The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in America. By Antonio Gisbert Perez. 1886. Senate of Spain, Madrid • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS “A ship, the Mayflower; a date, 1620; a holiday, Thanksgiving; […] a utopia, the “city on the hill”; heroes, the Pilgrim Fathers . Here are the ingredients of the mythical birth of the United States”, writes Bertrand Van Ruymbeke in America before the United States . It is true that the story of the Mayflower pilgrims , relatively unknown until the end of the 18 th century in the sources, is propelled, during the XIX th century, as a symbol of American identity and a myth of origins. It was then reinterpreted to successively embody the ideal of political freedom born of the American Revolution (1775-1783) and the values of freedom and equality of the Northern States against the slavery of the Southern States during the Civil War. (1861-1865). However, the arrival and installation in 1620 of the 102 passengers of the Mayflower in New England were a marginal event at the time. Why did such an episode, then unnoticed, reach the rank of founding myth of the current first world power? New England instead of Virginia In 1620, English separatist Puritans acquired territory in Virginia from the Plymouth Company, one of their country's colonial companies. The Puritans then designate Christians seeking to reform the Church of England to bring it more into conformity with the biblical model by purifying it of certain of its rites, which these zealous Protestants readily assimilate to a "papist" remnant (i.e. say Catholic). Faced with the failures of reform attempts, a minority of them, separatists, came to the conclusion that it was now necessary to found new ecclesiastical communities outside the irreformable State Church. Such is the case of these 35 Puritans from the small town of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, who decide to leave for the New World in order to found a colony there governed by standards which they consider more biblical and populated by men. whom they regard as truly regenerated. Led by William Bradford, these "pilgrims" have the feeling of reliving the biblical Exodus, leaving a Europe which they consider similar to ancient Egypt to settle in what they imagine as a new Promised Land. To the 35 Puritans of Scrooby are added 67 "foreigners", candidates for the journey to the New World. But these separatists are not alone on board. They are even a minority, since 67 "outsiders", in the words of Bradford in his History of the Plymouth Colony , are also on the trip. These men had embarked with the pilgrims on the orders of the company of investors financing the enterprise, in order to increase the chances of survival of the expedition in the event of a hard blow (epidemic or Indian attack). Their motivations being above all material, dissensions are not long in appearing as for the choice of the destination. Among the pilgrims as well as among the "strangers", many wished to settle in New England rather than in Virginia. It was to respond to these tensions that an agreement was concluded, the Mayflower Compact , signed by 41 passengers on November 11, 1620. Far from constituting the visionary pact precursor of American republicanism that would later be made, the Compact is above all a pragmatic contract aimed at ensuring a minimum legal framework in the future colony. The signatories thus undertake to "constitute themselves as a civil body politic" and to obey the laws which will be promulgated in the colony. Saved by Native Americans Having disembarked at Cape Cod, in present-day southeast Massachusetts, the passengers founded the village of Plymouth, the first lasting settlement in New England, on the other side of the bay. But, due to a harsh winter, nearly half of the inhabitants of the new community died of epidemics within a few months. However, the cordial relations they maintained with the Amerindians were of real use to them. The settlers thus met Tisquantum and Samoset, of the Wampanoag tribe, who both spoke English. Captured by a European captain, Tisquantum had spent part of his life in England. He served as an interpreter for the settlers and taught them "the best way to plant wheat", which made Bradford say that he was a real "gift from the Lord". During the first harvests, in the fall of 1621, three days of thanksgiving were decreed. . Shaped by biblical stories and Calvinist theology of election, the settlers recognized, according to Bradford, "that the Lord was with them in all their doings and deeds, that his grace was exercised in all their goings and come". Sign of this election, the colony becomes prosperous, gains inhabitants and even spreads with the creation of surrounding villages (Duxbury, Yarmouth, Taunton, Sandwich), before ending up absorbed, in 1691, in the colony of Massachusetts. Plymouth was not, however, the first English colony in America:that of Jamestown in Virginia, founded in 1607, preceded it. Mayflower Pilgrims Nor were they the first Europeans to set foot on the land of New England:many merchants, mainly French and English, had already explored it, and a first colony, Sagadahoc, had enjoyed a brief existence there. The anachronistic account of the "Pilgrim Fathers" as the first "Americans" or, according to John Quincy Adams, the "founders of [our] race" must therefore be discarded. Refuge of the persecuted Nevertheless, it is not entirely without reason that the episode of the Mayflower eventually became the founding myth of the United States. It reveals a major characteristic of the English colonies which, contrary to the French colonial model, in which religious uniformity was imposed, presented a real denominational diversity and came to be considered as the land of refuge par excellence for the persecuted minorities of the Old World. Succeeding the Pilgrims of the Mayflower , about 13,000 Puritans thus settled in New England, mainly in Massachusetts, between 1630 and 1640, what has been called the Great Migration. In addition, the American coasts welcomed, during the XVII th century, many religious minorities, such as the Quakers (very represented in the central colonies, notably Pennsylvania), the Baptists or other Protestant minorities who refuse to conform to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, establishing a strict Anglicanism in England. The Puritans were not the only ones to leave for North America to flee persecution:there were also English Catholics, German Lutherans and French Reformed. English Catholics, also persecuted, saw in the colony of Maryland, founded in 1632, a land of refuge. These migrations are not limited to English minorities. German Lutherans, Alsatian Mennonites persecuted for their faith, French Reformed, many of whom left their homeland after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and Moravian Brethren founded their own churches across the Atlantic. Some Jewish communities appear. Finally, Anglicanism, although less omnipresent than in England, is nonetheless very well represented in the colonies, especially those in the South. If the contemporary reconstruction of the episode of the Mayflower constitutes, it is true, a myth, it remains representative of two aspects that have strongly marked the American identity:Puritanism and plurality. The theory of "manifest destiny" (Manifest Destiny ) making the American nation the new chosen people of God, developed in the 1840s, is in many ways heir to the providentialism of the Pilgrim Fathers and their Puritan brethren. Also, the Mayflower perfectly illustrates this other feature of American history:the reception of religious minorities, so characteristic of this plural America. In this sense, the story of the Mayflower can be read “like the Acts of the Apostles of the future American nation,” in the words of historian Bernard Cottret. Find out more History of Plymouth Colony. Chronicles of the New World (1620-1647), by William Bradford, Labor et Fides, 2004.America before the United States. A History of English America (1497-1776), by Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Flammarion, 2013.
