Plymouth Plantation / Mayflower Compact

¶ … Plymouth Plantation / Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower Compact - of Plymouth Plantation

What does the word "Pilgrims" mean to the typical American citizen in 2007? Most likely a substantial number of people hearing the word spoken will think immediately of Thanksgiving, and how those first courageous arrivals from Southampton, England, shared a meal with the Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. But there is a lot more to the Pilgrims' story than most American citizens are aware of, and that detailed story unfolds dramatically in the writings of William Bradford, who penned of Plymouth Plantation, a journal of the first 30 years of Plymouth Colony, and the Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower Compact is actually considered by some unofficially as first legal and social document that set out guidelines and rules for the original Plymouth settlers to follow. Some scholars allude to the Mayflower Compact as the foundation to the U.S. Constitution. The journal of Plymouth Plantation is "the single most complete authority for the story of the Pilgrims and the early years of the Colony they founded," according to Pilgrim Hall Museum (www.pilgrimhall.org)(PHM) which is located in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Historians consider the Bradford journal "...as the preeminent work of 17th Century America," PHM records reflect. It hung in Boston's Old South Church Library in the 1760s, then disappeared, to be rediscovered in the library of the Bishop of London in the 1850s. In 1897, it was returned to the State Library in the State House in Boston, where it is available to the public.

In Bradford's of Plymouth Plantation journal he discusses how his group struggled because of the ongoing persecution of Christians in England in the early 1600s. Freedom to worship as they wished to worship was not an option in England, so Bradford's offshoot Christian group - who were "hunted and persecuted on every side" (Bradford, 158) for creating their own style of worship - broke away from the Church of England and fled to Holland in 1607 and 1608, and then back to England, to prepare for the arduous journey across the Atlantic to the New World.

It's important to note that freedom of religion was the principal reason for the Pilgrims' flight. And of course there was much emotion surrounding the planning of the trek from England; "...the dangers were great," Bradford writes on page 161, "but not desperate." Still, staying in England was like living "in exile," so remaining on English soil was not an option. Once on board the Mayflower heading towards the New World, the real adventure began.

"very profane young man" (Bradford 166) on board caused problems by rudely cursing at those who had seasickness, and Bradford said the seaman indicated he wished to "help cast half of them [passengers] overboard before they came to their journey's end." But the tables were turned on this unruly young man. "...It pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first thrown overboard." Apparently the young man's bad karma caught up with him.

Bradford describes terrible storms and many challenges during the crossing of the Atlantic; "...the winds were so fierce and the seas so high," Bradford writes (167), the sails had to be taken down, but they survived the frightening journey, and upon arrival on the shores of Cape Cod, on the 11th of November, 1620, began the adventure of their lifetimes.

Bradford was not shy in his journal about shedding light on everything, including "A Horrible Case of Beastiality" (190-191). It happened that a young man named Thomas Granger was indicted for unconscionable acts of intimacy with a mare, a cow, "two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey." That report from Bradford is about as bizarre as anything the most demented movie director could dream up in Hollywood. And while Bradford writes that he was sparing future readers of his journal of the "particulars," he reports that prior to Granger's execution the "mare and then the cow and the rest of the lesser cattle will killed before his face, according to the law." That "law" was taken from the Old Testament book of Leviticus (xx, 15/2). Once the animals had been slaughtered, and Granger killed, a big pit was dug and the animals thrown in there, "and no use was made of any part of them."

The most interesting part of this passage from Bradford brought out his wondering, "...how it came to pass that so many wicket persons and profane people should so quickly come over into this land and mix themselves amongst them?" (190). After all, the reason for the initial Mayflower journey was so that the pilgrims could worship without intimidation and persecution; still, it not being a perfect world, some of those who came clearly had less than pure hearts and clean hands.

As the years passed, Bradford's Mayflower Compact was used as justification by some Colonial leaders for the inevitable revolt against England, according to Mark Sargent in the New England Quarterly (Sargent, 1988). Others in the Colonies, like Cotton Mather, contended that the Mayflower Compact established the Pilgrims "...as loyal subjects of the Crown of England" (Sargent 238). Loyalist lawyer George Chalmers, also quoted in Sargent's article, believed that Bradford's Mayflower Compact "...was proof that in the face of the bitter winter cold and the uncharted wilderness the Pilgrims clung as firmly to England as to one another." And while Bradford asserted that his independence-focused covenant was "as firm as any patent in England" (Sargent 238), Chalmers wrote that the Mayflower Compact was founded upon "their loyalty to their sovereign lord king james" and that the Pilgrims had carried the "jurisprudence of England" with them "as their birthright." So, one can clearly see that there were varying views on what the Mayflower Compact really represented.

Sargent makes a point on pages 242-243 that once the Pilgrims "were separated from the English community, the British constitution became irrelevant." One can readily imagine that these brave settlers, having been driven out of their homeland by unreasonable laws regarding which religion they should believe in, persevering on the high seas in very dangerous storms prior to landing in a new world with savages and uncertainty, would create and abide by their own laws. "The Mayflower Compact, therefore," Sargent writes, "is a cornerstone of American government not because it fully defined the principles of the American Constitution but because it restored the people's right to adapt their laws to fit their customs."

It should be mentioned that one of the justifications for the Pilgrims' seemingly immediate sense of independence from England - and for the Mayflower Compact's creation - was that their original destination was Virginia, not New England. They had been issued a patent for Virginia, and here they were, 101 tired and anxious passengers, out of the jurisdiction they had been approved for. And according to Canadian scholar Chris Raible, writing in Beaver - the journal of Canada's Natural History Society - among the passengers were those who gave "discontented and mutinous speeches." Raible, quoting Bradford, writes that these few would-be mutineers announced that once ashore "...they would use their own liberty, for none had the power to command them." Hence, the additional and indeed pivotal need to draw up an agreement, which was to be the Mayflower Compact. Bradford is perhaps one of the most underrated leaders in all of American history; he brought the settlers together, and kept them unified, as best he could.

The settlers called themselves "visible saints," Raible writes, and their congregation was "an entirely self-governing voluntary association." They "had absolutely no use for established ecclesiastical hierarchies..." And were not trying to "purify the established Church of England.

Meanwhile, the big rock - Plymouth Rock - that reportedly attracted the pilgrims to that particular part of the Cape Cod areas, is but a shadow of its former self. Through the years the rock became famous and "a triumph for democratic values," according to Sargent Bush, Jr., in American Literary History, it has been made into iconic symbol out of passion, but not necessarily from any real historical basis.