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It was 400 years ago today...

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
The Mayflower set off for America on September 16, 1620.

Mayflower - Wikipedia

When I was a kid learning about the Mayflower the first time, I think we were probably taught more myth than fact. Their reasons for leaving England were ostensibly religious, and they saw America as some kind of "promised land."

This wasn't actually the first permanent English settlement in America, and there were subsequent settlements on the east coast as more and more colonists trickled in and established a foothold.

I suppose one way of looking at the significance of the event would be to ask: If the Mayflower never sailed or was lost along the journey, would American history have turned out any differently? Or was this land destined to be colonized and conquered no matter what?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I suppose one way of looking at the significance of the event would be to ask: If the Mayflower never sailed or was lost along the journey, would American history have turned out any differently? Or was this land destined to be colonized and conquered no matter what?
Greed rules all. Conquest, rape, and pillage were inevitable the moment they were possible.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
This wasn't actually the first permanent English settlement in America, and there were subsequent settlements on the east coast as more and more colonists trickled in and established a foothold.
Yeah, I was shocked to discover the pilgrims weren't the first. :sweatsmile:
I knew it was for religious reasons, though.
I didn't know until I was in 8th grade I think that "pilgrims" wasn't just a word for that specific group of people. :sweatsmile:
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
Yeah, I was shocked to discover the pilgrims weren't the first. :sweatsmile:
I knew it was for religious reasons, though.
I didn't know until I was in 8th grade I think that "pilgrims" wasn't just a word for that specific group of people. :sweatsmile:
We didn't even learn about this at school so everything I've learnt about it comes from talking to US folks themselves.
 

Wu Wei

ursus senum severiorum and ex-Bisy Backson
The Mayflower set off for America on September 16, 1620.

Mayflower - Wikipedia

When I was a kid learning about the Mayflower the first time, I think we were probably taught more myth than fact. Their reasons for leaving England were ostensibly religious, and they saw America as some kind of "promised land."

This wasn't actually the first permanent English settlement in America, and there were subsequent settlements on the east coast as more and more colonists trickled in and established a foothold.

I suppose one way of looking at the significance of the event would be to ask: If the Mayflower never sailed or was lost along the journey, would American history have turned out any differently? Or was this land destined to be colonized and conquered no matter what?

It get worse....there is absolutely no possible way that the Rock , they call Plymouth Rock (The worlds most disappointing historical monument IMO) was the rock that the Pilgrims first stepped on.

I grew up in Massachusetts, been to Plymouth...saw the rock...that I have since deemed Plymouth Pebble
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
It get worse....there is absolutely no possible way that the Rock , they call Plymouth Rock (The worlds most disappointing historical monument IMO) was the rock that the Pilgrims first stepped on.

I grew up in Massachusetts, been to Plymouth...saw the rock...that I have since deemed Plymouth Pebble
Relative to a 1500# killing machine,
any rock would be a pebble.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
The Mayflower set off for America on September 16, 1620.

Mayflower - Wikipedia

When I was a kid learning about the Mayflower the first time, I think we were probably taught more myth than fact. Their reasons for leaving England were ostensibly religious, and they saw America as some kind of "promised land."

This wasn't actually the first permanent English settlement in America, and there were subsequent settlements on the east coast as more and more colonists trickled in and established a foothold.

I suppose one way of looking at the significance of the event would be to ask: If the Mayflower never sailed or was lost along the journey, would American history have turned out any differently? Or was this land destined to be colonized and conquered no matter what?
Well, it sort of was religious freedom, but more or less over a "so I can do it my way regardless" sort of thing.
The one major difference is had that not happened the religious right would have to dig deeper as their "Mayflower compact is a part of American law" thoughts wouldn't be there (it's an argument sort of like how Sovereign Citizens will claim the Articles of Confederation). Everything else I think wpuld be largely the same, including our bizarre Holiday of Thanksgiving that included feasts and butchering those who helped the settlers sorry asses survive.
 
Their reasons for leaving England were ostensibly religious, and they saw America as some kind of "promised land."

IIRC (which I may not) they really left Holland where they had been for a decade + after leaving England for the first time. Think they wanted to preserve their children's Englishness by moving somewhere 'untainted' by these European continental types :D
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
We didn't even learn about this at school so everything I've learnt about it comes from talking to US folks themselves.

