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Strangers

In the 1500s England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and created a new church called the Church of England (sometimes referred to as the Anglican Church).

Everyone in England had to belong to the Anglican Church. There was a group of people called Separatists that wanted to separate from that church.

William Bradford found like-minded Christians in a separatist congregation in the village of Scrooby, close to his hometown of Austerfield, England.

In 1607, the Anglican Church became aware of the Scrooby congregation and arrested some, placing others under surveillance, and fining those they could.

The congregation, under the leadership of John Robinson sold their belongings and relocated to Leiden, the Netherlands, where the government practiced a policy of religious tolerance.  Later, they looked to leave to America.

The Separatists signed a contract with the Virginia Company to establish a colony. By its terms, the stockholders who financed the journey (“Adventurers”) would share in the new colony’s profits.

The Separatists called themselves “Saints.”  When the recruiting for the voyage was done, several of the Leiden Saints were unable or unwilling to go.

In order to fill the ship and protect their investments, the Adventurers started to recruit colonists in London, recruiting them at large without any regard to their religious beliefs.  The Separatists called these the “Strangers.”

The Strangers were a group of skilled workers who were sent along by the investors to help build the colony.  They were considered common folk and included merchants, craftsmen and indentured servants. 

The Strangers had their own reasons for joining the journey, and didn’t share the goal of the Saints of separating from the Church of England.

The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, with approximately 130 people on board: 102 passengers, the rest crew.  Most traveled with families; some left behind family members who were to sail on later voyages.

There were 74-males (50-men) and 28-females (19-women, 3 were pregnant); the 69-adult passengers were mainly in their 30s (the average age of the men is estimated to be 34). The 14-young adults ranged between the ages of 13 and 18, and the 19-children were 12 and under (Deetz). After arriving in harsh winter weather, one-half of the passengers died during the “general sickness” of colds, coughs and fevers.

The Mayflower Compact

The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York.

The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination.  They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands.  All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.

The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6 (OS) (September 16 (NS)), until Cape Cod was sighted on November 9 (OS)(November 19 (NS)), 1620.

As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose.  The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation.   However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked.

The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south, they would just stay and explore Cape Cod.  They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor.  The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation.

Back in England, the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company to establish a colony near the Hudson River, which at the time was part of Virginia. By its terms, the stockholders who financed the journey would share in the new colony’s profits.

After bad weather during the Atlantic crossing pushed the Mayflower hundreds of miles further north, to Cape Cod, the “Strangers” didn’t think they should be subject to the contract’s provisions anymore.

William Bradford wrote in his history of Plymouth Plantation:  “In these hard and difficulte beginings they found some discontents and murmurings arise amongst some, and mutinous speeches and carriages in other; but they were soone quelled and overcome by the wisdome, patience, and just and equall carriage of things by the Gov[emo]r and better part, which clave faithfully togeather in the maine.”

To quell the conflict and preserve unity, Pilgrim leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact before going ashore. The brief document (about 200 words) bound its signers into a body politic for the purpose of forming a government and pledged them to abide by any laws and regulations that would later be established “for the general good of the colony.” (Britannica)

The document, drafted and signed aboard the ship by nearly all of the adult male passengers, would become known as the Mayflower Compact. (Of those that did not sign, some had been hired as seamen only for one year and others may have been too ill to write. No women signed it.)

The Mayflower is “indissolubly linked with the fundamentals of American democratic institutions. She was the wave-rocked cradle of our liberties.” (Henry B. Culver, Naval Historian, 1924)

General Society of Mayflower Descendants

The first Society of Mayflower Descendants was established in New York City on December 22, 1894 as a society for lineal descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Three more states followed in 1896: Connecticut on March 7, Massachusetts on March 28, and Pennsylvania on July 1. Delegates from the existing Societies met in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to form the General Society of Mayflower Descendants on January 12, 1897.

To be a member of the Mayflower Society, you must be able to prove direct lineal descent from a passenger (Saint or Stranger) aboard the Mayflower who stayed on to establish the colony.

Though the crew of the Mayflower certainly made significant sacrifices in completing the journey, the Mayflower Society recognizes only those passengers who stayed to form Plymouth Colony. The crew returned to England in the spring of 1621 so no members are listed above and descent from a crew member does not qualify one for membership.

This is a summary, click the following link for more:

In the 1500s England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and created a new church called the Church of England (sometimes referred to as the Anglican Church).

Everyone in England had to belong to the Anglican Church. There was a group of people called Separatists that wanted to separate from that church.

William Bradford found like-minded Christians in a separatist congregation in the village of Scrooby, close to his hometown of Austerfield, England.

In 1607, the Anglican Church became aware of the Scrooby congregation and arrested some, placing others under surveillance, and fining those they could.

