In 1593, as part of Queen Elizabeth's rule and Anglican Church reforms, The Act Against Seditious Sectaries made it a felony to not attend an Anglican church or chapel's services, pray as they prayed, or in short, the act demanded "conformity to her majesty's laws and statutes" and to the one who would not "shall forfeit and lose to her majesty all his goods and chattels for ever, and shall further lose all his lands, tenements, and hereditaments"
As noted in a earlier post, England and large part of Europe experienced a period of religious unrest. The initial development of the reformation in England is interesting in that it starts from a fundamentally different place when compared with other Protestant movements. In England, the initial claim is simple, that English Crown has supreme authority over the church in England and not the Pope. Compared with Luther's or Calvin's movements which start with individuals becoming involved in religion by doing things like reading scripture in their native tongue. The Reformation in other parts of Europe is more of a grassroots movement that stems from differing interpretations about the state of mankind and the nature of their relationship with God and how to earn forgiveness, as opposed to a political argument about who has authority to preside over church affairs.
Again as noted before, this means in England that state and the church are effectively one and a perceived threat to the church is also a threat to the Crown. This is a messy place to be because the English Crown rules over Catholic, Anglican, and other new Protestant subjects. One such Protestant movement was Puritanism, also known as Separatists or Pilgrims.
William Bradford describes the Pilgrim's position in opposition Queen Mary's Catholic Church and Elizabeth's Anglican Church like this:
"The one side laboured to have the right worship of God and discipline of Christ established in the-church, according to the simplicity of the gospel, without the mixture of men's inventions; and to have and to be ruled by the laws of God's Word, dispensed in those offices, and by those officers of Pastors, Teachers and Elders, etc. according to the Scriptures. The other party, though under many colours and presences, endeavoured to have the episcopal dignity (after the popish manner) with their large power and jurisdiction still retained; with all those courts, canons and ceremonies...(after the transition to the Anglican Church) And that their offices and callings, courts and canons, etc. were unlawful and antichristian: being such as have no warrant in the Word of God, but the same that were used in popery and still retained. "
Bradford likens his congregation to the Apostles and early Saints, who were persecuted by the Roman Empire. But his writings also seek to find a simpler church, without the manmade constructs of the Roman Church or Church of England. And because they are not willing to submit to the Crown's authority, after enduring some persecution, Bradford's congregation flees to the Netherlands.
"or some were taken and clapped up in prison, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped their hands; and the most were fain to flee and leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood...Yet seeing themselves thus molested, and that there was no hope of their continuance there, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries, where they heard was freedom of religion for all men"
There's a really important line here, that we'll certainly touch more on it as we get to the Bill of Rights, but the Puritans have left England to find "freedom of religion for all men".
While able to be Puritans in the Netherlands, the going is rough, this group of English immigrants isn't really a part of Dutch society and has trouble finding employment. While not threatened by the English Crown, it isn't exactly the future they had envisioned for their church. They begin thinking about migrating again, this time a bit further away:
"The place they had thoughts on was some of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and brutish men which range up and down, little otherwise than the wild beasts of the same."
Bradford makes clear their opinion of the Native Americans which they may encounter, continuing in a line of European Christian superiority we have heard before. But despite many other risks, he's able to detail, the group decides that the risks of staying in the Netherlands are higher (in particular a concern about war with the Spanish), so they hatch a plan to work with the English to help establish a colony north of Virginia to be part of New England. It's a win-win of sorts, the English Crown (James I) is able to send the Separatists away across an ocean (arguably harder to make much trouble), the Puritans are able to practice their flavor of Christianity, and England gets another foothold in the Americas.
The colony's charter is known as the Mayflower Compact. The compact is an unusual document as the Puritans sign it as an agreement to become a single body politic loyal to the Crown. Some say it's an early example of a constitution.
There voyage is delayed and when they do set sail, they are already behind schedule. The Puritans disembark in Cape Code in November, as noted in previous posts, colonization is hard. And in New England in November, it's even harder, They are quick to send out scouts on the Nov 15, they have brief contact with local people who "fled from them and ran up into the woods, and the English followed them, partly to see if they could speak with them, and partly to discover if there might not be more of them lying in ambush. But the Indians seeing themselves thus followed, they again forsook the woods and ran away."
The year is 1620, Columbus' voyage is 118 years in the past, epidemics and the attempt to enslave Native Americans have rippled out from the Caribbean where the process started and have impacted even the Wampanoag civilization. It's no surprise that the local people run from the English, the local Patuxet tribe were totally wiped out by European disease, and the lone survivor, Tisquantum, had been captured and sold into slavery.
