New Madrid earthquakes: disaster for parents on the border

What is the relationship between natural disasters and religion? The world’s scriptures often mention natural disasters – the Biblical Flood, for example. But the relationship between natural disasters and religion in history is diverse and complex. There is data that shows that people who live in areas at high risk of natural disasters show more religiosity than people who do not live there. Sometimes disasters are seen as God’s judgment. Sometimes they are signs of some predicted event. Here we’ll look at a natural disaster on the American frontier and how settlers and indigenous people responded.

border earthquakes

From December 1811 until February 1812, central North America was shaken by three huge earthquakes called the New Madrid earthquakes after a settlement near the epicenters. The epicenter of the first earthquake was in what is now northeastern Arkansas, but the last earthquake was in southeastern Missouri. Tremors were felt strongly over an area of ​​50,000 square miles (130,000 km) and moderately over an area of ​​more than 1 million square miles. The Arkansas earthquake rang church bells in Boston and cracked sidewalks in the District of Columbia. The Mississippi River turned at its bottom and was observed to flow backwards. A 15,000-acre lake has formed in Kentucky that didn’t exist before.

At that time, this was the western frontier. John James Audubon, the famous bird painter, was riding in the Kentucky wilderness when his horse stopped, planted its hooves, and did not move. Then the trees and shrubs began to sway, and “the ground rose and fell into successive canyons like rushing lake waters,” Audubon wrote. Major Davy Crockett complained that the earthquakes had “ripped to shreds” his hunting grounds. There are no estimates of lives lost or property damaged, but eyewitnesses described homes and log cabins thrown into the Mississippi. Flatboats carrying cargo to New Orleans lost “all hands”. How many hands are not recorded.

Besides the three major earthquakes, there have been thousands of smaller shocks, so that the Earth rarely seems to stop moving for weeks. By chance, New Orleans, the first steam-powered riverboat on the Mississippi, was making its maiden voyage at the time, and the crew provided haunting details of the devastation. They described the Great River, clogged with dead trees, dead cattle, and abandoned boats. Landmarks disappeared, settlements became ghost towns. Even as the riverboat made its way to New Orleans, the shocks continued, causing the islands to appear and disappear and the banks to shift as they watched.

earthquake christians

One of the after effects of the New Madrid earthquake was the massive increase in the number of frontier churches. A historian of the nineteenth century wrote: “Preachers everywhere demanded preaching and prayer for the people; there was a great awakening among the population, while the hearts of men disappointed them, and their knees sank with fear.” No doubt, the fact that the Great Comet of 1811 was visible in the sky at that time only added to their enthusiasm. Records show that frontier congregations tripled their membership after earthquakes, and new churches sprang up all over the area.

“Quake Christians,” as they came to be called, suddenly sought reconciliation with God, and membership rose in the local Methodist and Baptist churches. According to historian David Fletcher, “Preachers witnessed a great number of baptisms and conversions, because sinners wanted to avoid further outpouring of God’s wrath.” As one minister recalls, “It was a period of great terror for sinners.”

Many settlers would later say that this was the most terrifying event of their lives. Some feared that the end of the world was at hand. Others interpreted the many shocks as coming from the Holy Spirit. They said they could feel the vibrations of the spirit in their bodies.

Tecumseh prints his foot

The Native Americans living in the earthquake zone may have had a harder time than the settlers. Earthquakes also affected their religiosity, but in a different way. Many indigenous religions had messianic elements, or the belief in a savior who would lead people in their times of greatest need. The sight of the great comet had already led many to believe that there was such a leader at hand, whose name was Tecumseh.

In 1811, Shawnee chief Tecumseh was forming a federation of tribes to challenge white encroachment on their lands. Accompanied by his brother Tenskwatawa, long considered a prophet, Tecumseh originally tried to negotiate with the Whites. When that failed, he gathered warriors from several tribes to fight back.

According to legend, Tecumseh turned a community of huts to his cause by predicting an earthquake. “You don’t believe that the Great Spirit has sent me. You must know. I leave Tuckhabatchee straight, and I’ll go straight to Detroit. When I get there, I’ll stomp on the ground and shake every house in Tuckhabatchee.” When the first earthquakes devastated the Creek community, people knew Tecumseh had made it to Detroit. The men took up arms and prepared to join Tecumseh. Tecumseh’s death in the battle of 1813 ended his union, but he became a folk hero to both Native Americans and settlers.

Disaster in the age of science

In 1811 people had no idea what caused earthquakes. Now we know that the New Madrid earthquakes were caused by a fatal error. People living in the New Madrid seismic zone today are used to the occasional earthquake. Everyone hopes A Big One never happens again. But the bigger point is that natural disasters today do not seem to elicit quite the same religious response. Although even today one can always find the TV preacher who claims that a hurricane, flood or hurricane was God’s wrath on some sin. Or, in Asia, karma is blamed for disasters.

The crew of the New Orleans, the first steamship on the Mississippi River, witnessed the earthquakes. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

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