The Pilgrim Chronicles

by Rod Gragg

  If God see this disease of self-love so dangerous in us, then it stands us all in hand to suspect ourselves, and so to seek out the root of this disease so that it may be cured. If a learned physician shall see by our countenance and eye that we have some dangerous disease growing on us, then our hearts will smite us . . . and every man will bestir himself to get rid of it, and will prevent always that which feeds the disease and cherish all courses that would destroy it.

  Now, how much more ought we to bestir ourselves for this matter of self-love, since God himself hast pronounced us all dangerously sick of this disease? Believe it. God cannot lie nor be deceived; He that has made the heart, does He not know it? Let every man’s heart smite him, and let him fall to the examination of himself and see first whether he love not riches and worldly wealth too much. . . . So if thy lovest thine ease and pleasure, see whether thou can be content to . . . endure hard labor as [well as] to live at ease, and art as willing to go to the house of mourning as to the house of mirth. . . .

  One of the passengers aboard the Fortune was Robert Cushman—the Pilgrims’ representative to the Merchant Adventurers. While at Plymouth, Cushman preached a sermon to the assembled Plymouth colonists, urging them to put aside self-love.

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  Again, see if thy heart cannot be as merry and thy mind as joyful and thy countenance as cheerful with coarse fare . . . with bread and water (if God offer thee no better, nor the times afford no other) as if thou had the greatest dainties. So also whether thou can be content with the scorns of men when thou hast done well, as with their praises . . . for if thou be disheartened, discouraged and weakened in any duty because of man’s disparagement, it is a sign thou lovest thyself too much. . . .

  Is this a time then, for men to begin to seek themselves? Paul saith that men in the last days shall be lovers of themselves. But it is here yet but the first days, the dawning (as it were) of this new world. It is now therefore no time for men to look to get riches, brave clothes, dainty fare, but to look to present necessities. It is now no time to pamper the flesh, live at ease, snatch, catch, scrape, and . . . hoard up, but rather to open the doors, the chests and the vessels and say, “Brother, neighbor, friend, what want ye? Anything that I have? Make bold with it; it is yours to command, to do you good, to comfort and cherish you, and glad I am that I have it for you.”6

  “Brother, neighbor, friend, what want ye? Anything that I have?”

  While in Plymouth, Cushman also gave the Pilgrim leaders a letter sent to them from the bombastic Thomas Weston, the Merchant Adventurers’ representative who had angrily stalked away from the Pilgrims at the docks in England after they rejected his proposed new terms. In his letter, Weston chastised the Pilgrims for not sending the Mayflower back to England loaded with furs, fish, and other New World commodities, completely ignoring their grievous loss of life. He faulted the Pilgrims for “a weakness in judgment,” and chided them for “discoursing, arguing and consulting” instead of making a profit and submitting to the controversial agreement. Bradford, Brewster and others were rankled by Weston’s accusations, but Cushman somehow convinced them that they were honor-bound to accept the Adventurers’ terms, and so they did. Then—leaving his teenage son in the care of Governor Bradford—Cushman returned to England aboard the Fortune.

  On her return to England, the Fortune was raided by French privateers, who looted the ship of all the cargo the Pilgrims sent back to help repay their investors. The looters, however, missed one treasure—a priceless manuscript by Edward Winslow and William Bradford.

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  Although the arrival of the Fortune and its new colonists resurrected the conflict between the Pilgrims and their financial sponsors and put a severe strain on Plymouth’s winter rations, it was also another key turning point in the survival of Plymouth Colony. When the Mayflower had departed for England, Pilgrim leaders had sent with it a request for a new patent to the recently formed Council for New England, which held jurisdiction for the region that included Cape Cod and the Plymouth colony—and it had been granted. The Plymouth colonists were expected to remain generally submissive to royal authority, but with their new patent approved and their financial backers placated for the time being, the Pilgrims would continue to govern themselves according to the principles of the Mayflower Compact. In reality, they would enjoy more freedom than most Englishmen back home, including the freedom of faith that they so ardently desired.

  The arrival and departure of the Fortune also demonstrated the Plymouth Colony’s potential for generating a profit. Aboard the Fortune when it departed for England was a fortune in products that the Pilgrims had wrestled from the American wilderness—split New England timber, a valuable harvest of wild sassafras, and an immense store of beaver pelts. With it, the Pilgrims hoped to pay off much of their indebtedness to Weston and his partners in the Merchant Adventurers. Although the cargo did prove that the Pilgrims had the potential to produce income, it would not help repay their debt to the Merchant Adventurers. To their great consternation, the Fortune was hijacked by French privateers en route to England, and its cargo was hijacked.