The congregation, under the leadership of John Robinson sold their belongings and relocated to Leiden, the Netherlands, where the government practiced a policy of religious tolerance. Later, they looked to leave to America.

The Separatists signed a contract with the Virginia Company to establish a colony. By its terms, the stockholders who financed the journey (“Adventurers”) would share in the new colony’s profits.

The Separatists called themselves “Saints.” When the recruiting for the voyage was done, several of the Leiden Saints were unable or unwilling to go.

In order to fill the ship and protect their investments, the Adventurers started to recruit colonists in London, recruiting them at large without any regard to their religious beliefs. The Separatists called these the “Strangers.”

The Strangers were a group of skilled workers who were sent along by the investors to help build the colony. They were considered common folk and included merchants, craftsmen and indentured servants.

The Strangers had their own reasons for joining the journey, and didn’t share the goal of the Saints of separating from the Church of England.

The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, with approximately 130 people on board: 102 passengers, the rest crew. Most traveled with families; some left behind family members who were to sail on later voyages.

There were 74-males (50-men) and 28-females (19-women, 3 were pregnant); the 69-adult passengers were mainly in their 30s (the average age of the men is estimated to be 34). The 14-young adults ranged between the ages of 13 and 18, and the 19-children were 12 and under (Deetz). After arriving in harsh winter weather, one-half of the passengers died during the “general sickness” of colds, coughs and fevers.

The Mayflower Compact

The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York.

The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees.

The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6 (OS) (September 16 (NS)), until Cape Cod was sighted on November 9 (OS)(November 19 (NS)), 1620.

As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked.

The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south, they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation.

Back in England, the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company to establish a colony near the Hudson River, which at the time was part of Virginia. By its terms, the stockholders who financed the journey would share in the new colony’s profits.

After bad weather during the Atlantic crossing pushed the Mayflower hundreds of miles further north, to Cape Cod, the “Strangers” didn’t think they should be subject to the contract’s provisions anymore.

William Bradford wrote in his history of Plymouth Plantation: “In these hard and difficulte beginings they found some discontents and murmurings arise amongst some, and mutinous speeches and carriages in other; but they were soone quelled and overcome by the wisdome, patience, and just and equall carriage of things by the Gov[emo]r and better part, which clave faithfully togeather in the maine.”

To quell the conflict and preserve unity, Pilgrim leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact before going ashore. The brief document (about 200 words) bound its signers into a body politic for the purpose of forming a government and pledged them to abide by any laws and regulations that would later be established “for the general good of the colony.” (Britannica)

The document, drafted and signed aboard the ship by nearly all of the adult male passengers, would become known as the Mayflower Compact. (Of those that did not sign, some had been hired as seamen only for one year and others may have been too ill to write. No women signed it.)

The Mayflower is “indissolubly linked with the fundamentals of American democratic institutions. She was the wave-rocked cradle of our liberties.” (Henry B. Culver, Naval Historian, 1924)

General Society of Mayflower Descendants

The first Society of Mayflower Descendants was established in New York City on December 22, 1894 as a society for lineal descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Three more states followed in 1896: Connecticut on March 7, Massachusetts on March 28, and Pennsylvania on July 1. Delegates from the existing Societies met in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to form the General Society of Mayflower Descendants on January 12, 1897.

To be a member of the Mayflower Society, you must be able to prove direct lineal descent from a passenger (Saint or Stranger) aboard the Mayflower who stayed on to establish the colony.

Though the crew of the Mayflower certainly made significant sacrifices in completing the journey, the Mayflower Society recognizes only those passengers who stayed to form Plymouth Colony. The crew returned to England in the spring of 1621 so no members are listed above and descent from a crew member does not qualify one for membership.

This is a summary, click the following link for more:
https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Strangers.pdf

© 2022 Ho‘okuleana LLC

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Body of Liberties

The Mayflower is “indissolubly linked with the fundamentals of American democratic institutions. She was the wave-rocked cradle of our liberties.” (Henry B. Culver, Naval Historian, 1924)

Mayflower Compact

The Pilgrims established a government of sorts under the Mayflower Compact of 1620, which enshrined the notion of the consent of the governed.

It agreed to pass “just and equal laws for the good of the Colony”. The first experiment in New World self-government, some scholars even see it as a kind of American Magna Carta, a template for the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  (Bryant, BBC)

The legacy of the pilgrims is foundational. The work ethic. The fact Americans don’t take much annual holiday. Notions of self-reliance and attitudes towards government welfare. Laws that prohibit young adults from drinking in bars until the age of 21. A certain prudishness. The religiosity.

Americans continue to expect their presidents to be men of faith. In fact, no occupant of the White House has openly identified as an atheist.

