Notes:BC1.AH.New England - the founding of Plymouth

2014/06/15 User:Jeff

New England

The main reference for this article is historian Edward Channing's History of The United States, Volume I.

Religious causes

Puritanism

To understand New England, one must know a few things about Puritanism. Puritanism was not a religious sect. It was an approach to life that sought to deal with the contemporary problems of the time. It applied to religion - it was an age in which religion occupied a more central place in society than today. But it also applied as much or more to politics and society.

• It was not a political party

It was a movement of liberty.

It was a collection of different meanings. Few Puritans held identical beliefs, but they did agree on some fundamental principles.

1. In religion it demanded preaching ministers and ecclesiastical reformation need link to explanation.
2. In society it sought to elevate morals which had fallen to new lows.
3. In politics, it was a champion of freedom of the people, seeking to sweep away the remnants of feudalism and establish the people as powerful in the state.

• Puritanism ulitmately encompassed most of the elements who opposed the way King Charles I Stuart ran both Church and State. The larger elements included:

• Nonconformists
• Brownists
• Presbyterians
• Congregationalists

• Noncoformists (those who objected to one thing or another in the church service of the Established Church of England, but continued to attend the services) were the largest element.

Their goal was to remain in the church and change it. It was not tolleration, but rather reformation.

• Among those things they petitioned for:

1. the cross in baptism and the ring in marriage be omitted as Roman Catholic relics
2. the cap and surplice not be required
3. church songs and music be "moderated to better edification"
4. the Lord's day be not profaned
5. "popish opinions" be no longer taught
6. none but preaching ministers be maintained
7. ministers not be compelled to adhere to every word in the Established Church service book, and
8. that men not be excommunicated for small matters.

Some of the items of this list may seem minor to a reader today, but those were different and less free times. They were a plea for greater liberty and greater freedom of conscious. And freedom aside, it was the sort of detail that would cause a group to separate from their church in those religious days. We see churches split for seemingly trivial reasons even today.

• Independents were the next largest element. They were people that had been turned out of the Established Church and set up their own churches run by their congregations. They were Congregationalists.

They were quite tollerant of the views of other Christians including Catholics.

• The Brownists considered the Established Church as contrary to the Gospel.

They were separatists.

See also the Wikipedia article about Puritans

King James I and the Church of England become allies

Religious differences in England lead directly to the settlement of New England. There were three contending groups: the Established Church of England, the Nonconformists (and with them the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland), and the Roman Catholics. Each had reason to think that King James I would favor them. In the end it was the Established Church that he favored, and this started a chain of events that eventually found the Pilgrims standing on Plymouth Rock.

James was the son of Mary of Scotland - a Catholic - which gave hope to Catholics that they would be restored in England.

He had been instructed by leaders of the Presbyterian Kirk and had earlier declared them the one true church which gave hope to all non Catholic dissenters to the established Church of England.

But then, he was also the King of England, and thus the head of the Established Church.

James met his 1st Parliament in 1604. He met the subject of religion head on

Calling the Church of England the public form of religion by law maintained

Decrying the Roman Catholics "falsely called Cathoic, but truly Papish"

while the Puritans (Nonconformists) "lurked within the bowels of this nation." And who differed not with the Church of England in doctrine but in their "confused form of polity and parity; being ever discontented with the present government . . ."

• The Commons, with leanings toward Church of England dissenters, put forth a bill with what would seem to us as minor reformation. It was opposed by the House of Lords and by the Bishops.
• Then the Archbishop of Canterbury and James set out to compel conformity.

• The Church of England Convocation wrote the Canons of 1604

These called for excommunication for those who did not adhere to the Church of England and its forms of worship.

They were not affirmed by Parliament and did not carry the weight of civil law, but they meant harship for Nonconforming clergy and their families and occasionally for laymen.

Further, there was an Acto of Parliament 04 1593 that allowed nonadherents to be imprisoned and subsequently banished.

About 300 Noncoforming clergy were turned out.

Life became sufficiently difficult for all Nonconformists that they left for Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Wlliam Bradford was one of these.

They later removed to Leyden as life in Amsterdam was contentious over what seemed, even then, to be very minor issues over how to worship and live a religious life.

New England Charter and the Mayflower

The Nonconformists in Leyden were lead by Richard Clifton and John Robinson (and later William Bradford). They ultimately decided to migrate to America for the following reasons:

• religious life in the Netherlands, while not as restrictive as England, was not without its restrictions.
• Renewed war with Spain was an ongoing threat. The Spanish wabted to regain control of the Netherlands
• In spite of their travails, they wished to find a place to live as English subjects - which is quite a testament to the freedom and protection of law that England bestowed on its people in contrast to any other place on the globe.

But also, they were not Dutch, they were English, and the longer they stayed in Leyden the more their English heritage eroded. They found making a living hard and consequently hard to afford education for their children, their children intermarried, and they were increasingly speaking Dutch.

• lastly there was an element of missionary zeal. They considered themselves a stepping stone for subesequent emigration and as missionairies to the natives.
• They had some notion and a healthy fear of the challenges and hardships they would encounter.
• They were negotiating for a place in Virginia and a gurantee of liberty in religion from the king and the Church, unsuccessfully.