The scouts find fresh water, and they find something else the Pilgrims are in much need of, food. (Again it's November in New England, there won't be any crops to plant) Bradford reports that the scouts "found in them divers fair Indian baskets filled with corn, and some in ears, fair and good, of divers colors, which seemed to them a very goodly sight... So, their time limited them being expired, they returned to the ship lest they should be in fear of their safety; and took with them part of the corn and buried up the rest.". From Bradford's accounting, the corn is stolen, and Edward Winslow's account of foraging sounds similar:
"a flock of geese in the river, at which one made a shot, and killed a couple of them...This done, we marched to place where he had the corn formerly, and digged and found the rest...we also digged a place a little further off and found a bottle of oil...more corn, two or three basket full of Indian wheat, and a bag of beans...in all about 10 bushels."
The Pilgrims spend much of November and December scouting, looking for food, fish, being afraid of the calls of wolves, foxes, and afraid that the local people will attack them. They explore and find other deserted homes and signs of the epidemic which had run rampant.
"We found a great burying place, one part whereof was encompassed with a large palisade like a churchyard...within it was full of graves, some bigger, and some less...we digged none of them up, but only viewed them."
The next morning they have skirmish with the local people who fire arrows while the Pilgrims return fire with muskets. Two weeks later, they have beer on Christmas and begin to regularly describe the weather as foul. Winslow describes how winter takes its toll on them:
"wading at Cape Code had brought much weakness amongst us, which increased everyday more and more, and after was the cause of many deaths"
Having suffered much over the winter and living off of stolen food, enough of the Pilgrims survive the winter to begin doing some musket training in March. On March 16, an English speaking Native American comes alone to greet them, Samoset:
"bade us welcome, for he had learned some broken English amongst Englishmen...he was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind...he was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all..." - Edward Winslow
They share a meal with him, and he explains how the local tribe, Patuxet, had been wiped out by a plague. He spends the day with the Pilgrims and spends the night at Stephen Hopkin's house. He gives them the lay of the land, let's them know that the Massasoits' Wampanoags and Nausets are their nearest neighbors and explains that the tribes are weary of Europeans:
"These people are ill affected toward the English, by reason of one Hunt, a master of a ship, who deceived the people and then under color of trucking with them, twenty out of this very place where we inhabit, and seven men from Nauset, and carried them away, and sold them for slaves like a wretched man that cares not what mischief he doth for his profit" - Winslow
There's some amount of hope in Winslow's tone, here. While this might not be abolitionist speech, it's certainly not a ringing endorsement of slavery either. From what I can gather, it does not appear that settlers in the original Plymouth Colony engaged in the slave trade. That said, later Puritans in Massachusetts would. By 1638, enslaved Africans are being bought in Massachusetts.
On the 22nd of March 1621, Samoset returns to visit the Puritans, and brings Tisquantum with him. Tisquantum helps organize a parley between Chief Massasoit and Edward Winslow. A successful meeting is had. The chief and the governor eventually meet and organize a peace which to paraphrase had 5 points: 1. Neither should harm each other 2. Tools should not be stolen 3. Mutual defense from outside threats 4. Confederate tribes could join the peace 5. Not to come armed to each others villages. Like Jamestown, the Plymouth Colony initially enjoys a good relationship with it's neighbors thanks in large part to Samoset and Tisquantum acting as bridges between cultures. A successful trading relationship allows the Plymouth Colony to turn a profit in furs.
Trust between different peoples is a hard to thing to build, and it relies not only on leaders like tribal chiefs and colonial governors to build a relationship but for all of their advisors and subordinates to work the peace as well. Winslow describes how in the spring of 1622, Tisquantum is caught trying to play the different tribes and Puritans against each other. The rationale for this isn't entirely clearly, it may have simply been an ego thing, it does however anger Chief Massasoit who demands that Tisquantum be executed. The Pilgrims refuse because they recognize the value he brings to their colony. Winslow notes later that "Massasoit seemed to frown on us, and neither came or sent to us as formerly", and it seems plain that the relationship is coming undone.
To further complicate matters, other settlers arrive and plan to settle in the Bay of the Massachusetts. When the new settlers "had not been long from us, ere Indians, filled our ears with clamors against them, for stealing their come" And at some point, word reaches Plymouth that some of the tribes plan to attack the new settlers. Captain Myles Standish kills "Pecksuot and Witowamat, whose head was there, the other three were Powahs, being yet living" escaped. Winslow describes the results for the Native American community like this:
"This sudden and unexpected execution...hath so terrified and amazed them...they forsook their houses, running to and fro like men distracted, living in swamps and other desert places, and so brought manifold diseases amongst themselves, whereof many are dead."
A functional relationship between the local people and the Pilgrims has lasted from 1621 to 1624 and when the wheels came off, they came off hard. Both William Bradford and Edward Winslow document having celebrated a feast in 1621 along with Massasoit's Wampanoags. Abraham Lincoln made this a national holiday, Thanksgiving. The story has been terribly told over time with people not really knowing who the Puritans / Pilgrims are, and not really being aware of the delicate relationship between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags. The story is as nuanced and complex as most chapters in American history from the Pilgrim's stealing food to survive, to novel ideas about the freedom of religion, to successful relationship building across cultures, and to seeing how quickly and easily trust can be broken. There's a lot to unpack here and reflect on when next we celebrate Thanksgiving.
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