Also the profit motive was strong among the settlers, and with it the belief that prosperity was a divine reward for following God’s path – a forerunner of the gospel of prosperity preached by modern-day television evangelists. (Bryant, BBC)

Julia Ernst noted, the crux of the Mayflower Compact was to establish a common agreement among all the people in the colony, “mutually” and “in the presence of one another,” to “Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic.” This is the beginning of a democratic form of governance established by the people and for the people under the principle of majority rule.

It is a foundational document – not a set of specific rules, but a charter creating the polity (the public relationships among the members of that community) and the government to institute and maintain order in that society.

They agreed to “Covenant” with each other – to enter into a formal and fundamentally sacred reciprocal promise with every other member of the community.

This form of agreement reflected the earnest solemnity of the covenant theological system and the covenant political system with which most of them were probably accustomed. The Separatists utilized covenants in their religious beliefs and practices, as mentioned previously.

Not only did they make a formal promise to each other through the “Covenant,” but they also pledged themselves to “Combine” with each other – to work together as one unit for the common good of all members of the diverse community, both Saints and Strangers.

The Mayflower Compact was not so named until 1793 – it was originally called the Plymouth Combination, reflecting the coming together of all individual members into one cohesive, collective, egalitarian unit.

The Mayflower Compact does not contain all the elements of a written constitution, such as fleshing out the form in which the new government will take shape. However, it forms the basis for such a government through their agreement “to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time.”

Thus, the Mayflower Compact was in effect a pre-constitutional agreement, as it expressly envisions that the members of the civil society will jointly create “Constitutions and Offices.”

“The Mayflower Compact reaffirmed one of the fundamental ideas of the Magna Carta; namely, that no political society could flourish without respect for the rule of law,” said Kim Holmes, executive vice president of The Heritage Foundation.

Body of Liberties

Next, in 1630, the Puritans used the royal charter establishing the Massachusetts Bay Company to create a government in which “freemen” – white males who owned property and paid taxes and thus could take on the responsibility of governing – elected a governor and a single legislative body called the Great and General Court, made up of assistants and deputies.

Conflicts arose over the arbitrariness of the assistants, and in 1641 the legislature created the Body of Liberties. This document was a statement of principles for governance that protected individual liberties and was the basis for the guarantees later expressed in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first attempt in the colonies to restrain the power of the elected representatives by appealing to a fundamental document that lists the rights and duties of the people. The document, drafted and debated over several years, combined the early American covenanting tradition of the Mayflower Compact with an appeal to the common law tradition that crossed the Atlantic from Britain.

In 1644 this single body became an entity made up of two chambers: the House of Assistants (later the Senate) and the House of Deputies (later the House of Representatives). This set the precedent of bicameralism for most governmental legislatures in the United States, including the eventual federal legislature. (Britannica)

At first the right to vote was limited to the “chosen” – those whose religious background was thought to ensure salvation – but, after the original charter was revoked and a new one established in 1691, the franchise was extended to property owners and taxpayers. (Eventually, amendments granted all men and women the right to vote and hold office.)

The Body of Liberties is the first legal code established by European colonists in New England and was composed of a list of liberties, rather than restrictions, and intended for use as guidance for the General Court of the time.

This document is considered by many as the precursor to the General Laws of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Constitution. It incorporates rights that were later judged to be ahead of their time, with some of these rights eventually appearing in the Bill of Rights.  Scholars do not agree as to whether these liberties were ever adopted, adopted provisionally or approved of by the General Court.

On December 10, 1641, the General Court established the hundred laws which were called the Body of Liberties. They “had been revised and altered by the [General] Court, and sent forth into every town to be further considered of, and now again in this [General] Court they were revised, amended, and presented.”  (Mass-gov)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Body of Liberties:

Click to access Body-of-Liberties.pdf

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Pilgrims Were English and Loyal to the King

In the 1500s England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and created a new church called the Church of England (sometimes referred to as the Anglican Church).

Although the new church had been founded by Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) during the Protestant Reformation in opposition to the Catholic Church, it still retained many aspects of Catholicism which some Protestants, derisively known by Anglicans as “Puritans” because they wished to purify the Church, objected to.  (Joshua Mark, 2021)

King James I, the same who commissioned the famous King James Translation of the Bible, was the head of the Anglican Church, interpreted this criticism as treason, and authorized officials to fine, arrest, imprison and even execute dissenters. (Joshua Mark, 2021)  Everyone in England had to belong to the Anglican Church. There was a group of people called Separatists that wanted to separate from that church.

Pilgrims Wanted to Remain English, Even Though They Were Persecuted and Arrested

In 1607 CE, the Anglican Church became aware of the Scrooby congregation and arrested some, placing others under surveillance, and fining those they could. The congregation, under the leadership of John Robinson (l. 1576-1628 CE) sold their belongings and relocated to Leiden, the Netherlands, where the government practiced a policy of religious tolerance.

