Q&A WITH PILGRIM
In conjunction with my Red Eye column Friday, I spoke with John Kemp, who is a real life make-believe Pilgrim from Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth Massachusetts.
Why do we have such a sanitized perception of the Pilgrims?
The "Pilgrim Story" has evolved over more than two hundred years--generally with a lot of idealizing (perhaps more than sanitizing). Sixty years ago, George Willison's Saints and Strangers stirred up at least as much controversy as Philbrick has this year.
Going back to the 18th century, back to the beginning both of this country and of the popularized Pilgrim Story, the "founding fathers" of our American Revolution saw the Pilgrims as "forefathers" in their own democratic image. Somehow, the voices of loyalist or Tory Mayflower descendants (many of whom fled to Nova Scotia or back to England) were drowned out--though they were much closer to voices heard in Plymouth during the 1620s. Then, in succeeding generations, great Victorians of the romantic age like Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow popularized the Pilgrims as right-minded, patriotic, romantically virtuous and appealing. Professor John Seelye, in his Memory's Nation: the Place of Plymouth Rock, quotes the young Ralph Waldo Emerson kneeling on Plymouth Rock in 1834, where he "felt that it was grown more important by the growth of this nation." And Seelye gives many other examples of the growing sacramental power of Plymouth's rock. What mattered was the transcendental meaning of the Pilgrims, not who the colonists actually were or what they might have thought of latter-day pilgrimages. Making a shrine of Plymouth Rock? What would any good Calvinist think? (And with the post-Civil War erection of a pagan Greco-Roman temple over The Rock, we might wonder how the RPM's have increased as poor William Bradford spins in his grave.)
In the 20th century, between Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and the tendency toward video simplification, the stereotypical Pilgrim has become increasingly familiar--until every other generation or so, a Philbrick or a Willison breaks through with a new vision of the Plymouth's "Old Colony"--as it really was.
The Pilgrims landed in power struggle.... what was the struggle, and how did Chief Massasoit manipulate the Pilgrims to his advantage? What was the result?
There has been much speculation (based on colonial sources) about rivalry between the Wampanoag and the Narragansett. This speculation has led to a theory that Massasoit was trying to exploit an alliance with the English in order to strengthen his own authority. However, the bias of colonial sources makes speculation about Wampanoag motives highly unreliable.
Is there anything the Pilgrims did that can make us truly thankful?
In early Plymouth Colony, a Thanksgiving was observed as a day of worship, a Holy Day. The Wampanoag held a similar respect for the sacredness of Thanksgiving observances. As Philbrick and Willison (and many other historians) have pointed out, both the colonists and the Wampanoag were far more complex than the familiar stereotypes. Yet if these two different cultures share attitudes towards thanksgiving that contrast with our own, then perhaps they can help us to reconsider our values and customs; and by this reconsideration, we may strengthen our own way of living and thanksgiving.
Those of us who truly love freedom can be grateful that the Pilgrim became a powerful symbol during the American Revolution, helping to define an inspiring national identity and strengthening the resolve of struggling patriots. Similarly, those who are grateful for the abolition of American slavery should recognize that Daniel Webster was not alone in finding Pilgrim inspiration for the first beginnings of Abolitionism and for the far greater sufferings and sacrifices of the Civil War.