What were the pilgrims really like?
Nathaniel Hawthorne bears much of the responsibility (blame?) for the portrait of the early Pilgrims, but his portrait was largely unfair and inaccurate says David Hall in the New York Times.
Peace, Love and Puritanism
From the New York Times
THANKSGIVING 1971, the 350th anniversary of the “first” of the harvest celebrations in Plymouth, Mass. Invited to speak to a local historical society about that long-ago event, I described the ritual significance of food to the colonists and the Native Americans who attended. Afterward, someone asked, “Did they serve turkey?”This was no idle question, for it captured the uneasiness many of us feel about the threads that connect past and present. Are our present-day values and practices aligned with the historical record, or have they been remade by our consumer culture? Is anything authentic in our own celebrations of Thanksgiving? And isn’t the deeper issue what the people who came here were like, not what they ate in 1621?
To return to the first of these harvest feasts is to return to the puzzling figure of the Puritan, the name borne by most of the English people who came to New England in the early 17th century. What did they hope to gain by coming to the New World, and what values did they seek to practice?
The easy answers simplify and distort. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who came along a couple of centuries later, bears some of the blame for the most repeated of the answers: that Puritans were self-righteous and authoritarian, bent on making everyone conform to a rigid set of rules and ostracizing everyone who disagreed with them. The colonists Hawthorne depicted in “The Scarlet Letter” lacked the human sympathies or “heart” he valued so highly. Over the years, Americans have added to Hawthorne’s unfriendly portrait with references to witch-hunting and harsh treatment of Native Americans.
Professor Hall's article is a useful reflection on the Puritans who settled in Massachusetts, but it's not entirely clear how much that has to do with the "Pilgrim" colony at Plymouth. The core (not the whole) of the Pilgrims were religious separatists, whereas the Puritans probably still considered themselves "Church of England" (albeit pretty much anti-episcopal and anti-Prayer Book). Had they remained in England for another few years they would presumably have aligned themselves with the Independents during the English Civil War. For an interesting account of the background and initial history of the Plymouth settlement, see Chapter 2 of Charles C. Mann's "1491."
Posted by Bill Moorhead![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 24, 2010 4:22 PM
Contrary to Hawthorne’s assertions of self-righteousness, the colonists hungered to recreate the ethics of love and mutual obligation spelled out in the New Testament. Church members pledged to respect the common good and to care for one another.
This communal ideal lasted only two crop seasons. Why? Because they were literally starving to death:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/public_policy/give_thanks_for_free_enterpris.html
Posted by John B. Chilton![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 24, 2010 4:40 PM