{"id":25019,"date":"2017-08-03T01:27:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T05:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=25019"},"modified":"2017-08-01T19:38:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T23:38:41","slug":"pilgrims-400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilgrims 400"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In three years, various communities on both sides of the Atlantic will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the English separatist emigration from Leiden (via Southampton, Dartmouth, and Plymouth) to what became New Plymouth. The two Plymouths in particular hope and rightly anticipate that the anniversary will boost tourism. For a glimpse at the Mayflower\/Plymouth 400 plans, see the American<\/a> and European<\/a> websites, respectively. The latter is quite useful for locating various Pilgrim sites around England.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Mayflower Steps in Plymouth (Devon, UK)
Photo by RobertBFC at English Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s fascinating to me that the Pilgrim story retains considerable salience long after most academic historians at least have abandoned hagiography for more complex and often much grimmer accounts of early New England history. Even a quick glance at that history reveals that there is at least as much to mourn as there is to celebrate, as disease, warfare, and rapacity shrank native populations and land. New England maverick Thomas Morton rightly termed the region a \u201cnew found Golgotha.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, while most historians love seeing the places they write about, the kitschy nature of some Pilgrim sites might turn off the erudite and sophisticated among them. In old and new Plymouth, one finds guides and interpreters in period costume, gift shops, and a host of Pilgrim paraphernalia.<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s a bit easy to roll one\u2019s eyes at longstanding but not entirely rock-solid claims. Did the Pilgrims (who did not become \u201cthe Pilgrims\u201d until the early nineteenth century, but who did understand themselves as Pilgrims on their way to heaven) really walk on Old Plymouth\u2019s Mayflower Steps? Unlikely, since the steps in question were not there in 1620. Did the Pilgrims really step onto Plymouth Rock? The latter stems from a mid-eighteenth-century claim.<\/p>\n

Despite all of the above, I am having a blast visiting Pilgrim sites in Europe this summer, while working on a history of New Plymouth due in \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 2020. I\u2019ve eaten at the Mayflower Pub<\/a> in London\u2019s Rotherhithe district. I had Pilgrim ice cream in Old Plymouth. In fact, the seafood in both Plymouths is top-notch. I sampled quahogs for the first time the last time I was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and I keep it simple with fish and chips on this side of the pond. I do not allow myself to get sidetracked by the fact that the fare on the actual <\/em>Mayflower<\/em> was rather less abundant and exquisite<\/em>. One can only have so much historical empathy.<\/p>\n

Historians frequently complain that their contemporaries do not care about the past, only to then complain about enthusiasts who fail to comprehend the past with sufficient complexity or remorse. I think it\u2019s rather splendid that a fair number of twenty-first century Americans remain Pilgrim fanatics. And not all of them are descendants, either.<\/p>\n

Certainly, many historians, politicians, and others have mischaracterized the Plymouth separatists over the last two hundred years. They were not sailing to the New World for anything approaching our ideals of democracy or religious freedom. The separatist leaders sought liberty, by which they meant organizing their church according to their understanding of the Bible. They asked kings James and Charles for \u201cliberty of conscience,\u201d but at first only as a means of ensuring their colony\u2019s survival. In a letter written shortly before the colony\u2019s dissolution, Thomas Hinckley explained to officials in New England that residents of New Plymouth enjoyed religious freedom, as long as they were not \u201cPapists\u201d or \u201cQuakers\u201d (whom he defined as not Christians). Those who dissented from the established orthodoxy were left in peace, as long as they helped support the town minister from whom they dissented. One can read the correspondence of Plymouth\u2019s Quakers for a sense of how that went.<\/p>\n

\"Leaving<\/a>
Leaving no rock unturned in the quest for European Pilgrim sites<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end, even as historians question everything from landmarks to outdated interpretations, the Pilgrims have retained their importance. It helps to be associated with turkeys and football, for sure. But the Pilgrim myths created in the early nineteenth century have stuck in part because the story itself is so good. A tiny religious minority sets off for \u201cnorthern Virginia\u201d under incredibly inauspicious circumstances. They cannot finance their voyage on their own. They cannot obtain a royal patent. One of their boats proves unseaworthy. A portion of the group stays in England (a larger portion had chosen to stay in Leiden). They leave too late in the fall and show up on Cape Cod in the midst of winter. Half of them die. And yet the colony survives.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a story worth its multitude of historical sites. A story worth a bit of kitsch.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In three years, various communities on both sides of the Atlantic will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the English separatist emigration from Leiden (via Southampton, Dartmouth, and Plymouth) to what became New Plymouth. The two Plymouths in particular hope and rightly anticipate that the anniversary will boost tourism. For a glimpse at the Mayflower\/Plymouth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[500,8,3538],"tags":[3539,314,3540],"class_list":["post-25019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-religious-history","category-john-turner","category-pilgrims","tag-mayflower","tag-pilgrims","tag-plymouth"],"yoast_head":"\nPilgrims 400<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In three years, various communities on both sides of the Atlantic will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the English separatist emigration from\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pilgrims 400\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In three years, various communities on both sides of the Atlantic will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the English separatist emigration from\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Anxious Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-03T05:27:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-01T23:38:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/files\/2017\/08\/600px-MayflowerSteps.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"johnturner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnturner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/\",\"name\":\"Pilgrims 400\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-03T05:27:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-01T23:38:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/976685779e3256328b03af5f2c9d69ca\"},\"description\":\"In three years, various communities on both sides of the Atlantic will celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the English separatist emigration from\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2017\/08\/pilgrims-400\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pilgrims 400\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/\",\"name\":\"Anxious Bench\",\"description\":\"The Relevance of Religious History for Today\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/976685779e3256328b03af5f2c9d69ca\",\"name\":\"johnturner\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f393838d8f979f64dbee7fd63fd8bfdc?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f393838d8f979f64dbee7fd63fd8bfdc?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"johnturner\"},\"description\":\"In the fall of 2012, I will become Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University. 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