by John Butman
Too often, the people who signed up to be settlers were unsuited to the life they would have to lead: aristocrats who sought excitement and adventure; soldiers with no interest in farming or homebuilding; business people who expected immediate profits; and, of course, men who found it difficult to live without women. What was needed were solid, hardworking people with practical skills, leaders who were willing to learn and share responsibility, people with a long-term commitment to make the settlement work. The Leiden separatists offered all of these qualities. They had already demonstrated their ability to live and work together as a self-contained community.
After discussing various options, the Leiden group eventually entered into negotiations with Thomas Weston, a young English merchant, who had a business connection to them. Although he was a member of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers—one of the Great Twelve livery companies—Weston was not among the first rank of merchants. He was not rich enough to join the Merchant Adventurers, which had the exclusive right of trading of unfinished cloth to the Netherlands. The only way he could trade cloth was by paying a royalty to the Merchant Adventurers.21 This was an unreliable source of income, however. It meant that he was always subject to the whims of the Merchant Adventurers and the vicissitudes of the market. Down on his luck, he turned his focus to the business prospects in America. Like many other business people, he had heard the news coming from Virginia about land and tobacco.
Weston had a persuasive style. According to Bradford, he had “much conference” with the Leiden leaders and assured them that he could help them. He promised to reach out to his merchant friends, raise capital, and organize everything. They would have to agree on the business terms, of course.22
The Leiden leaders chose to work with Weston and while they began drafting an agreement, he returned to England to begin the process of raising funds. He attracted some seventy investors, including gentlemen, merchants, and “handy craftsmen.” Some contributed hefty sums and others invested modestly. The total, according to John Smith, came to seven thousand pounds, although there is no record of the actual amount and others put the figure at less than two thousand pounds.23 If Smith’s figure is correct, it is a remarkably large one. Most of the investors were Londoners, few of them separatists, and none seem to have invested in other New World ventures.24 Clearly, the English business community was in a speculative mood and willing to take a risk on a venture with very uncertain commercial prospects.
Weston does not seem to have taken much care in the way he organized the enterprise.25 He and his fellow investors had no long-range goals, beyond this single voyage, and they did not create a set of instructions or ordinances, as had become typical. Nor did they set aside capital for any resupply missions. Indeed, they seem to have thought the colony would be fully functioning and ready to ship saleable commodities back to England by the first return ship—a completely unrealistic expectation.
It was around this time that news filtered back from Weston that the Virginia Company had issued a second, revised patent to John Peirce, an associate of Weston’s. The new patent, dated February 2, 1620, was issued on the same day that the Virginia Company passed an ordinance defining a “particular” or private plantation and providing greater autonomy to the patent holder.26
The Virginia Company’s decision to liberalize the terms of its patents reflected the reality of the high cost of settlement. After seven decades of overseas enterprise, it had become clear that the cost-per-mariner of a trading voyage was far less than the cost-per-settler of a colonization venture. Plus, an investor was likely to realize a return more quickly and reliably on a trading voyage—even one that took two or three years—than on the trade generated by a colony. If the Virginia Company was going to derive significant profits from licensing or franchising land rights, it needed to make the process of investing in plantations as attractive as possible.
For the Leiden group, the new patent was far preferable, since they would be free to “make orders, ordinances and constitutions” for their settlements and to draw commercial benefit from their industry on the land and from trade with Indians.27 They accepted Weston’s recommendation to operate under the new patent.
IN MARCH 1620, while the Leiden group was making final preparations for the voyage to Virginia, a new entity emerged from the reorganization of the Virginia Company. As Bradford wrote, a number of “Honourable Lords” split off from the company and obtained a large grant of land from the king “for the more northerly parts” of America. One of the lords was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and the new group was essentially a reconfiguration of the Plymouth Company, which had long lain dormant after the failure of the Popham Colony. It would have jurisdiction over the region of America that lay between the 40th and 48th parallels, north of the Virginia Company’s territory, and extended all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific.28 This was the land that Captain John Smith had first identified as promising territory.
After his departure from Jamestown in 1609, Smith had established himself as one of the leading advocates of England’s fledgling colonies in Virginia. But if Smith hoped this would win him passage back into the favor of the Virginia Company’s leaders, he was mistaken. By 1614, it was clear to him that they would not be sending him back to Jamestown, and so he set his sights on north Virginia, which had been largely ignored since Raleigh Gilbert and his fellow Popham colonists sailed away from Sagadahoc, leaving Fort St. George to crumble into the ground. He managed to raise enough money from London investors to fund a two-ship venture to the region of present-day Maine.29 Arriving in late April of 1614, Smith and his crew of eighteen men set about fishing and fur-trading. They caught nearly 60,000 fish. While the mariners hauled in their catch, Smith went ashore with eight others and accumulated 11,000 skins, predominantly beaver, through trade with Indians. All the while, Smith observed, measured, wrote, and mapped the territory, just as he had in Virginia. And when the fishing and fur trading was done, he sailed one of the ships for England laden with a cargo he valued at fifteen hundred pounds.30
Back in England, Smith took the opportunity to meet with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had lost none of his enthusiasm for American ventures. Together, Smith and Gorges, with the support of a few of Smith’s friends and earlier supporters, developed a plan for a colony that would be sustained by the catching and processing of fish.31 In March 1615, Smith set sail once again with great hopes. These were soon dashed, however, when he was captured by French pirates and held hostage for three months on board a warship, only winning his freedom after effecting a daring escape. But if he did not establish a colony, he did manage to leave his mark on the land. In a book he wrote while in captivity, A Description of New England, he gave a memorable name to the region variously known as North Virginia and Norumbega. As the title makes clear, he christened the area “New England.”
