THE PILGRIMS

WHO and what were the Pilgrims and in what way did they differ from the Puritans? They both were English and both lived in the same generation. The Pilgrims were a small band of staunch men, women and children who came to America for religious freedom. They were a part of a great movement. The Protestant Reformation, set on foot in England during the reign of Henry VIII, was finally accomplished in 1588 by the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It did not secure freedom of action or worship, however. There was no country then where such liberty was allowed; in fact, such a thing had never been thought of. The Reformation made the Sovereign, instead of the Pope, the head of the church in England, and there were changes in doctrine and ceremonials, but everyone was required to attend church whether he wished to or not and was also taxed to support it. The Bible had just been translated from Latin into English, and for the first time it was being generally circulated (1557-60).

Among the Protestant reformers there were many who were not satisfied with the doctrines and ritual of the English church. They wished to simplify the government of the church and drop some of the ceremonies. This they considered purifying the church, which gave them the name of Puritans. Most of them had no thought or intention of leaving the Established Church. They wished to stay and be a part of it, but to change it according to their ideas.

EDWARD WINSLOW, third Governor of Plymouth Colony. Great-grandfather of Edward Winslow, builder of The Mayflower Society House. Painted during a visit to England. Winslow is the only Pilgrim of whom there exists an authentic picture

Early in 1567 a number of ministers, despairing of getting the desired changes, made up their minds to separate from the church and hold religious services of their own. Robert Brown was one of them and went about the country advocating this policy of separation. Those who adopted it became known as Separatists or Brownists. They did not believe in having bishops rule over them. Some denied that the queen was head of the church. This was called treason. These were the people who became Pilgrims. The Puritansalso questioned the spiritual authority of the bishops and claimed the right to worship as they saw fit, but they did nothing in particular about it.

The Separatists, or better, Independents, which describes them accurately, established a little church in the hamlet of Scrooby, near Lincoln, where a congregation listened to the eloquent preaching of John Robinson. English laws provided imprisonment for those who refused to attend the Established Church, or were present at unlawful assemblies, with the further penalties, that the convicted must conform within three months or leave the country. If he refused, he should be deemed a felon and put to death without the benefit of clergy. The little church at Scrooby could not continue under these conditions. Some of the Separatists had given their lives, some were in prison, and others were in exile. Brown had fled the country, and so its members determined to cross to Holland. Under existing laws a family could not migrate without a license, and they were denied one. It was as dangerous to remain as it was to attempt to leave secretly. Meetings were held, and Separatists from Scrooby, Bristol, Exeter, Boston, and sundry other places planned to flee.

In October 1607 they made their first attempt to leave from Boston in a chartered ship. They were seized, searched, and imprisoned. After a month all but seven of the principal men were released.

The next year they arranged with a Dutch ship to meet them at a port near Grimsby at the mouth of the Humber, but the cautious skipper got scared and after taking a few of the women and children aboard, cast off, leaving the husbands and a majority to be seized by the sheriff and his men. Following this, there was no mass effort to cross to Holland, but, with much difficulty and by departingone or two at a time, all got over. After a short stay in Amsterdam they made their way to Leyden. Here they were joined by other refugees from England, until there were more than a thousand. The Pilgrims remained in Leyden for eleven years (1609 to 1620). Brewster became a printer, Robinson entered the University, and all found work in different occupations. They labored hard and continuously. They found in Holland peace and the religious freedom they had left their English homes for, but there were other factors which made them, after a decade, seriously consider leaving Holland. They wished the protection of the English flag; they were losing the English language, and their children were marrying among the Dutch. After careful consideration they decided that the Virginia Colony, extending from Florida to New York, offered the best opportunity. Because of their separation from the Established Church, the King would not guarantee them protection, but agreed not to molest them, and under this agreement they obtained a patent from the London Company to settle on the New Jersey Coast.

