What Is Thanksgiving?
We can find many, many varied historical accounts of the first Thanksgiving and its real origins from many points of view -- those of supposedly unbiased historians in volumes of books, those of Native American descent in oral and written tradition, and those of the Mayflower English settlers noted in old journals and documents. Who would not suspect that the first American Thanksgiving was a combination of all accounts?
Whether a person wishes to celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious observance, an acknowledgment of peace between explorers of the New World and its original inhabitants, or a time marking the beginnings of a genocide as two cultures collided, most historical writings about Thanksgiving cite the occurrence of an actual event (a harvest feast) in 1621 involving a day (or days) of a special occasion.
Who Were the So-called Pilgrims?
Or, can we?
We all grew up with a traditional view of the Pilgrims dressed in somber and straight-laced clothing with shades of grays and black and wide collars. In American grade schools, we made Pilgrim hats and learned Pilgrim traditions in addition to drawing scenes of a bountiful turkey feast. And, we all were asked to remember the Pilgrims in honor of these, our founding fathers, on this wonderful day.
The Pilgrim story actually began long before the Mayflower set sail when a group of religious dissidents from Scooby in the northern part of England believed it was necessary to separate from the Church of England. Persecuted in England, these "Separatists" moved to Holland in 1607/1608. At that time, Holland was a haven for the fleeing English Separatist families.
Historian Kathy Leigh stated ...
We all grew up with a traditional view of the Pilgrims dressed in somber and straight-laced clothing with shades of grays and black and wide collars. In American grade schools, we made Pilgrim hats and learned Pilgrim traditions in addition to drawing scenes of a bountiful turkey feast. And, we all were asked to remember the Pilgrims in honor of these, our founding fathers, on this wonderful day.
The Pilgrim story actually began long before the Mayflower set sail when a group of religious dissidents from Scooby in the northern part of England believed it was necessary to separate from the Church of England. Persecuted in England, these "Separatists" moved to Holland in 1607/1608. At that time, Holland was a haven for the fleeing English Separatist families.
Historian Kathy Leigh stated ...
"The Separatists did not recognize the established church, and some of them, at least, doubted that the Church of England was scriptural or that its administrations were valid. They held that any convenient number of believers might form a church and make or unmake their officers as they saw fit; that over the spiritual affairs of the church no bishop, council, synod, court, or sovereign had authority."
Other churches of the same faith might not, unasked, even offer advice. Their pastors had no standing outside the parish. They were known as Separatists, Independents, or Congregationalists.
After first settling in Amsterdam, the Scrooby congregation of Separatists moved to the Dutch settlement of Leiden in 1609. Leiden was a university town, vibrant and cosmopolitan. There, the refugees found jobs, sometimes as textile workers.
But, after a decade in Leiden with low wages, the danger of renewed war with Spain, and concern for their children's future, they sought seek solution.
Other churches of the same faith might not, unasked, even offer advice. Their pastors had no standing outside the parish. They were known as Separatists, Independents, or Congregationalists.
(Kathy Leigh, www.usgennet.org, September 22 2006)
After first settling in Amsterdam, the Scrooby congregation of Separatists moved to the Dutch settlement of Leiden in 1609. Leiden was a university town, vibrant and cosmopolitan. There, the refugees found jobs, sometimes as textile workers.
But, after a decade in Leiden with low wages, the danger of renewed war with Spain, and concern for their children's future, they sought seek solution.
(Alan Brinkly, American History, 11th Edition)
And, The Scroobies had noticed that their children were growing up more Dutch than English. They feared their solemn puritan beliefs would suffer through continued contact with the pleasure-loving people of Holland. At this point, the Leiden Separatist community decided to relocate to America.
