Thanks Ge0ffrey.
Posted on 11/26/2020 7:47:42 AM PST by Ge0ffrey
Almost everything we know about the first Thanksgiving in 1621 is based on a few lines from a letter.
"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."
–Edward Winslow, December, 1621
The Pilgrims/Separatists got along well with the Wampanoag for a while. After Massasoit died the relationship went downhill. There were a lot more English showing up by then and not all of them wanted to get along with the Indians.
Massossoit’s son also became belligerent to the Pilgrim’s religion and private ownership of the land
http://mayflowerhistory.com/massasoit
Caleb Johnson has one of the most well known Mayflower and Plymouth websites among New England genealogists. We’re from the Plymouth area and my sister did our genealogy. I got into it for a while too. I had a good library with a genealogy section nearby and used to look things up for my sister and also traced our surname back to a 1630 arrival of a ship to what’s now Boston. The surname morphed a lot over the years but started out as Pollard, my screen name. We have several lines going back to the Mayflower passengers by way of marriages.
When you look at an ancestral chart of Pilgrim descendants back in the 16-1700s, it looks like something you’d see in back woods Mississippi with lines that criss cross with people marrying 4th cousins twice removed etc.
There are an estimated 35 million mayflower descendants these days.
The main branches are English in 1700s Virginia, 1700s Spanish in Taos, NM, two waves of Irish in the 1800s that originally settled into Georgia, Dutch in the 1800s that settled in Texas. The English and Irish lines extended to Texas then these two and the Dutch line extended into Oklahoma.
I think I am confused now but what the heck.
Not a Mayflower descendent, the Lurkins got here a little later. Great-great—etc—pa Lurking served in the King Philip’s War.
We’ve got ancestors that served in every war up until desert storm. Indian Wars, King Phillip, Revolutionary, WW1 and 2, Korea, Vietnam.
Boy, your family can;t get along with anyone.
/Old stale joke
William Fiennese attempted to do that at the Conn river valley and one of my ancestors-Abraham Temple had signed on to go to his uncles new holdings to work. He ended up at Salem Mass (1630s) and immediately “failed” to go.
The Temples were one of the most powerful families in England at that time. All Puritans and two were signers of Charles the 1st death warrant.
On much reflection on the matter, I have come to the conclusion that the English civil war where Lord Oliver Cromwell took the protectorate of the government lead indirectly to the establishment of the American Republic later on.
The first Amendment was a direct reflection of what happened within the Puritan community after they took control of the Mass areas-it was called the Church of Boston by many back then. Another of my ancestors, Mary Dwyer was hanged Jun 1 1660 near Boston commons for simply preaching the Quaker Faith.
They (Puritans) escaped England because of persecution and then started it right here.
The good news is that our founders learned from history and applied it when they wrote the US Constitution.
BTTT
Thanks Ge0ffrey.
“They (Puritans) escaped England because of persecution and then started it right here.”
Another way to look at it is that they were so obnoxious that wherever they went, the regular people lost patience and chased them away.
You know what started that whole thing in England?
The Tudors.
We did too, or rather my grandmother’s family, the Marsh family did. They arrived in Connecticut in 1632.
They (Puritans) escaped England because of persecution and then started it right here.
Here are a couple of comments about the Puritan moral scolds of the past. These comments were made to the US Senate by Texas Senator Wigfall on the day Texas officially withdrew from the Union (March 2, 1861):
"...then Cromwell had to run them [the Puritans] out of England; and then they went over to Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else; and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. And from that time to this, they have been kicking up a dust generally, and making a mess whenever they could put their fingers in the pie. They confederated with the other states to save themselves from the power of old King George III; and no sooner than they had gotten rid of him than they turned to persecuting their neighbors. Having got rid of the Indians, and witches, and Baptists, and Quakers in their country; after selling us our negroes for the love of gold, they began stealing them back for the love of God. That is the history as well as I understand it."
"That the people of the North shall consider themselves as more blessed than we, more civilized, and happier, is not a matter at which we would complain at all, if they would only content themselves with believing that to be the fact; but when they come and attempt to propagandize, and insist that we shall be as perfect as they imagine themselves to be, then it is that their good opinion of themselves becomes offensive to us. Let my neighbor believe that his wife is an angel and his children cherubs, I care not, though I may know he is mistaken; but when he comes impertinently poking his nose into my door every morning, and telling me that my wife is a shrew and my children brats, then the neighborhood becomes uncomfortable, and if I cannot remove him, I will remove myself; and if he says to me, "you shall not move, but you shall stay here, and you shall, day after day, hear the demerits of your wife and children discussed," then I begin to feel a little restive, and possibly might assert that great original right of pursuing whatever may conduce to my happiness, though it might be kicking him out of my door. If New England would only be content with the blessings which she imagines she has, we would not disturb her in her happiness."
“...then Cromwell had to run them [the Puritans] out of England; and then they went over to Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else; and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock.”
That is the most ignorant thing I have seen in quite a while. And that son of a bitch was a Senator?
First off, King James was on the throne when the Puritans landed-the Mayflower compact came into being under him.
Second, Oliver Cromwell wasnt even a thought at that time. Matter of fact, Cromwell, during the reign of Charles the First, had made plans to come to America to escape persecution. Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan.
Third, the Puritan persecutions against other religions did not happen till long after the establishment of the colony and into the 1640s, most likely the early 1650s.
Why they did that is..my guess, is they feared history repeating again. But never the less, they did that and the rest his history-not the history some dumb ass ignorant Senator from that state claimed back then.
Of course it is twisted, colorful version of history. Wigfall was great with stories. He was no “dumb ass ignorant Senator.” He was an aide-de-camp to General Beauregard at the battle of Fort Sumter. Wigfall, at his own initiative, took a boat over to Fort Sumter while the battle was going on in April 1861 and got Major Anderson to surrender the fort before anyone in the fort got seriously hurt.
I know about Oliver Cromwell too. He was sort of a relative of mine by marriage. He was the father-in-law of one of my gr-gr-gr-etc. uncles, a Claypool or Claypoole. I have seen the stone of Cromwell’s daughter’s (my gr-gr-gr-etc. aunt) in the floor of Westminster Cathedral. Oliver Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey, but was later dug up on orders from a later Parliament.
My Claypoole ancestor, James, the brother-in law to Cromwell’s daughter, moved to Pennsylvania. I once went looking for his grave in Philadelphia. I thought he might have a substantial tombstone because he was on the council that governed Pennsylvania, but he was a Quaker, like his friend William Penn. All the Quaker tombstones I found were essentially identical except for the deceased’s name. I never found his grave. I think the actual graveyard where he was buried was near the old graveyard I found, but the one where he was buried no longer existed.
James Claypoole had the unusual history of participating in a witch trial. He served as a translator for the witch in Pennsylvania’s lone witch trial. William Penn had asked my ancestor to participate in the trial. I think Penn wanted the accused witch to be found not guilty, which was what the jury found.
I have a modern copy of “James Claypoole’s Letter Book, 1681-1684” from which some of this information comes.
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