingly willing to reject British policies, including the 1765 Stamp Act, as well as denounce the imperial occupation of Boston in 1768 and the Boston Massacre in 1770.

Colonists responded with major protests like the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and measures like the Continental Association in 1774, which cut off all trade with Great Britain. When their grievances were rectified, colonists ended their demonstrations.

If the crown asserted more imperial authority, colonists escalated again.

“From 1763 to 1775, the bulk of the resistance efforts aimed at earning redress of colonial grievances,” says Kenneth Cohen, curator of early American history and chair of the Division of Military and Society at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “When redress seemed to arrive, the acts of resistance subsided.”

But protests didn’t always take the form of riots, political speeches or armed rebellions. Some instead took the form of national prayer and fasting, including two observances held before America declared independence.

Days of prayer and fasting were a regular occurrence in the 13 colonies during the 18th century. They were familiar holdovers from Great Britain where the Church of England was the established state church and authorities shared their perspective through it, Cohen explains.

This practice held in the colonies, even though most did not recognize the Anglican Church as their official church. “There was no concept of separation of church and state [in the colonies],” Cohen says. Colonial clergy discussed political issues from the pulpit, and colonists were used to getting political information wrapped in religious language.

Colonial leaders proclaimed local days of fasting and reflection during moments of conflict and alliance with the crown, including observances during the Seven Years’ War. Days also were declared when colonial leaders felt God was angry or punishing them for violating their covenant promises.

Most fasting-days sermons suggested the sins of the community caused whatever tragedy was at issue, and as colonists prayed and fasted together, those sins would be forgiven. Observance also meant a day off of work as people devoted their time to worship, instead.

In 1747, the governor’s council in Pennsylvania declared its first day of fasting when Britain and France were at war, even though fighting was far from the colonies. The council called on Benjamin Franklin to write the proclamation to emphasize the significance of the conflict and pray for its end. It was printed in English and German.

On June 12, 1775, the Continental Congress declared the first national day of fasting and prayer. Unlike before, this was not in defense of the British Crown. Congress invoked religion to unite the colonies against British rule.

The resolution advised colonists to take July 20, 1775, for “public humiliation, fasting and prayer” and petitioned King George III “that a speedy end may be put to the civil discord between Great Britain and the American colonies, without farther effusion of blood.”

When the national fast was issued, fighting with the British had already broken out in Massachusetts, and Patriot forces had caputured Fort Ticonderoga. George Washington was days away from being named leader of the Continental Army, and the Battle of Bunker Hill loomed.

Katherine Carté, author of Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, wrote that the events on July 20, 1775, were orchestrated by political leaders “to create national unity at a time of crisis and division.” Governments in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire supported the fast, as did the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, which was the largest denomination of Presbyterians in the colonies. It marked one of the first times before the Declaration of Independence that the colonies were truly unified against Great Britain.

John Adams observed the fast, held on a Thursday, in Philadelphia. The deeply religious Massachusettan wrote to his wife, Abigail, that: “The Fast was observed here with a Decorum and solemnity, never before seen ever on a Sabbath. The Clergy of all Denominations, here preach Politicks and War in a manner that I never heard in N. England. They are a Flame of Fire.”

By 1776, many colonists were growing more disillusioned with Great Britain. After Thomas Paine published the pamphlet “Common Sense,” which argued for independence and denounced King George as a “tyrant,” a fire ignited for a revolution once thought impossible. Nearly all hope for a reconciliation had faded.

The second national day of fasting on May 17, 1776, was unlike the first. More than serving as a day of unity, the goal was to reinforce the idea that colonists belonged to a common political community separate from Great Britain. In the proclamation he wrote calling for the fast day, Continental Congress delegate William Livingston of New Jersey asked God “to bless our civil rulers…to preserve and strengthen their union, to inspire them with an ardent, disinterested love of their country…and direct them to the most efficacious measures for establishing the rights of America on the most honorable and permanent basis.”

The proclamation, which ended with “God Save This People” rather than “God Save the King,” was printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in March 1776.

In the 1760s and early 1770s, colonists were already resisting various British regulatory policies “to create both a unity and a kind of solemnity about the resistance movement, which is not yet revolutionary,” Cohen says. “By the time you get to May 1776, of course declaration hasn’t been declared yet, but the war has started, and things are more clearly running in that direction.”

How these two national days of fasting influenced colonists—and furthered American independence—is difficult to measure precisely. We know they were widely supported and observed, which helped legitimize the Continental Congress.

Within weeks of the second fast, momentum toward independence quickened. On July 2, 1776, delegates of the Continental Congress voted for independence from Great Britain. Two days later, they adopted the Declaration of Independence.

The Continental Congress declared 12 more days of fasting and thanksgiving during the Revolutionary War, which lasted until 1783. Over time, there was a shift in the religious language. “These [first] two proclamations include, more, not less specifically religious language than later proclamations during the war,” Cohen says. In the first seven, there are references to Christianity, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and the Savior, but in the final seven, he explains, there are just two or three mentions combined.

Does this mean the people were turning away from the idea of an official state church? Some certainly were beginning to, but it would be several more years before the First Amendment prohibited the establishment of one.

Yet “religious fervor…certainly helped fuel the Revolution,” Cohen says. “There can also be little question that for the majority of people fighting on the patriots’ side, that meant some version of Christianity.” Instead, he adds, these two days should be viewed “as part of a long and ongoing series of acts that make politics palpable in religious practice.”

The practice continued in the newly established United States, too. Several presidents, including John Adams, Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln, declared national days of prayer or thanksgiving, eventually giving way to the establishment of today’s national and federal holidays.