(Pilgrim Hall Museum, May 18 2005)
In another interesting view of the Separatist journey to America, the Reverend Roger Fritts stated that only five in the group had actually suffered religious persecution in England. "In reality they wanted to sail to America because they hoped to establish in the New World the 'Kingdom of God' foretold in the book of Revelation. Not all of the Mayflower’s passengers were motivated by religion. About half were in fact Separatists, the people we now know as the Pilgrims. Another handful of those on board were sympathetic to the Separatist cause but weren’t actually part of that core group of dissidents. The remaining passengers were really just hired hands—laborers, soldiers and craftsmen of various stripes whose skills were required for both the transatlantic crossing and those vital first few months ashore.
(www.cedarlane.org, November 24 2002)
After severe storms the ship eventually reached Amsterdam, while the group captured in England was sent from one jail to the next. Having sold their property before attempting the escape, the prisoners owned nothing the courts could confiscate, and they were finally allowed to leave for Holland. Among the last to arrive in Amsterdam were John Robinson and William Brewster. With William Bradford, they would play leading roles in Pilgrim history.
The Separatists that boarded the Mayflower were also joined by other colonists recruited by the venture's financial backers. The Dutch were unusually tolerant, having themselves suffered religious persecution by Spain, so many people other than the Leiden Separatists had moved there.
The Englishmen who sailed on the Mayflower were a very unusual mixture of people from many different backgrounds.They came from both big cities like London and small villages. Some were fishermen; others were weavers, farmers, or even printers. About half of these original settlers had been living together as part of the aforementioned English church in Holland. Many were simply hoping to improve their lot in life.
Several of the Mayflower’s crew had made the journey at least once before, on either fishing or exploration trips. One notable figure, Stephen Hopkins, had even tried to settle in the New World 10 years earlier, in the Jamestown colony of Virginia.
The story of the Virginia settlers’ shipwreck and rescue made waves back home in England, and William Shakespeare freely admitted that he based his play The Tempest on the tale. He even may have named one of the characters, Stephano, after Stephen Hopkins, who was once one of Shakespeare’s neighbors.
(Beth Dunn. "5 Things You May Not Know About the Pilgrims."
history.com. November 19, 2012.)
According to the Pilgrim Hall Museum of Plymouth, Massachusetts (May 18, 2005), "Early Plymouth records refer to all passengers from the first four ships as 'First Comers.' These ships were the Mayflower (1620), the Fortune (1621), the Anne and the Little James (1623)."
The term "Pilgrim" was not generally used until the early 1800s. In fact, no single definition of "Pilgrim" exists. What we typically call Pilgrims today were really many families -- Separatists and non-Separatists and Separatist sympathizers alike -- all who traveled to America in the 1620s.
Reverend Roger Fritts of the Unitarian Universalist Church stated:
"Of the seventy adult passengers on the Mayflower, only twenty-seven adults were Pilgrims. Forty-three of the adult passengers the Pilgrims called 'Strangers.' The forty-three strangers had no religious interest in the colony. The Strangers were personal servants, indentured servants, or adventurous pioneers. Their goal was to seek their fortune in the New World, not to find religious freedom."
As it turned out, it was more profitable for the colonists to trade with Native people for beaver and otter furs, and then send the furs back, than try to catch fish. From the beginning, relations between the Wampanoags and the settlers they called “the coat men” focused on diplomacy and trade, not a naive handshake between Europeans and the Indians, who’d claimed the land for hundreds of years.
In August 1620, a group of about 40 so-called "Saints" joined a much larger group of (comparatively) secular colonists -- “Strangers,” to the Saints -- and set sail from England on two merchant ships: the Mayflower and the Speedwell. The Speedwell began to leak almost immediately, however, and the ships headed back to port. The travelers squeezed themselves and their belongings onto the Mayflower and set sail once again.
The First Voyage
Paula Aspell, executive producer of Mayflower, a six-hour reality series, said that the original Mayflower was not a comfortable ship. It was a merchant vessel — designed to transport cargo, not people. Folks slept on hammocks rigged below deck in tight quarters. During stormy weather, they were forbidden from coming on deck.
Dr. C. Matthew McMahon reported the first group of 102 Mayflower colonists braved harsh elements for almost three months to arrive off the coast of what is now Massachusetts.
