#pilgrims

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Heinz Oven Baked Beans (1937)

[illustratus]

Isolation: The Mayflower becalmed on a moonlit night by Montague Dawson

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Thanksgiving Is Loading

[sammie-dae]

i love trench crusade

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this day, September 16 in 1620, English Pilgrims set sail for the English settlement in Virginia from Plymouth, England in the Mayflower. Because of the strong winter seas, however, they never made it that far, and instead made landing at a spot they named after their departure point, Plymouth, in late December -- not the best time to set up shop in New England. They were ill-prepared to fend for themselves, and if it wasn't for the assistance of the indigenous people of the area, the colonists never would have survived.

We commemorate this milestone with a children's book from our Historical Curriculum Collection, We Were There with the Mayflower Pilgrims by Robert N. Webb, illustrations by Charles J. Andres (1913-2008), and historical consultation by George F. Willison (1896-1972), published in New York by Grosset & Dunlap in 1956. While there are many historical accuracies in this book, its rhetoric reflects the Euro-American centrism and ideas of American exceptionalism normalized during the period: "America was a wilderness, filled with savage Indians"; "[The Mayflower Compact was] the first of many important and historical documents which were to guide America to its greatness." And as one might imagine, the relationship between the English settlers and the indigenous population is predictably whitewashed.

View more posts on works from our Historical Curriculum Collection.

View more Milestone Monday posts.

[breelandwalker]

@sonnabug reblogged your post:

#is myth the right word if they were the ones who felt they were being persecuted? #not siding with them just wondering about word choice and technicalities #because its true our history was founded on what they decided to tell us but is it an outright lie or did they truely feel persecuted

Oo oo oo, a teaching opportunity!

Okay, so the Puritans came to power during the First English Civil War - the one where they axed Charles I afterward and abolished the monarchy. Their whole beef was that the new Anglican church wasn't STRICT enough and still had too many Catholic trappings (and way too much tolerance for the remaining Roman Catholics in the country). So they kept pushing for Purity and Piety, in personal and business spheres, basically insisting that a strict Protestant moral doctrine should govern every aspect of life, from the management of the home to the running of businesses to interpersonal relationships to the governing of the country and its' policies abroad.

Sound familiar? Their whole rhetoric puts me in mind of a particular line from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: "The local council is horrified if someone in Fallwell, wherever or whatever, is having a good time."

Anyway, all this religious kerfluffle (plus a couple of other factors) eventually led to the complete destabilization of the English government and the execution of Charles I. And then when the monarchy was restored under Charles II and the country was like, "Oh thank goodness, we can have things like beer and Christmas again and maybe a little less religious conservatism," the Puritans promptly went, "Well this won't do at ALL." Most Puritan clergy with separatist leanings resigned from the Church of England and many Puritans packed up to move to the colonies, where they could "practice their religion in peace." (Read: "Where they could be as stodgy and strict and bigoted as they wished and created a system of laws based on religion instead of common good.")

There's a lot more to it than that and I'm simplifying and glossing over quite a bit, but that's the nuts and bolts.

The mess the Puritans made both in England and in America was one of the reasons the vaunted Founding Fathers insisted on Separation of Church and State, as well as why Freedom of Religion is part of the First Amendment. They'd seen England tearing itself apart over a Wabbit Season / Duck Season tug of war between Catholicism and Protestantism for a good century and more, and they did NOT want to repeat those mistakes in the new country they were trying to build. (They got a lot of stuff wrong, but at least they had the sense to be like, "Yeah maybe religion shouldn't run the government.")

So while it's true that the Puritans may have felt persecuted, it was for basically the same reasons that conservatives and fundamentalists claims to be oppressed today - people generally don't like it when their stodgy uptight neighbors try to beat them over the head with a Bible and demand that one particular interpretation of a single religion should be the driving force behind the running of every aspect of an entire country.

But since they got to write the earliest chapters of American history with no one to provide a strong counterargument, we get this pervasive self-created myth that the Puritans were these poor ragged refugees, fleeing religious persecution for a new land where they could live in peace and harmony and...decimate the local indigenous population and murder their own neighbors in the name of piety. The Pilgrims were assholes and we've been fed pretty lies in our schoolbooks for decades.

(For modern context, religion wasn't a strong part of American politics until McCarthyism happened, at which point we got the God references in the Pledge of Allegiance and on our currency. Then the Moral Majority movement got Reagan elected in 1980 and we've been fighting modern Puritans in government ever since. America has never been a Christian nation, but conservatives keep doing their damnedest to try and turn it into one.)

Hope this helps to clarify things! 😊

[jkrikis]

camino frances

© 2023  Yiannis Krikis

[terivarhol]

“Pixies”

(Diary, Iceland 2019)

[misforgotten2]

… thinking of white granulated sugar was something the pilgrims never had.

Parents Magazine - 1953

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The Canterbury Pilgrims by Paul Hardy

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Thanksgiving Is Loading

[rherlotshadow]

Rocamadour

[macgyvermedical]

"There was but six or seven healthy persons, who... spared no pains, night or day... fetched them wood, made them fires... clothed them and unclothed them... in a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them... a rare example and worthy to be remembered..."

- William Bradford, 1621, the first written account of nursing care by Europeans in North America.

[galleryofart]

So Through the Plymouth Woods Passed Onward the Bridal Procession

Artist: Newell Convers Wyeth (American, 1882-1945)

[wednesdaytheaddamsfamily]

The least I could do is show the Germans how incorrect Pilgrim World is on the history of pilgrims. That and Joseph Crackstone.