Bonnie Alba
November 15, 2006
Part I -- Pilgrims' epitaph: they trusted God
By Bonnie Alba

In the relative calm following the stormy ugliness of the recent election campaigns, and in these days leading up to Thanksgiving, it might benefit us to look back to where it all started almost 390 years ago. We find only bits and pieces of this miraculous story in 21st century public school textbooks. In some books, the Pilgrims rate a short summary as a religious people who came to America because they were persecuted — and that's it.

Many present-day Americans are ignorant of the Pilgrims and the role of local Indians in the Pilgrims' survival in a new land. This is really the story of God's providence in two very dissimilar peoples, occurring over a period of years until the moment in time when they came together.

It starts in England with two divergent events:

1) 1605: A young Patuxet Indian was taken captive to England. He spent the next nine years learning English and giving information to the English about Indian tribes and the lay of the land. He was able to sail back to America with Captain John Smith in 1614. But before he could return to Patuxet family and tribe, he was recaptured and sold into slavery in Spain. His name was Squanto or Tisquantum. More about Squanto later.

2) In the early 1600s, the Puritan-Separatists were those Christians who took a radical stand; they declared the Church of England corrupt, believing they should be solely under the authority of Jesus Christ — not under a King or Queen. As persecution intensified, harassed and hounded for payments to the Church, they were driven underground.

Some departed England seeking religious refuge in Holland where they formed a close-knit congregation. After months in prayer seeking God's will for them, they felt God was calling them to a new land. Primary leader William Bradford wrote, "Their ends were honorable, their calling lawful and urgent, and therefore they might expect the blessing of God in their proceeding."

After numerous setbacks and disappointments, and the failure of the Speedwell which was to accompany the Mayflower, they combined passengers and cargoes and sailed on the Mayflower. Some decided this was not God's will for them and returned to Holland. Bradford wrote, "Like Gideon's army, this small number was divided, as if the Lord, by this work of His providence, thought these few were still too many for the great work He had to do." Pilgrim William Stoughton later wrote "God sifted the wheat from the chaff, that He might send choice grain into this wilderness."

With 102 Pilgrims settled in the hold, the Mayflower finally set sail for America in September 1620. The ship was continuously assaulted by tremendous storms and their food stores grew perilously low. Besides not seeing the sky for almost two months, some sailors harassed them, gloating at their seasickness, calling them "psalm singing puke-stockings." The tormentor-leader repeatedly told them he "looked forward to sewing them in shrouds and feeding them to the fish." Just when the torment became almost unbearable, he developed an unknown fever and died within one day. Only one other death occurred during the voyage. The Pilgrims, despite their suffering, continued to trust God.

In November, the long-awaited call "Land Ho!" brought the Pilgrims up out of their gruesome home to breathe fresh air and see the new land for the first time. The ship headed north and their journey finally ended in the harbor of Cape Cod.

It was there that the Pilgrim leadership acted quickly in the face of potential mutiny and drafted "The Mayflower Compact." This famous document contained "the Hebrew tradition of all men being equal in the sight of God" and "government by the consent of the governed." It was the first time in recorded history that free and equal men had voluntarily bound themselves under a covenant of civil government.

William Bradford, who was elected and served as Governor of the colony for many years, summarized this introduction to American soil: "Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element. And no marvel if they were thus joyful...."

They had begun their journey asking God's blessing and ended it in rejoicing and prayers of thanksgiving.

[Next: One Indian Loses All, Finds Hope and a Home]

© Bonnie Alba

 

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Bonnie Alba

Bonnie Alba is a "politically incorrect" researcher-writer. Since 1995, her articles have appeared in California newspapers. Previously she served in various Department of Defense positions for over 16 years... (more)

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