I learn of it as the basis for the holiday. We had some kids dress up as Pilgrims, some as Native Americans. A play/skit of them coming together in peace to have a meal. Native Americans helped the first Pilgrims through their first winter there. Don't really recall anything taught about it after that.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
I learn of it as the basis for the holiday. We had some kids dress up as Pilgrims, some as Native Americans. A play/skit of them coming together in peace to have a meal. Native Americans helped the first Pilgrims through their first winter there. Don't really recall anything taught about it after that.
Well, the second act would've been the natives dying of diseases they have no immunity to or being killed off by the whites, so of course they're not going to talk about what happened next.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
The Mayflower set off for America on September 16, 1620.

Mayflower - Wikipedia

When I was a kid learning about the Mayflower the first time, I think we were probably taught more myth than fact. Their reasons for leaving England were ostensibly religious, and they saw America as some kind of "promised land."

This wasn't actually the first permanent English settlement in America, and there were subsequent settlements on the east coast as more and more colonists trickled in and established a foothold.

I suppose one way of looking at the significance of the event would be to ask: If the Mayflower never sailed or was lost along the journey, would American history have turned out any differently? Or was this land destined to be colonized and conquered no matter what?
I'm not so hard on us. Most of the killing was unintentional and was due to invisible microbes that the settlers didn't know about. That much was doomed to happen when Europeans met the early Americans. Smallpox and other diseases ravaged, and the populations never recovered in the century following. Its like Russia that is still recovering from its lost population. Babies don't come from nowhere. So, there was room for some migration.

I don't think it was an evil decision for people to sail over. I think that going to war was wrong and that seizing land was wrong and viewing the inhabitants as lesser people or a competing race was wrong.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Interesting factoid.

While hubby and i were researching our family trees we found that an ancestor of Paul's and an ancestor of mine were both on the same immigrant ship that set sail in 1621. There were just 62 passengers so chances are they knew each other.

Pauls ancestor, male (euphemistically) died without issue
Mine, female, never married but was quite prolific, whether one nighters or the fathers walked out or were dumped i have no idea but her offspring kept her (our family) name. Over a couple of hundred years you can see the progress in little clusters of of the name right a across America.

Footnote. That two ancestors from different parts of the UK (in all probability) met briefly then 375 years later we married is a wonder to us
 
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Heyo

Veteran Member
Well, the second act would've been the natives dying of diseases they have no immunity to or being killed off by the whites, so of course they're not going to talk about what happened next.
Nope. Wrong sequence. The natives had just survived an epidemic that killed many of them. So they were short of workers and not short of land to live on. That why they welcomed the new settlers.
(There were more diseases later on, sometime deliberately inflicted on the natives.)
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
I don't know anything about the Mayflower, but anyone who thinks that North America was 'destined' to be colonized is dominated by colonial propaganda.
Manifest destiny was the excuse, not an inevitability.

Not so sure it's a matter of colonial propaganda as it is human nature. Humans are explorers and territorial, they're constantly moving into new areas and attempting to dominate them. Long before colonists arrived from Europe the native tribes in the North Americas were were constantly conquering new territory or being pushed out of territory they had inhabited for generations. If Americans had developed faster technologically than the Europeans it's likely that it's native Americans who would have colonized Europe.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't know anything about the Mayflower, but anyone who thinks that North America was 'destined' to be colonized is dominated by colonial propaganda.
Manifest destiny was the excuse, not an inevitability.

Well, 'destined' may have been a poor choice of words on my part, since I don't really believe in destiny. I think contact was inevitable, as well as migration from one continent to the other. I was really thinking in terms of whether it could have happened another way. I can understand that there might have been those in Europe who may have faced misery or persecution and could have been tempted by the idea of moving to a far away land across the ocean. Others might have seen it as an economic opportunity.

As I mentioned in the OP, this is often one of the first things American kids are taught about U.S. history, and the whole story of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims has been treated as one of the monumental, founding events of U.S. pre-history. But was it really that pivotal, or would history have unfolded in the same way anyway?
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
The historical context is important.
What these people went through was not fair.
First with Mary Tudor, then with Elizabeth and then with James I. Anglicans vs Calvinists.

This tune is perfect to recall...

 
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