Discussion Topics: Of Plymouth Plantation

I. Discussion Topics

1. Illustrate the significance of the basic concepts of Puritan ideology expressed in William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation.

II. Of Plymouth Plantation: Summary and Commentary

Bradford, William was one of the Pilgrim leaders and American colonial governor, born in Austerfield, Yorkshire, England. In 1606 he joined the Separatists, a dissident Protestant sect. Three years later, in search of freedom of worship, he went with them to Holland, where he became an apprentice to a silk manufacturer. Bradford sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, and after his arrival in America he helped found Plymouth Colony. In April 1621 he succeeded Governor John Carver as chief executive of Plymouth Colony. Except for five years, Bradford served as governor almost continuously from 1621 through 1656, having been reelected 30 times. In 1621 he negotiated a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag tribe. Under the treaty, which was vital to the maintenance and growth of the colony, Massasoit disavowed Native American claims to the Plymouth area and pledged peace with the colonists. The first Thanksgiving Day celebration in New England was organized by Bradford in 1621. Bradford was a delegate on four occasions to the New England Confederation, of which he was twice elected president. His History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, was published in 1856, 200 years after his death. The book is an important source of information about the early settlers.

Of Plymouth Plantation is an excellent foundation text for the study of colonial American literature. Bradford's text seems to have created something that would provide the foundation both for a new country and a nascent New World identity. Like the journal writers of the period, Bradford records details of early obstacles and colonial life; even more that other historians, however, Bradford develops in Of Plymouth Plantation a large sense of meaning and importance of colonial history. Creating an awareness of history while the colonists were yet engaged in the process of establishing their society gave colonial America a cultural foundation. In addition, he offers the colonists a written document ("The Mayflower Compact") as a conerstone of government, and he associates their origins with sacred rebirth, typologically interprets events as signs of connection with a higher authority, and , in the later chapters of Book II, conveys a sense of prophecy that serves to link his own historical text with the colonists' future.

The earlier sections from Of Plymouth Plantation help us to visualize the combined practical and spiritual concerns of the earliest colonials. Bradford's account reveals the necessity for self-reliance among the first Puritan settlers. We are surprised to discover how secular and pragmatic the Puritans had to be in the process of crating their spiritual New World. Among the excerpts from Of Plymouth Plantation, "The Mayflower Compact" (Book II, Chapter XI) deserves close analysis. Bradford writes that the document was "occasioned partly by the discontented and mutinous speeches that some of the strangers [non-Puritans aboard the Mayflower] amongst them had let fall from them in the ship." Putting their first agreement into written form was an act of major significance for the Puritans--who believed in the Bible's literal truth and authority. Written words, from the beginning of American culture, carry the associative power of God's word. The writing of "The Mayflower Compact" has significance for the Puritans' need for divine authority. From the point of landing in the New World, the Puritans were already setting into motion the necessity of inventing for themselves solutions to material concerns that the Bible does not address. In "The Mayflower Compact," we see them trying to create other documents that would, like the Bible of their covenant theology, possess the power to compel respect and obedience.

In later chapters of Book II, Bradford's hopeful vision breaks down. In his "endeavor to give some answer hereunto," he ends by raising an unanswerable and prophetic question: "And thus, by one means or other, in 20 years' time it is a question whether the greater part be not grown the worser?" Do the selections from Book II in particular suggest a less-than-optimistic view of our colonial origins? Social problems existed from the beginning--corruption, dissent, falling away from the "ancient mother," abandonment, lack of fidelity.

From Marjorie Pryse

III. Mayflower Compact: Commentary

Mayflower Compact, first colonial agreement that formed a government by the consent of the governed. The Mayflower Compact was signed in 1620 by Pilgrims, English people hoping to establish a settlement in North America. The agreement was completed on the ship Mayflower, which was anchored off the coast of Massachusetts. The compact gave the settlers the power to frame and enact laws for the general good of the planned settlement.

Most of the Pilgrims were members of the Separatist congregation that had split from the Church of England. However, some were not, and these people sought independence from the Separatists. To prevent this, Separatist leaders wrote the compact, which was modeled after the covenant that had established their Separatist faith. Each male adult signed the document. The signers agreed to follow all "just and equal" laws that the settlers enacted and to be ruled by the will of the majority. Plymouth Colony did not receive an English royal charter, and so the compact determined governmental authority in the colony until it became part of the Massachusetts colony in 1691.

The Mayflower Compact was the first governmental agreement written by colonists in the New World. Signed on board the Mayflower on November 11, 1620, by the ship's 41 adult, male passengers, the Compact established rule by the majority and mandated that all members of the Plymouth Colony obey the ordinances therein. Following is the complete, unedited version of the document. Seventeenth century conventions of spelling and grammar have not been modified.

IV. The Mayflower Compact (Original Version)

In the name of God Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the Loyal subjects of our dread Soveraigne Lord King James, by the grace of God, of great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland King, defender of the faith, &c. Having undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancement of the christian faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia. Do by these presents solemnly and mutualy in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant, & combine ourselves togeather into a civill body politick; for our better ordering, & preservation & furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall Lawes, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for the generall good of the colonie: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Codd the 11 of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne Lord King James of England, France, & Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftie fourth. Ano: Dom. 1620.

John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Miles Standish, John Alden, John Billington, Joses Fletcher, Isaac Allerton, John Turner, Francis Eaton, James Chilton, John Cranton, John Goodman, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin, William Mullins, William White, Richard Warren, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Digery Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert Winslow, Edmund Margesson, Peter Brown, Richard Butteridge, George Soule, Edward Tilly, John Tilly, Francis Cooke, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Ridgate, Edward Fuller, Richard Clark, Richard Gardiner, John Allerton, Thomas English, Edward Doten, Edward Liester.

From MS Encarta