It was necessary to secure financial aid, and this they obtained from a group of London merchants, known as the Adventurers. The contract was an oppressive one and became more so as the colonists built their houses; but it cannot be called unfair, considering the financial risk involved. It provided that for seven years the income of the colony should go into a common fund and from this the colonists would get their living. At the end of the period the investment and profits, real and personal, should be equally divided between the Adventurers and the Planters in accordance with the number of shares each held. Its effect was to establish a community life which, long before the seven years were up, resulted in embarrassment and open disaffection, and a compromise betweenthe parties was effected by which the Adventurers were to be paid the sum of eighteen hundred pounds sterling 26 November 1626. Here was Communism pure and simple, and it was a monumental failure and was given up after three years. If Communism cannot succeed under these conditions, with the type of people the Pilgrims were, speaking the same language, governed by the same laws, with common history, tradition, and memories, how could Communism possibly prove a success under far less favorable circumstances today?

The conditions upon which the Pilgrims secured their transportation to America indicate the exhausted state of their finances, and they probably never would have given their assent to the conditions imposed, if not absolutely forced to do so. The famous Captain John Smith wrote in 1624 that the Adventurers who raised the money to begin and supply the Plymouth plantation were about seventy in number, some merchants, some handicraftsmen, some risking great sums, some small, as their affection served. They dwelt mostly about London, knit together by a voluntary combination in a society, without constraint or penalty, aiming to do good and plant religion. The sad intelligence conveyed by theMayfloweron her return to London of the sufferings, sickness, and death, produced a disheartening effect in the most zealous friends, and the necessary supplies required by the infant colony were refused, though they had been promised.

After the Pilgrims had secured financial aid the little band (July 1620) left Leyden and sailed from Delfts-haven in Holland in theSpeedwell, which they had bought for the purpose, to Southampton where theMayflowerwas awaiting them with friends. Two weeks later theMayflowerand theSpeedwellleft Southampton for America. TheMayflowerof one hundred and eighty tons burden (theQueenMaryof today is over eighty-three thousand tons) had been chartered to transport a part of the Leyden congregation to America.

Before they were out of the English Channel theSpeedwellbegan leaking badly and they ran into Dartmouth for repairs. 2 September they made a second start, but trouble developed and they returned this time to Plymouth. Here they reorganized the expedition. TheSpeedwellwas left behind, some of her passengers were taken on theMayflowerand the others left in England. On 16 September 1620 theMayflowersailed again and ten weeks later, after a voyage filled with hardships and peril, having been driven far off her course, came to anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. When the Cape was sighted it was decided to sail south for a permanent home, but before the day was over they found themselves in dangerous shoals and roaring breakers and turned back to settle beyond the limits of their patent.

Only about one half of the passengers on theMayflowerwere members of the Leyden congregation. Other motives, without thought of religious dissent or separation from the Established Church of England, had added many strangers to the company, and there arose mutterings of discontent among them.

It became evident, therefore, that some means should be devised to maintain law and order as they were out of the jurisdiction of their patent. To accomplish this the members of the Pilgrim Company met in the cabin of theMayfloweroff the shores of Cape Cod on 21 November 1620 and banded themselves together by the now famous document known as the Mayflower Compact.

TheMayflower Compactis a great contribution to civil liberty and democracy; it ranks with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Our democracy was based on it from the landing of the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims established what they planned. The Plymouth settlement was the start of religiousfreedom. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. They were unimportant people, and their departure attracted little or no attention. Some were educated, others were not; some had means, most little or nothing, but all had character and courage. We call them ordinary people, but their accomplishment made history. When they wrote and signed the Compact they gave the world a new political idea for government by the people, and when, under the Compact, they organized the government of Plymouth, they laid the foundation of political liberty for this nation.

Students of governmental history the world over, as well as statesmen, now know of the Mayflower Compact and discuss it. It cannot receive too much publicity, and there is no better place to reprint it than here in this story of the â€œHouse of Edward Winslowâ€ where it can be easily and frequently perused.

In no part of the world up to then did there exist a government of just and equal laws. It is the first incident where a government was formed by the governed, by their consent in writing at one time. One hundred and fifty years later its principles really framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and our laws today are interwoven with the ideals of this band of Pilgrims.

One month after the signing of the Compact, the exploring party of eighteen men in the shipâ€™s shallop that had left the ship 16 December, landed at Plymouth. Plymouth was not just what they wanted, but as Brewster said, it was the best they had seen. They returned to the ship and on 26 December 1620 theMayflowerand her passengers reached Plymouth. It was 31 March that the last of them went ashore for good.

