They set up without the kings authority <span />
The major physical feature that the pioneers crossing West had to contend with were the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains.
These mountain ranges were treacherous and many died trying to find passages to cross.
<span>The Enlightenment was important America because it provided the philosophical basis of the American Revolution. The Revolution was more than just a protest against English authority; as it turned out, the American Revolution provided a blueprint for the organization of a democratic society. And while imperfectly done, for it did not address the terrible problem of slavery, the American Revolution was an enlightened concept of government whose most profound documents may have been the American Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution. To feel the full impact of the Enlightenment on America one needs only to look at the first inaugural address of Thomas Jefferson, who, along with Benjamin Franklin, is considered to be the American most touched by the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Jefferson wrote: If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
While the locus of the Enlightenment thinking is generally considered to have been the salons in Paris and Berlin, the practical application of those ideas was carried out most vividly in the American colonies. (http://www.academicamerican.com/colonial/topics/enlighten.htm)
The Great Awakening
A complete dissolving of the theocracy occurred. The establishment in Virginia and North Carolina began to fall apart. Ministers could no longer control the direction of religious life. It had been democratized and made accessible by people.
One of the major results of the Great Awakening was to unify 4/5ths of Americans in a common understanding of the Christian faith and life. Americans--North and South--shared a common evangelical view of life.
(http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/four.html)
In other words, the great awakening began to break down barriers in the colonies that allowed them to have greater inner-colony relations.</span>