Halfway across, the ship was damaged by a bad storm. Once there, It took almost a month for the search party to find a suitable place for their settlement, but they finally found it: an abandoned Wampanoag village with a plentiful water supply, good harbor, cleared fields and a hill on which to build a fort for protection.
The Mayflower dropped anchor in Provincetown Harbor on Novembr 22, 1620. Plymouth was not the Pilgrims’ first landing spot in the New World. The settlers had originally hoped to make for the mouth of the Hudson River and find fertile farmland somewhere north of present-day New York City, but the bad weather forced them to retreat. Five weeks before coming ashore in Plymouth, the Pilgrims docked in at what is today Provincetown Harbor.
(www.cedarlane.org, November 24 2002)
Financing the Journey
It cost a lot of money to sail across the ocean and bring everything needed to start a new colony.
According to Plimouth Plantation (www.plimoth.org):
"Since the English colonists were all of the 'middlin sort,' neither very poor nor very rich, they depended upon some wealthy men in London to pay for everything. In return they promised to work together as a company for 7 year's time. At the end of their 7-year contract, the colonists would get land in the 'New World' and the wealthy men in London would be even wealthier because of all the fish sent back."
But, when they anchored in the New World, some of these passengers thought they could do as they pleased since they were outside the bounds of English law. So they threatened to take their freedom as soon as they got on land.
To solve the problem, the Pilgrims wrote the Mayflower Compact. The Compact was an agreement signed by all the men on board-including the indentured servants-promising to abide by laws that would be drawn up and agreed upon by all male members of the community. The women were not allowed to participate in the governing process.
(Duane A. Cline, www.rootsweb.ancestry.com, 2006)
The Separatists returned to London to get organized. John T. Marck, author and freelance writer, revealed that the wealthy men financing the exploration were members of the Virginia Company, who had been granted permission my King James. The 70 English merchant financiers were known as the "Adventurers," and money needed to charter the ship and buy the provisions was raised by taking stock at ten pounds a share. This stock was derived by the colonists selling their estates and putting their money into the common stock. The joint-stock company they invested in hoped to make a profit from the fur trade, from fishing, and from any other method they could invent.
The Virginia Company gave them permission to establish a settlement, or “plantation,” on the East Coast between 38 and 41 degrees north latitude (roughly between the Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the Hudson River). And the King of England gave them permission to leave the Church of England, “provided they carried themselves peaceably.”
As it turned out, it was more profitable for the colonists to trade with Native people for beaver and otter furs, and then send the furs back, than try to catch fish. From the beginning, relations between the Wampanoags and the settlers they called “the coat men” focused on diplomacy and trade, not a naive handshake between Europeans and the Indians, who’d claimed the land for hundreds of years.
("The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving," www.aboutfamouspeople.com)
In August 1620, a group of about 40 so-called "Saints" joined a much larger group of (comparatively) secular colonists -- “Strangers,” to the Saints -- and set sail from England on two merchant ships: the Mayflower and the Speedwell. The Speedwell began to leak almost immediately, however, and the ships headed back to port. The travelers squeezed themselves and their belongings onto the Mayflower and set sail once again.
The First Voyage
Paula Aspell, executive producer of Mayflower, a six-hour reality series, said that the original Mayflower was not a comfortable ship. It was a merchant vessel — designed to transport cargo, not people. Folks slept on hammocks rigged below deck in tight quarters. During stormy weather, they were forbidden from coming on deck.
(Dan Oldenwald, Current, November 3 2003)
Dr. C. Matthew McMahon reported the first group of 102 Mayflower colonists braved harsh elements for almost three months to arrive off the coast of what is now Massachusetts.
Halfway across, the ship was damaged by a bad storm. Once there, It took almost a month for the search party to find a suitable place for their settlement, but they finally found it: an abandoned Wampanoag village with a plentiful water supply, good harbor, cleared fields and a hill on which to build a fort for protection.