Smith’s inspiration was Drake’s Nova Albion, on the far side of the continent. As he explained: “New England is that part of America in the Ocean Sea opposite to Nova Albion in the South Sea; discovered by the most memorable Sir Francis Drake in his voyage about the world. In regard whereto this is styled New England, being in the same latitude.”32
In his descriptions, Smith took issue with the old view, which had taken root in the wake of the failed Popham Colony, that New England was not suited to the English. Rather he suggested that the region was like home in many ways, and even better. Above all, he made an impassioned argument for its commercial promise.
As well as his resonant prose, Smith created a remarkable map of New England that arguably surpassed his efforts with Virginia. Produced by Simon van de Passe, who completed the portraits of Pocahontas and Sir Thomas Smythe, the map carries a portrait of Smith himself along with a self-aggrandizing legend: “Admiral of New England.” Beautifully groomed and confident, Smith gazes upon a bucolic landscape dotted with pleasant trees, hills, and tidy dwellings. No Indians appear, and the only wild beast looks more like a housecat than a leopard. The
map is crisscrossed with loxodromes, webs of lines that seem to reduce the vastness of the ocean and connect America with England. This is a country tamed and ready for colonization.
Smith had hoped to use this marvelous book to promote his own venture. But when that failed, he approached the Leiden group, offering his services as an adviser and guide. It was his last hope of returning to the New World. But despite his vast knowledge and expertise, the separatists said “thanks, but no thanks.”
They explained that it would be cheaper to buy his book than to hire him. Smith later scoffed at their “humourous ignorances” which subsequently caused them a “wonderful deal of misery” and could have been avoided if they had simply consulted with him instead of “saying my books and maps were much better cheap to teach them, than myself.”33
BUT IF THE Leiden group said no to Smith, they said yes to a new proposal from Thomas Weston. Until the creation of the Council of New England, as the new group led by Gorges was called, they were all set on a private plantation in Virginia. But Weston sniffed a good business opportunity in this newly named area. For a start, the region, as detailed by Smith, was appealing to him, largely because “of [the] present profit to be made by the fishing that was found in that country.” Also, it seems, Weston believed that the new council would offer less scrutiny of his activities. He therefore urged the Leiden group that “it was best for them to go” to New England, rather than to Jamestown as they had originally planned.34
As they reflected on this new opportunity, the Leiden group considered the pros and cons. On the negative side, they would not have easy access to an established community of English people who knew the ways of the place. On the positive side, however, they would not face any of the religious restrictions that the Jamestown governors might choose to enforce on them.35
Eventually, they reached a consensus. “The generality was swayed” toward New England, wrote Bradford, even though they did not yet have permission from the Council for New England.36 Weston assured them he would take care of this technicality and would be able to secure the patent for them.*
As the days of summer passed in 1620, Cushman and Carver negotiated their final deal with Weston. The contract called for joint ownership of the colony for seven years. All profits would go into a common fund, from which the settlers’ expenses would be paid. At the end of the seven-year period, the profits would be divided based on the number of shares held. One share cost ten pounds, purchasable with cash or provisions. Every settler over sixteen years of age received one share for the payout.37
Everything was agreed. Then, at the last minute, in a brazen act of brinkmanship, Weston inserted two modifications to the contract that significantly changed the nature of the settlers’ commitment. First, land and houses would be included in the calculation of profit. This removed a key incentive for the settlers, who had expected to have full ownership of the homes they would build and lands they would cultivate. Second, the settlers would be required to work for the company seven days a week—not five days, as they had originally agreed—until the day they finally paid off their debt.
This caused an uproar. Some of the Leiden group threatened to withdraw if the terms were accepted, while one of Weston’s major investors threatened to back out if the new terms were not approved.38 Cushman and Carver accepted the modifications, contending that it was the best deal they could get—and eventually it was signed. But several of the separatists who had agreed to go dropped out, and the final contingent of “saints”—as Bradford called them—now numbered just forty-six. To make up a reasonable community for a colony, they had to recruit many people whom they called “strangers” because they had no connection to the group. Some, like Stephen Hopkins, who had survived the Bermuda tempest and lived for a while in Jamestown, were devout Protestants, travelling with their families. Many others, however, did not necessarily have sympathy with the Leiden group’s religious goals.