  The loss was substantial, but one bright spot in the cloud of disappointment: the French privateers missed one important “treasure”—a manuscript carried by Robert Cushman. It was Mourt’s Relation—the account of Plymouth Colony’s earliest days, co-authored by Edward Winslow and William Bradford. Despite the hijacking, Cushman somehow managed to get the manuscript safely to England. There, in 1622, it was published by a London printer under the rambling title A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England—which, for uncertain reasons, would be shortened eventually to Mourt’s Relation. The book landed in London bookstores during the peak of an English reading fad. So did a later work by Edward Winslow, Good News from New England, which was published in London two years later.

  Reading was the rage in early seventeenth-century England, and the colorful account of English colonists building a new life in the American wilderness was well-timed to recruit like-minded colonists to Plymouth. Most future colonists would settle elsewhere in America, but some would come to Plymouth—with the Fortune being the first of many ships to follow. They would bring new colonists to Plymouth and ferry goods back and forth to England. Although they would not be free of hardships and serious danger, never again would the Pilgrims stand as close to the edge of destruction as they had during their first year. Plymouth Colony would survive, and modestly but steadily it would develop as the first successful colony in New England.

  “They Are Friends with All Their Neighbors”

  The Pilgrims Survive and Succeed in America

  As the years unfolded, the Pilgrims settled into the routines of life at Plymouth Colony, and as the colony and its population slowly grew, they saw their vision for America unfold. Homes were built. Couples were married. Crops were raised. Trades were pursued. Children were born. And the faith for which they had given so much was followed in freedom. As governor of the colony, William Bradford eliminated a socialistic, common-store system that the Plymouth colonists had initially followed. It had allowed everyone equal rations from a common storehouse regardless of how much they worked, and—in Bradford’s words—it bred “confusion and discontent, and retarded much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.” Following the New Testament admonition that “if any would not work, neither should he eat,” he replaced the common-store policy with the free enterprise system and allowed the private ownership of land. “This had very good success,” he would later report, “for it made all hands very industrious. . . .”

  As the generations passed and scores of new colonists settled in New England, the Pilgrims generally retained their reputation for wholesomeness, fairness, and integrity, in many ways setting an example as the best of America’s Colonial Era people. It was said of them by an objective observer, “they are friends with
all their neighbors.” A revealing glimpse into Plymouth Colony’s formative years—and the activities of its Pilgrim founders—would be preserved in three early seventeenth-century eyewitness accounts. Two were recorded by English observers and the third by a Dutch visitor. The earliest account, written in 1622, was penned by John Pory, an English scholar and former member of the English Parliament, who visited Plymouth Colony en route to England from a stint as a colonial administrator in Virginia:

  Under Governor William Bradford the Plymouth colonists abandoned a flirtation with a debilitating common-store system of socialism in favor of the more productive free enterprise system. “This had very good success,” Bradford reported.

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  First, the harbor is not only pleasant for air and prospect, but most sure for shipping both small and great, being landlocked on all sides. The town is seated on the ascent of a hill, which besides the pleasure of variable objects entertaining the unsatisfied eye, such is the wholesomeness of the place (as the Governor told me) that for the space of one whole year, of the two wherein they had been there, died not one man, woman, or child. This healthiness is accompanied with much plenty both of fish and fowl every day in the year, as I know no place in the world that can match it. In March the eels come forth out of places where they lie bedded all winter, into the fresh streams, and [from] there into the sea, and in their passages are taken in pots. In September they run out of the sea into the fresh streams to bed themselves in the ground all winter, and are taken again in pots as they return homewards. In winter the inhabitants dig them up, being bedded in gravel not above two or three foot deep, and all the rest of the year they may take them in pots in the salt water of the bay. They are sweet, fat and wholesome, having no taste at all of the mud, and are as great as ever I saw anywhere.

  To provide greater security for the colony, the Pilgrims strengthened Plymouth’s defenses with a palisade fence and additional artillery in their hilltop blockhouse.

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  In April & May come up another kind of fish which they call herring, or old wives, in infinite schools. . . . Into another river some two miles to the northeast of Plymouth all the month of May the great smelts pass up to spawn likewise in troupes innumerable, which with a scoop or a bowl, or a piece of bark, a man may cast up upon the bank. About midway come into the harbor the main school of bass and bluefish, which they take with seines—some of 3 foot long, and with hooks those of 4 and 5 foot long. They enter also at [flood tide] up into the small creeks, at the mouths whereof the inhabitants, spreading their nets, have caught 500 and 700 at a time . . . . Now as concerning the bluefish, in delicacy it excels all kind of fish that ever I tasted, [including] the salmon of the Thames in his prime season. . . .

  In the same bay lobsters are in season in the 4 months, so large, so full of meat, and so plentiful in number that no man will believe that has not seen. For a knife of 3 halfpence I bought 10 lobsters that would well have dined 40 laboring men, and the least boy in the ship, with an hour’s labor, was able to feed the whole company with them for two days. . . . Mussels and clams they have all year long; which being the [most common] of God’s blessings here, and such as these people fatten their hogs with [them] at low water. . . .

  New England colonists make soap from tallow. In Plymouth, crops were raised, trades were pursued, families grew, and daily routines became a meaningful life for the Pilgrims.

