The First Great Awakening or The Great Awakening was a movement of Christian revitalization that spread through Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It was the result of powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal revelation of their need for salvation through Jesus Christ. Departing from rituals and ceremonies, the Great Awakening comprises an intensely personal Christianity for the common person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by fostering introspection and commitment to a new norm of morality personal.
Christianity was carried to African slaves and it was a monumental event in New England that challenged established authority. It incited resentment and division among the old traditionalists, who insisted on the importance of continuing the ritual and doctrine, and the new drivers of rebirth, which encouraged emotional involvement and personal commitment. It had an important impact on the remodeling of the Congregational Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Dutch Reformed Church and the reformed German church and the strengthening of the Baptist and Methodist denominations. It had little impact between the Anglicans and Quakers.
The main reason why the British government relax rules regulating trade for the American colonies in the late 1600s was because some colonists were getting upset and the British wanted to keep them loyal.