On 15 April 1621 theMayflowersailed on her return trip, leaving every one of the survivors of the Pilgrim Company behind. It was a more striking picture than her departure from England. A situationmore discouraging for the Pilgrims could hardly be conceived.

Some interesting occurrences which happened on board theMayflowerduring the trip, are taken from the manuscript of â€œPrinceâ€™s Annals,â€ in his handwriting. Prince had drawn his pen diagonally across the passages, and they do not appear in his published work. They were first printed in the April number 1847 theNew England Historical and Genealogical Register. It reads:

â€œIn a mighty storme a lustie yonge man called John Howland came upon some occasion above ye gratings, was with a seele of ye ship throwne into ye sea; but it pleased God yt he caught hould of ye top saile halliards, which hung overboard and rane out at length; yet he held his hould (though he was sundrie fadomes under water) till he was hald up by ye same rope to ye brink of ye water and then with a boat hook and other means got into ye shipe again, and his life saved, and though he was somewhat ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both of church and comonwelth.â€

And the manuscript goes on to tell of a proud, very profane young man, one of the seamen of husky and able body, which made him the more haughty, who was always annoying the poor people in their sickness by cursing them daily and telling them he hoped to help cast half of them overboard before they came to their journeyâ€™s end and if he ever, by any was gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner and so was himself the first to be thrown overboard.

John Carver, who had been chosen Governor, died the first winter, and William Bradford succeeded him. The Colony grew slowly. By 1630 it had but 300 persons in it, but it had paid the London merchants. There is little question that the contract was burdensome and oppressive. But as proof that the Pilgrims harbored noresentment is this laudable act: the Plymouth Colony General Court in 1660 ordered that twenty pounds should be sent to a Mr. Ling, one of the Merchant Adventurers, â€œwho had fallen to decay and had felt great extremity of poverty, the same twenty pounds being bestowed on him towards his relief and if it was not given voluntarily that the amount that fell short â€˜beeâ€™ made up out of the â€˜Countrey stockeâ€™ by the Treasurer.â€

The Colony made a treaty with Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoag Indians, which lasted until broken by his son in 1675. By 1640 the population had increased to over 3000.

As for the Puritans, they became powerful in England and comprised many men of wealth and culture and social standing. Little bodies of them, encouraged by the example of the Pilgrims, began to settle upon the shores of Massachusetts. In 1628 John Endicott and a shipload took command of the place the Indians called Naumkeag and gave it the Bible name of Salem, or Peace. When they arrived they found Roger Conant and his followers, who were, after several years of struggling, happily settled. Endicott practically kicked them out. Within a few years all of Conantâ€™s followers had moved across the river and established new homes in what became Beverly.

In 1629 a number of leading Puritans in England bought of the Plymouth Company a large tract of land, bounded by the Charles and Merrimac Rivers and stretching inland indefinitely. They got a charter from Charles I and incorporated as the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay. Under John Winthrop, a wise and able man, they came over to Salem, bringing 1000 persons, with horses and cattle, and during that year Charlestown, Chelsea, and a small hilly peninsular, called by the Indians Shawmut and by the English Trimountain, or Tremont, and soon changed to Boston, fromwhich the leading settlers had come, were settled. By 1634 nearly 4000 settlers had arrived from England, coming usually in congregations, led by their minister and settled together in parishes or townships until there were about twenty.

In 1636 it was voted to establish a college three miles from Boston at a place called New Town, now Cambridge. A young clergyman, John Harvard, bequeathed his books and half his estate and the new college was called by his name.

The colonization of New England was a complicated affair. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the largest. South of it was the Plymouth Colony, the oldest. Then there was Rhode Island and Providence Plantation and the Connecticut Colony. In 1643 these four Colonies formed a confederation for defense called the United Colonies of New England. In 1692 King William arranged things to his liking; he annexed the Plymouth Colony to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but let Connecticut and Rhode Island keep their beloved charters, and so the Plymouth Colony forever after remained a part of Massachusetts.

The establishment of the New England Confederacy, the division of the ancient church, the annexation to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the loss of wealth and population, marked the end of Plymouth as an independent Colony, but not of the great influence which the Plymouth Colony and the Pilgrims have exerted, and, we hope, will continue to exert with increasing force, in perpetuating, as it originally established, our democratic form of government.

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