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  “Lobsters are . . . so plentiful in number that no man will believe that has not seen”

  The reasons of their continual plenty for those 7 months in the year may be the continual tranquility of the place, being guarded on all sides from the fury of the storms, as also the abundance of food they find at low water, the bottom of the bay then appearing as a green meadow, and lastly the number of [freshwater brooks] running into the bay, where . . . they may refresh and quench their thirst. And therefore this bay is such a pond for fowl as in any man’s knowledge of our nation that has seen it. . . . Touching on their fruit, I will not speak of their [common] raspberries, cherries, gooseberries, strawberries, delicate plums and others, but they have commonly throughout the country several sorts of grapes, some whereof I tasted, being fairer and larger than any I ever saw in [Virginia]. . . . In this land (as in other parts of the mainland), they have plenty of deer and turkeys as fat as in any other place.

  “How happy were it for our people . . . if they were as free from wickedness and vice as these are”

  Now as concerning the quality of the people, how happy were it for our people in [Virginia], if they were as free from wickedness and vice as these are in this place. And their industry is well [judging from] their buildings, as by a substantial palisade about their settlement of 2700 foot in compass, stronger than I have seen in Virginia, and lastly by a blockhouse which they have erected in the highest place of the town to mount their ordinance upon, from whence they may command all the harbor. As touching their correspondence with the Indians, they are friends with all their neighbors.7

  “They are friends with all their neighbors”

  By the time English businessman Emmanuel Altham visited Plymouth Colony in the summer of 1623, the colony had the benefit of two and a half years of growth. Altham was one of Plymouth Colony’s financial backers, and he sailed to New England aboard the ship Little James, which he hoped to use for transporting New World products back to England. Even though the colony was not showing a great financial return on investment, Altham was enthusiastic about the colony’s future. At the time of his arrival, he found Plymouth encircled by a protective palisade fence or “pale” and further protected by improvements to its hilltop artillery battery. The amount of English-held livestock had increased, naturally and by importation, and Plymouth’s hillside cluster of homes and buildings had expanded enough that Altham could refer to it as a “town”:

  Women and children tend a field of flax. As the years passed and the Pilgrims engaged in the activities of everyday life, they saw their vision for a new life in America slowly unfold.

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  “In this plantation are about twenty houses”

  It is well situated on a high hill close to the seaside, and [is] very commodious for shipping to come unto them. In this plantation are about twenty houses, four or five of which are very fair or pleasant, and the rest (as time will serve) will be made better. And this town is in such great manner that it makes a street between the houses, and at the upper end of the street, there is a strong fort, both by nature and by art, with six pieces of reasonable good artillery mounted thereon; in which [the] fort is [in continuous] watch, so that no Indian can come near about but that he is presently seen.

  This town is paled about with pale of eight feet long, or thereabouts, and in the pale are three great gates. Furthermore, here is belonging to the town six goats, about fifty hogs and also [various] hens. And, lastly, the town is furnished with a company of honest men. . . .8

  “Their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order”

  Issack de Rasieres visited Plymouth Colony in the fall of 1627. He was an agent for the East India Trading Company and a government administrator for the new Dutch colony of New Netherland. The colony had been established in 1624, where the Pilgrims had originally intended to land—around the mouth of the Hudson River in the vicinity of what is now New York City. De Rasieres sailed to Plymouth to establish a trading agreement with the Pilgrim colonists, and met with Governor Bradford.

  By the time of his visit in 1627, Plymouth was still a hillside village, but more houses had been built, others had been improved, and several public structures had been constructed. He noted Plymouth’s fortifications—its stockade or palisade fence, its well-built blockhouse, and its formidable battery of artillery. He was also impressed by the orderliness of the town, with its private courtyards and produce gardens.

  He observed the weekly procession to Sunday worship,
which convened in Plymouth’s hilltop blockhouse, noted the Pilgrims’ democratic form of government, and commented on the colonists’ high morals—which he contrasted, perhaps sardonically, with what he called the “barbarously” worldly lifestyle of the Dutch in New Netherland. He also credited the Pilgrims for developing peaceful and productive relations with the area’s Native American population, and praised them for what he called their “prosperous and praiseworthy undertakings and government.” His observations:

  New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill stretching east towards the seacoast, with a broad street about a cannon shot of 800 feet long, leading down the hill; with a [lane] crossing in the middle. . . . The houses are constructed of hewn planks, with gardens also enclosed behind and at the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack; and at the ends of the streets there are three wooden gates. In the center, on the cross street, stands the governor’s house, before which is a square stockade upon which four [swivel guns] are mounted, so as to enfilade the streets. Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof, made of thick sawn plank, stayed with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannon, which shoot iron balls of four and five pounds, and command the surrounding country.

  The lower part [of the fortified blockhouse] they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holidays. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the captain’s door; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the governor, in a long robe; beside him, on the right hand, comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand the captain with his side-arms, and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so they march in good order, and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard night and day.