The Myths of the Pilgrims
Francis J. Bremer looks beyond the myths of the Pilgrims as caricatures rooted in Thanksgiving in this excerpt from One Small Candle: The Story of the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England.
Every November many Americans pause to remember what they have come to call the “First Thanksgiving.” In the process they draw on positive and negative stereotypes about the “Pilgrim Fathers” that have developed over the centuries. While the story of those who settled in Plymouth has been told many times in history books, poems, novels, and films, each version carries a different emphasis and perspective, and represents varying degrees of accuracy. In recent years there have been attempts to explore the commercial elements of the establishment of the colony, purported social-economic clashes among the settlers, the deterioration of relations with the Native population, and the transatlantic diplomacy of Edward Winslow, who emerged as one of the colony’s leaders, just to name a few. Remarkably few of these examine the religious motivation of those who journeyed on the Mayflower and the ways in which their religion shaped their lives and society.
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The Plymouth story starts with ordinary men and women such as William and Mary Brewster, who struggled in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England to decide how they should understand and relate to God. Their answers led them to organize themselves into a distinct religious body and separate from the national church, a decision that resulted in persecution by the English church and government. Faced with this hostility, the congregation became refugees, settling in the Netherlands, where they experienced many social, economic, and cultural challenges. During this period they came to refine their beliefs and moved from a rigid separatism to a position that allowed some interaction with puritans who had not separated from the Church of England, as well as other religious groups. When they came to believe that their ability to preserve their values and pass them on to a new generation was threatened, a majority of the congregation determined to move yet again, leading eventually to the settlement of Plymouth.
Remarkably few of these examine the religious motivation of those who journeyed on the Mayflower and the ways in which their religion shaped their lives and society.
For most of the 1620s Plymouth was the only substantial settlement in New England. The members of the Scrooby-Leiden congregation (a majority of the settlers) worked to define their faith and religious practice, trying to remain open to further light as they sought the inspiration of the Spirit in their reading of the scriptures. Central to their efforts was a belief in the control of the church by ordinary members, and this Congregationalism shaped political as well as religious institutions.
The first colonists of Massachusetts, arriving in Salem in 1628, turned to Plymouth for advice on how to organize their own churches. What became known as the New England Way — puritan Congregationalism — evolved from this interaction. Plymouth leaders were frequently consulted by their counterparts in Massachusetts and were invited to participate in the clerical assemblies that sought to define New England orthodoxy. Over the years that system was challenged by more radical believers such as Roger Williams on one side, and those seeking a more authoritarian, clergy-dominated Presbyterian system on the other. Plymouth leaders continued to insist on the empowerment of laypeople in their churches and were more moderate than some of their neighbors in the treatment of dissenters such as Roger Williams and Samuel Gorton.
The autonomy of Plymouth came to an end when it was merged with the other colonies in the region into the Dominion of New England, created by King James II in 1684. New Englanders responded to England’s Glorious Revolution with their own revolt in 1689, but when William and Mary restored much of the old order, Plymouth was incorporated into Massachusetts under that colony’s charter of 1691. This book ends decades earlier, when the distinctive character of Plymouth was lost as the economic and cultural dominance of Massachusetts came to overwhelm the older colony.
Four key themes are woven into this narrative of Plymouth. One is the identification of the Scrooby-Leiden-Plymouth congregation as being solidly within the puritan movement. Another is the importance of lay leadership in the shaping of their religious values and institutions. The central character in this is William Brewster, the layman who led the congregation in its first years in Scrooby and was responsible for religious services during most of the settlers’ first decade in the colony. Little of Brewster’s own writing has survived, but much of his story can be told from the records and impressions others left behind, and his intellectual development can be illustrated by analyzing the contents of his library.
The first colonists of Massachusetts, arriving in Salem in 1628, turned to Plymouth for advice on how to organize their own churches.
A third theme is the commitment of these believers to a search for what they referred to as “further light,” a better understanding of God and the ways he wanted his saints to live. There were beliefs they considered foundational, but on many issues they were more open to discussion and the toleration of diversity than was the case with many puritans. The evolution of the way they defined their relationship with conforming puritans in the Church of England is a prime example of this.
Finally, this book argues for a greater influence of Plymouth on the religious institutions of Massachusetts than has generally been acknowledged. In his history Of Plimoth Plantation, the governor William Bradford claimed of his colony that “as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone onto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.”As history has borne out, this was more than an idle boast.
Francis J. Bremer is Professor Emeritus of History at Millersville University and the Coordinator of New England Beginnings, a partnership formed to commemorate the cultures that shaped New England four hundred years ago. An eminent scholar of Puritanism in the Atlantic world, he is the author of the prize-winning John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father (OUP, 2003); First Founders: American Puritans and Puritanism in the Atlantic World; and Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds, among other titles.