The Mayflower dropped anchor in Provincetown Harbor on Novembr 22, 1620. Plymouth was not the Pilgrims’ first landing spot in the New World. The settlers had originally hoped to make for the mouth of the Hudson River and find fertile farmland somewhere north of present-day New York City, but the bad weather forced them to retreat. Five weeks before coming ashore in Plymouth, the Pilgrims docked in at what is today Provincetown Harbor.
(APuritansMind.com)
It took ten years to transfer most of the rest of the community from Europe to Plymouth. The many ships after the Mayflower carried members of the congregation. Some, including pastor John Robinson, died before they could arrange passage.
Calvanism In The New World
Loraine Boettner, American theologian and author, stated that Calvanism came to American in the Mayflower, and George Bancroft, one of the greatest American historians, said the Pilgrim Fathers were "Calvinist in their faith according to the straightest system." The Pilgrims followed Calvinist doctrine, just as the Puritans did. However, the Pilgrims were not Puritans. They were Calvinist dissenters from the state Church of England (the Anglican Church).
John Calvin was a French reformer and a prominent influence throughout the 16th Century because of his role in the confessional and ecclesiastical debates of the day. Calvin believed in the predestination of human events, and thought Christian religious art and sculpture were forms of pagan idolatry. He practiced plainness, simplicity, and strict morality.
Today, this term Calvinist also refers to the doctrines and practices of the Reformed churches of which Calvin was an early leader. Estimates say of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed.
Loraine Boettner, American theologian and author, stated that Calvanism came to American in the Mayflower, and George Bancroft, one of the greatest American historians, said the Pilgrim Fathers were "Calvinist in their faith according to the straightest system." The Pilgrims followed Calvinist doctrine, just as the Puritans did. However, the Pilgrims were not Puritans. They were Calvinist dissenters from the state Church of England (the Anglican Church).
John Calvin was a French reformer and a prominent influence throughout the 16th Century because of his role in the confessional and ecclesiastical debates of the day. Calvin believed in the predestination of human events, and thought Christian religious art and sculpture were forms of pagan idolatry. He practiced plainness, simplicity, and strict morality.
(videos.howstuffworks.com)
Today, this term Calvinist also refers to the doctrines and practices of the Reformed churches of which Calvin was an early leader. Estimates say of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, and 400,000 were German or Dutch Reformed.
In addition to this, the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles, and many French Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus, about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin.
(www.oldtruth, November 24 2005)
Conclusions
Plimouth Plantation (www.plimoth.org) stated a revolutionary Thanksgiving idea:
"In fact, the Pilgrims weren't really pilgrims at all! The word 'pilgrim' refers to someone who travels a great distance to a special or sacred place for religious reasons. But the people who came on the Mayflower in 1620 and settled on the site of modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, didn't come just for religious reasons. Mainly, they came for economic ones—to build a better life for themselves and their families."
Plimouth Plantation historians call the Pilgrims "English colonists." The strict religious separatists were the smallest group within the ranks of the colonists. But, they were also the most organized.
("Who Were the Pilgrims...Really? www.globalstudentnetwork.com)
Even today, the group known as "Pilgrims" are often confused with the Puritans of the same time era. They were not the same although superficially they did share some of the same characteristics.
(www.globalstudentnetwork.com)
The so-called "Pilgrims" (Scrooby colonists) came first in 1620 to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Then, the Puritans arrived some ten years later at Massachusetts Bay. The Puritans were a much larger religious group that eventually took over the Plymouth Colony.
So, call these adventurous folk Separatists, Pilgrims, Calvanists, or Saints. It is a matter of semantics and historical reference. Just know that the group, after conquering unbelievable hardships, established a successful colony in America. Founded on religion? Yes, but ... understand that they never made any attempts to convert outsiders to their faith, including the Native Americans they encountered and the nonbelievers who’d joined them as laborers in England. It is better to conclude -- the ordinary people at Plymouth Colony revered freedom and liberty, the tenets of the government established by the United States.
May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
and your pies take the prize,
and may your Thanksgiving dinner
stay off your thighs!
-Unknown
No comments:
Post a Comment