In the meantime, because of the surge in emigration to America in the later years of James I kingship, Ferdinando Gorges, who had been involved in the first Virginia charter, obtained a grant between the fortieth and the forty eighth north lattitudes. It was a company formed under the name of the Couincil for New England (1620).

The charter provided for a "Council established at Plymouth in the County of Devon for the planting, ruling, and ordering of New England in America"

The Mayflower

• Gorges wanted the Pilgrim migration for the development of his territory and arranged for the Mayflower to take them to the coast of New England.

The first New Englanders sailed in the Mayflower in the Autumn (September 6) of 1620. They reached Provincetown harbor on November 11. They explored the coast, finding Plymouth harbor on December 8th.

It seems that hardship was to be a constant companion of the early settlers in any of the colonies. Sickness took the group afther reaching Plymouth and decimated their number.

Eighteen married women came with their families. When it turned summer in 1621, four of them were still alive.

Others from Leyden followed in two more voyages between then and 1629.

The financial terms

Money was hard to come by. Investors and emigrants participated under terms that were similar to those in Virginia. For the first New Englanders:

• The cost of transportation was calculated to be 10 pounds per person.

• Each share had a par value of 10 pounds.
• For going, each emigrant had one share put into the common stock
• For 7 years they were to be fed and clothed out of the commonstock

For 7 years all of the product of their labor was to be put into the common stock. (This almost caused catastrophic failure of the enterprise.)

At the end of that time, the common stock was to be divided according the number of shares held.

• A passenger over the age of 16 who had his transportation paid from common stock had 1 share

A passenger who paid his own way had 2 shares.

• A merchant investing 100 pounds had 10 shares.

• It may be tempting to think that the emigrants were being exploited. Hoever, an interesting point to understand is that there were more people wanting to emigrate than there was money willing to fund their emigration.

As it turned out, some emigrants paid large dividends on their worth and others were a loss. Compare the worth of William Bradford, to both the settlers and the Council for New England, to the investment of 10 pounds by a merchant in London.

The Mayflower Compact

Upon reaching New England, articles of association were drawn up and signed by the adult males. This was not part of the charter of New England. It was an agreement among the settlers that they would govern themselves as Englishmen.

• It was careful to state at the beginning and end an acknowledgment of allegiance to the king of England

It was, after all, to place themselves under the benefit of English laws and customs that they left Leyden.

The signers promise sumission to "such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutuions, and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony."

Notice that they are careful to call on just and and equal laws thought for the good of the colony!

This was simply a pact of and for that small band to establish an English style government under the leadership of its officers.

It was no more than that. But it served as the foundation of the government of Plymouth throughout its life as a separate colony.

• the signers were the first New England voters exercising their rights in a general meeting

They were the adult male population except for 2 seaman contracted for one year and a couple of servants.

William Bradford became governor on the death of John Carver in 1621.

Trial and Error

Hunger and hardship

The early years were bleak. Plymouth relied on agriculture, in spite of an abundance of fish and game. They simply knew no other way. And they were hampered by the commune style system under which the colony was founded - that everything went into common stock. (see above discussion of the financial terms of the settlement)

• There was no private property and the product of all went into the commune regardless of individual capacity or industry.

And each was clothed and fed the same.

• In Willaim Bradford's words the Pilgrims were mired in:

"common course and condition, the vanity of that conceit of Plato and other ancients . . that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing as if they were wiser than God."

A couple of things to note:

• Bradford had a classical education, probably not the norm in the colonies, but also probably not uncommon, and
• if any group had incentive to make a communal system work - mainly their very survival - it was the Plymough colonists. But they could not do it. Bradford explained it as follows.

• The communal system retarded industry and bred discontent. Almost every person felt themself cheated for one reason or another - the industrious when their strength and activity was used to support other men's families, the indigent or simply lazy felt entitled to an equal share, and no husband was willing to have his wife compelled to service for other men - preparing food and washing. To them it was a form of slavery.

These were law abiding, adventurous people with a cause as common as could exist, reduced to resentment by obligation to community rather than obligation to self with giving to community performed on their own terms and in their own time.

• It was not a matter of insurmountable challenges of wilderness. They had land that had been cleared by Indians and had been instructed by the Indians on how to cultivate it. And agricultural skills were likely the most common among them. But farming is hard work. The problem was in the replacement of private property with community.
• 3 years into their 7 year experiment, the commune approach was abandoned in their desire to survive. The land was apportioned into private farms.

The ship was righted almost overnight. Men, women, and children worked willingly and hard for themselves and their own families.

But drought threatened. They set apart a day "to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer." The rains came. The crops revived. Coincidence perhaps, but they were sufficiently impressed to set aside a day of Thanksgiving - which we still celebrate.

The charter for the Council for New England had the force of a contract between the settlers and the Council. Bradford had broken that contract. Had he not, the colony would have failed and there would have been nothing to divide and nothing with which to repay investors in England. And it was a matter of survival.

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