Posted on 11/29/2013 10:32:19 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
When it comes to historical memory, the old saying that you can't choose your relatives is just plain wrong. Americans have chosen the Pilgrims as honorary ancestors, and we tend to see their story as inseparable from the story of our nation, "land of the Pilgrims' pride." We imagine these honorary founders as model immigrants, pacifists and pioneers in the democratic experiment. We have burdened them with values they wouldn't have recognized and shrouded their story with myth.
The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
If you visit Plymouth today, you'll find a distinctive rock about the size of your living-room sofa embedded in the sandy beach, sheltered by a classical Greek portico and labeled with a sign erected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts proclaiming, "Plymouth Rock: Landing Place of the Pilgrims." It's not hard to picture simple English folk huddled on that rock, envisioning through eyes of faith the great nation that would spring from their humble beginning.
Except that's probably not what happened.
We "know" the location of the Pilgrims' landing because in 1741 —121 years after they arrived — a young boy overheard 95-year-old Thomas Faunce relate that his father, who came to Plymouth three years after the Mayflower, told him that he'd heard from unnamed people that the landing occurred there.
Curiously, William Bradford never mentioned Plymouth Rock in his history, "Of Plymouth Plantation," and if the expedition landed there, he seems not to have noticed.
The Pilgrims came to America in search of religious freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
Just be glad you weren’t your parents. (An “eleventher”?)
No one categorized as a "Puritan" called himself a Puritan.
The Pilgrims were Separatists or Nonconformists, the Massachusetts Bay colonists were Conformists.
Both groups held to views of Scripture that were characterized by mainstream Anglicans as "Puritan."
Both groups also sided with the Parliamentarians in the Civil War and sent soldiers to fight on behalf of the Parliamentary forces - this can be seen as a classic litmus test of Puritan sympathies.
In 1978, we took the RV and the kids up to Plymouth to see my wife’s sister who lived there at the time. We visited Plymouth Plantation. During the tour, I was struck by the presence of fortified guard shacks in the town square and asked the guide if they were a last line of defense for the citizens there if trouble with the natives spilled into the compound. He told us that they were for the control of the FOOD RIOTS which broke out those first few winters — BEFORE they wisely abandoned their clearly failed experiment with collectivism — before Marx was even born.
Seems each generation or so we must relearn the hard lessons of history.
OBOWMA will teach us the next round of such lessons. I suspect they will be BITTER ones indeed.
A sidebar to that visit was that upon crossing into The Peoples’ republic (small “r”) of Taxachussetts, we were greeted by a huge sign on the Interstate displaying a message to the effect that bringing a firearm into the state was a crime punishable by 6 days upon the rack the drawing and quartering then scattering of your remains about Harvard Yard, there to be eaten by intellectually deficient budding libtards.
As our trip took us over 1,000 miles with my wife and 3 small kiddies aboard, our expensive RV was equipped with a .357 magnum handgun for defense.
The sign gave me two choices: I could throw the $300 weapon into the roadside ditch where it could be found by another or a highway worker or I could press on and hope to avoid being consumed by the libtards.
We pressed on as I contemplated the irony that the Founders were certainly doing 3600 RPM in their graves that one of the former colonies that played such a key role in their victory during the unpleasantness with King George now prohibited possession of the very tools with which they achieved same.
Have a wonderful day
This has been going on for for decades - one case in point - 30 years ago - a US History book with one small, derogatory chapter on George Washington -
and 5 1/2 pages of text and photos on = Marilyn Monroe.
And the people slept..
It was Browne's student Richard Clyfton who remained separated when Browne did not and began a congregation in William Brewster's house.
After Clyfton died, Brewster became the senior elder/pastor of the congregation that would eventually become the congregation of the Plymouth colony.
He is pointing out that Plymouth Rock is a later myth, unmentioned by the real William Bradford.
He is pointing out that the colonists on the Mayflower were more than just the caricature of them that currently exists.
He is pointing out that not just the Plymouth colonists but all the early settlers in America were believers who gave Thanksgiving.
In what way does this denigrate US history?
I hear you wideawake, it like the Tea Party and the Democrats being the exact same thing because both claim to be Americans.
Marilyn Monroe is also a descendant of John Alden, as was Neal Armstrong.
Not exactly.
Unlike Democrats and Tea Party members, the Nonconformist Puritans and the Conformist Puritans had the same beliefs and values, they differed only in tactics.
The Conforming Puritans decided that they could transform the Church of England from within, while the Nonconforming Puritans thought that this was too difficult.
The Civil War made these tactical disagreements moot.
In any case, to an Anglican like Richard Hooker or William Laud, Robert Browne and William Brewster were both Puritans and their tactical disagreement with one another did nothing to efface the similarity of their theological beliefs.
Exactly ! Apples and oranges are the same.
The chapter on the Pilgrims in Richard Armour’s “It All Started With Columbus” is still a hoot. Don’t have my copy here but a few lines stick in memory:
“The land was hilly and stony, except in places where it was stony and hilly.”
“Stores were called Shoppes, or Ye Olde Shoppes. Prices were slightly higher at the latter.”
“Every morning the settlers rode out into the fields in their blunderbusses and sowed grain.”
;^)
We are half assed cousins...I am related to Browne. I’ll be over for dinner. I am bringing twenty relatives.
Have you seen Alden’s rifle at the National Firearms Museum?
Religious freedom was what it was about.
Of course, some of them were inconsistent in the practice when it came to the religious freedom of others, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they came here for freedom.
I, too, had ancestors on the Mayflower. I am descended from Rev. William Brewster.
Concur, although to which Civil War are you speaking?
Bloody Mary killed off as many heretics in 5 years in the early 1500s as Queen Elizabeth’s Church of England over about the next 30 years.
English and Church History from 1500 to the present is a fascinating study, especially regarding policies such as the Separation of Church and State.
Puritan, ...to free all religious worship from Roman Ritual was hardly dire.
It’s been reported the American Puritans consumed more alcohol than modern day Americans per capita.
Whereupon Roger Williams kicked Anne Hutchinson out and she went to what is now New York. (My first elementary school was called Anne Hutchinson School.)
I trace Browne thru his daughter Rebeckah who married into the Snow family - Browne’s grandson Joseph Snow married Alden’s granddaughter Hopestill Alden.
I think there are at least 250,000 Alden desendants, most be well over 5 million for all the Mayflower saints.
I have not Turbo, do you think they would let me handle it? I have been to Alden’s house - the only house left that was built be one of the Pilrims (he built a fair share of them). It was actually moved 100’ or so in his lifetime and added onto if I recall correctly - maybe the 2nd generation moved it.
At one point Alden was charged for murder in what is now Maine in a disrupt at a trading post he established up there with a few partners, charges were later dropped.
“Whereupon Roger Williams kicked Anne Hutchinson out.......”
Nope, Roger Williams invited her to Rhode Island, she left on her own out of fear of the Mass authorities (Roger Williams was banished from Mass by them too) and their threats to take over RI then made up of the Providence & Portsmouth Colonies.
She was later killed by Indians in NY.
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