Finally, on September 6, 1620—seven weeks after the planned sailing date—the Mayflower, a “sweet” merchant ship previously used to transport wine—at last departed on what William Bradford memorialized as its “waighty voyage” for America.39 Two months later, on November 11, 1620, the ship was brought to anchor in what is today known as Provincetown harbor.40
The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth under the challenging terms set by Weston and his associates. Weston himself sold his stake in the American enterprise after just a year, later serving as a member of Jamestown’s House of Burgesses and embarking on a series of other ventures with various degrees of success.41 After five years, the Pilgrims renegotiated their debt with a smaller group of the original investors, but it still proved so onerous that they did not pay it off completely until 1648.* By then, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and its capital city of Boston, completely overshadowed the little community of Plymouth as the center of activity in New England. Eventually, in 1691, these two colonies—along with the Province of Maine, the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and (the now-Canadian provinces of) Nova Scotia and New Brunswick—merged to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Although the Pilgrims survived, the colony was never particularly prosperous or profitable. What’s more, Bradford felt that the community had failed in its original purpose. The Pilgrims had planned a kind of socialist endeavor, where land would be communally owned and everyone would contribute their efforts to be shared among all. They had tried hard to make a go of this “common course,” as Bradford called it, hoping to prove the conceit, put forward by Plato and “other ancients,” that “the taking away of property” and “bringing in community into commonwealth” would “make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.”
But instead, the plan had bred “confusion and discontent”: young, unmarried men did not want to labor, without recompense, for other men and their families; the stronger and fitter men felt they should get a greater share of the benefits; the “aged and graver” men felt disrespected by being “equalized” with everyone else; and women, who had been pressed into doing chores for the whole of the community, saw their lives as “a kind of slavery.”
By 1623, the experiment proved unworkable; the corn harvest was meager and they did not wish to “languish in misery” any longer. Bradford and his fellow leaders debated how they could improve the yield of their harvests. They settled on a program of private ownership and each family was assigned their own parcel of land. This approach “had good success, for it made all hands very industrious.”
Bradford did not lament what he called the “corruption” of his fellow settlers, by which he meant their desire to work for their own benefit, because “all men have this corruption in them.” He concluded that “God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”42
That course could well be called the American Dream.
Forgotten Founders
Today, if you look closely at a map of the world, you will find faint cartographical traces of the largely forgotten story we have told of America’s pre-Pilgrim beginnings.
In northern Canada, if you zoom all the way in, you will come upon an inlet called Frobisher Bay, a body of water called the Countess of Warwick Sound, and a dot of an island called Loks Land. They remind us of the headstrong Martin Frobisher; of Anne Dudley, the wife of Frobisher’s aristocratic patron; and of Michael Lok, the financial backer Frobisher unintentionally bankrupted.*
A thousand miles or so to the south, you will arrive at Popham Beach, named for Sir John Popham, originator of what could have been—had bad weather and family fortunes not intervened—the first permanent English settlement in America.
Farther south, more than six hundred miles from the coast of the Carolinas, you’ll spot Smith’s Island, a member of the Bermuda chain, christened for Sir Thomas Smythe, the most renowned (and sometimes reviled) English businessman of his day.
And a hundred miles inland you’ll locate Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, which owes its name to the famo
us courtier who was just as much an entrepreneur as he was an entrancer of the English queen Elizabeth I.
Apart from Sir Walter, these names—while still there in small-font map labels—have been largely deleted from the popular history of America’s beginning. Far more familiar is the name adopted by the group that so famously established the English settlement that did endure in New England, the Pilgrims, and the town they founded, Plymouth, Massachusetts.
But it was not always so. In fact, the Pilgrims did not play such a central role in the American founding narrative until some two hundred years after the first thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims who had survived the first year chose to “rejoice together,” drawing on the “great store of wild turkeys” and five deer brought by the Indians, who were invited to join the great feast.1 Only then, in the early years of the nineteenth century, was their story taken up, dusted off, and retold as America’s quintessential creational myth, a fable of moral rectitude and national goodness. The commercial aspects were downplayed or suppressed and, as a result, this key aspect of the country’s national character was largely erased from the picture, just as Elizabeth I had tried to scratch out the symbol of Spain from the map of England.
One of the first to champion the Pilgrims as ideal Americans was Daniel Webster, a once-revered but now largely forgotten American statesman. On December 22, 1820, he delivered an address on Forefathers’ Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, an event that had been established in 1769 to commemorate the Mayflower landing there. (Plymouth still celebrates the occasion.) Webster, renowned as an orator, proclaimed the importance of the Pilgrims’ achievement. We stand “on the spot where the first scene of our history was laid,” he declared, the place where the Pilgrims had endured “sufferings” and gone through great “labors.” Driven by their “principles of civil and religious liberty,” Webster boomed, they had overcome hardships and lived “under a condition of comparative equality.”2