![]() History told by the victorsĪfter the American Revolution, politicians and historians, especially those descended from Pilgrims and Puritans, were keen to trace the origins of the United States back to Plymouth. Thomas Hutchinson, the last royal governor of Massachusetts, pointed to the Pilgrims as proof that colonists should not rebel, highlighting the passage that defined the signers as “loyal subjects” of the English king. The Compact was even used by loyalists to the British crown to argue against independence. And in 1637, Plymouth’s authorities joined a bloody campaign against the Pequots, which led to the massacre of Indigenous people on the banks of the Mystic River, followed by the sale of prisoners into slavery. The Pilgrims exiled an English lawyer named Thomas Morton, in part because he believed that Indigenous and colonists could peacefully coexist. William Bradford, who began writing his history of Plymouth in 1630, wrote about the Pilgrims arriving in “a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men” even though Patuxet looked more like a settled European farmland. Yet as the years after 1620 bore out, the migrants did not adhere to such principles when dealing with their Wampanoag and other Algonquian-speaking neighbors. The plan signed by many of the Mayflower’s male passengers demanded that colonists “Covenant & Combine ourselves into a Civil body politic, for our better ordering, & preservation.” They promised to work together to write “laws, ordinances, Acts, constitutions.” The signers pledged to work for the “advancement of the Christian faith.” Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’ ‘The Mayflower Compact, 1620.’ Library of Congress The Mayflower Compact nonetheless contained lofty ideals. So American self-government, however one defines it, was not born in Plymouth. And a year earlier, in 1619, English colonists in Virginia had created the House of Burgesses to advance self-rule in North America for subjects of King James I. ![]() ![]() Generations of American students have learned that the Compact was a stepping stone towards self-government, the defining feature of American constitutional democracy.īut did Plymouth really inspire democracy? After all, self-governing communities existed across Indigenous New England long before European migrants arrived. Plymouth nonetheless went on to attain a prominent place in the history of America, primarily due to two phenomena: It was the alleged site of the first Thanksgiving, and its founders drafted the Mayflower Compact, a 200-word document written and signed by 41 men on the ship. Unfortunately for those hoping to earn a quick buck, the colony never became an economic dynamo. But other English joined them, including some migrants seeking profits instead of heeding prophets. The Pilgrims, as they told their story traveled so they could practice their religion free from persecution. It was during these two crises that the histories of western Europe and Indigenous North America collided on the shores of Massachusetts Bay.ĭespite a number of advantages, including less competition for local resources because of the epidemic, Plymouth attracted far fewer English migrants than Virginia, which was settled in 1607, and Massachusetts, which was established in 1630. Shortly before the travelers’ arrival, the Wampanoag residents of Patuxet - the area in and around modern day Plymouth - had suffered a devastating, three-year epidemic, possibly caused by leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that can lead to meningitis, respiratory distress and liver failure. The Pilgrims’ decision to go to North America - and their deep attachment to their faith - was an outcome of the intense religious conflict roiling Europe after the Protestant Reformation. The establishment of Plymouth did not occur in a vacuum. So why does it have such a prominent place in the story of America? And why, until recently, did the more troubling aspects to Plymouth and its founding document, the Mayflower Compact, go ignored? Prophets and profits Relative to other settlements, the colony attracted few migrants. Native Americans had met Europeans in scores of places before 1620, so yet another encounter was hardly unique. ![]() Yet as a scholar of early 17th-century New England, I’ve always been puzzled by the glory heaped on the Pilgrims and their settlement in Plymouth. IBM has even outfitted a replica of the Mayflower with an AI navigating system that will allow the ship to trace the course of the original journey without any humans on board. ![]() The 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ voyage to Plymouth will be celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic with a “remembrance ceremony” with state and local officials and a museum exhibit in Plymouth, England. ![]()
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