Between 1607-1618 CE, the congregation lived freely in Leiden.  Bradford and Edward Winslow both wrote glowingly of their experience. In Leiden, God had allowed them, in Bradford’s estimation, “to come as near the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other church of these later times.” God had blessed them with “much peace and liberty,” Winslow echoed. (Joshua Mark, 2021)

However, after several years of living the Netherlands they cherished the freedom of conscience they enjoyed in Leiden, but the Pilgrims had two major complaints:

  • they found it a hard place to maintain their English identity (their children wanted to speak Dutch instead of English and they missed other things about English life) and
  • it was an even harder place to make a living.

In America, they hoped to live by themselves, enjoy the same degree of religious liberty and earn a “better and easier” living. (Robert Tracy McKenzie)

Their leaders, William Bradford, Reverend John Robinson and several others worked out a plan to move the entire Pilgrim church group to America. That way they could still be English. (NPS, Cape Cod National Seashore)

The Leiden congregation were looking into some means of creating their own colony in Virginia when, in 1618 CE, one of their leading members, William Brewster (l. 1568-1644 CE), published a tract criticizing the Anglican Church and orders were given by the English officials for his arrest.

Brewster was hidden by his friends, but the congregation stepped up their efforts to relocate and contracted with Thomas Weston (l. 1584 – c. 1647 CE), who was a merchant adventurer who matched potential colonists with investors.

After deciding to leave, they settled on the New World as their destination due to its remoteness. Bradford went to the Virginia Company and asked them for permission to establish a new colony in Virginia.

Seeking the right to worship as they wished, the Pilgrims had signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle on land near the Hudson River, which was then part of northern Virginia. The Virginia Company was a trading company chartered by King James I with the goal of colonizing parts of the eastern coast of the New World. London stockholders financed the Pilgrim’s voyage with the understanding they would be repaid in profits from the new settlement.

The Colonists were British Until the Declaration of Independence and Subsequent Revolutionary War

While the Mayflower Compact  (signed in 1620) established a government for the Plymouth Colony, they still considered themselves loyal subjects of King James I and made that very clear in the text.

The first words of the Mayflower Compact confirm the Pilgrims’ loyalty to the king:  “In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.”

They concluded the Mayflower Compact with: “In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.”

The Mayflower Compact stated principles of a self-governed body not completely separate from England.  The colonists had no intention of declaring (and did not declare) their independence from England when they signed the Mayflower Compact. 

As noted in the opening line of the Compact, both Pilgrims and “Strangers” refer to themselves as “loyal subjects” of King James, regardless his actions to persecute and exile the Pilgrims.  They also identify him as their king not by virtue of their consent, but “by the grace of God.” This puts the Mayflower Compact closer to an affirmation of the divine right of kings than the right of self-rule.

The rest of the Mayflower Compact bound the signers into a “Civil Body Politic” for the purpose of passing “just and equal Laws … for the general good of the Colony.”

In the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans came to North America looking for religious freedom, economic opportunities, and political liberty.

They created 13 colonies on the East Coast of the continent.  Each colony had its own government, but the British king controlled these governments.

They believed that Great Britain did not treat the colonists as equal citizens. (US Citizenship and Immigration Services)

Over 150-years Later, There Was a Push for New Governance and Citizenship

Over one-hundred and fifty years after the Pilgrims landed and signed the Mayflower Compact in the New World, the subsequent colonists stated in 1776,

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another …”

“… and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

 They concluded their Declaration stating,

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States”

“that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The Declaration of Independence (1776) was designed for multiple audiences: the King, the colonists, and the world. It was also designed to multitask. Its goals were to rally the troops, win foreign allies and to announce the creation of a new country.

The introductory sentence states the Declaration’s main purpose, to explain the colonists’ right to revolution. In other words, “to declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Congress had to prove the legitimacy of its cause. It had just defied the most powerful nation on Earth. It needed to motivate foreign allies to join the fight.

The most important and dramatic statement comes near the end: “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” It declares a complete break with Britain and its King and claims the powers of an independent country. (National Archives)

By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists’ motivations for seeking independence.

By declaring themselves an independent nation, the American colonists were able to confirm an official alliance with the Government of France and obtain French assistance in the war against Great Britain.  (National Archives)

However, King George III did not want to lose this valuable land, and so the colonies took to arms to defend their new country and rights in what is now known as the Revolutionary War.

Unfortunately, it took five long years of war before the British surrendered in October 19, 1781, and the United States of America could begin the business of becoming a nation.  Later, when the colonists won independence, these colonies became the 13 original states.

Click the following link to a general summary about Pilgrims Were English and Loyal to the King:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Pilgrims-Were-Loyal-to-the-King.pdf

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