Pilgrim Fathers
As Pilgrims ( English Pilgrim Fathers or Pilgrims ), the first English settlers in New England referred to the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts founded. They sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620 .
The name "Pilgrim Fathers" did not come up until the middle of the 19th century and was taken from William Bradford's book "History of Plimoth Plantation" ( "They knew they were pilgrims" ). The "Pilgrim Fathers" called themselves after the parlance of the Apostle Paul "saints" ( "saints" ).
Although the Pilgrim Fathers were by no means the first English settlers on what would later become the United States' territory - the Jamestown Colony was founded in Virginia as early as 1607 - the Pilgrim Fathers play an outstanding role as pioneers in American folklore , for example with regard to the Thanksgiving festival Role.
The "Pilgrim Fathers" were so-called separatists , that is, they belonged to a particularly radical current in English Puritanism , which completely separated from the Church of England and demanded absolute community autonomy. That is, they believed that every congregation ( congregation ) was directly subordinate to God or Christ. Thus they had a congregational church order.
The separatist congregationalists were a theological tendency within Calvinism . Although they had emerged from the Puritans, they rejected their Presbyterian church constitution. For the "Pilgrim Fathers" the office of bishop was an "invention of Satan", the sign of the cross was nefarious and Christmas was a pagan superstition, since in their opinion they were not attested in the Bible.
prehistory
The members of the group had separated from the Church of England because they believed that the church had not completed the tasks begun with the English Reformation . Some members of the group left under the leadership of the pastors Richard Clyfton († 1616), John Robinson and the church elder William Brewster (presbyter) (1566-1644) their home in and around Scrooby ( Nottinghamshire ) and emigrated to Amsterdam to face the persecution by the Anglican Church to escape. From Amsterdam they moved on to the vicinity of Leiden , where they stayed for twelve years. Since they were only allowed to do poorly paid work as foreigners and because of the Dutch influence to which they were exposed, many of them came to the conclusion in 1617 that it would be best for them to move to the New World .
They also had concerns about the morality prevailing in Holland at that time and about their children, who had to grow up in a Dutch environment. In addition, some members of the group, such as Brewster, wrote and sent to England writings that were considered subversive by the local government. The English put diplomatic pressure on the Dutch to stop this and the Dutch government began to comply. Brewster and the other authors narrowly escaped arrest.
A little less than half of the English exiles in the Netherlands decided in 1620 to sail to Southampton on board the Speedwell . There they teamed up with a larger group of separatist congregationalists on board the Mayflower . After a stopover in Plymouth , southern England, they set sail in September 1620 with 102 passengers on board, provided with a land patent from the London Virginia Company. Their destination was Northern Virginia near the Hudson River . Aboard the Mayflower was a small group of non-separatists, mostly Anglicans, Congregationalists the "strangers" ( strangers called).
Arrival in America
Off course due to autumn storms in the North Atlantic, the Mayflower reached the American coast after a two-month sea voyage near Cape Cod . In November 1620 they anchored near what is now Provincetown .
After realizing that they would have to make another long sea voyage to reach their original destination, the colonists decided to change their original plan and set up a settlement where they were now. Since the land patent was issued for Virginia and therefore the future settlers did not have the right to colonize the area in New England, several "strangers" feared that they would not be treated fairly in the colony. As a result, 41 separatists drew up their own charter known as the Mayflower Treaty . In it, they stipulated, among other things, that they wanted to form a self-governing community (self-rule, self-government) and that all residents would be subject to the same “just and equal laws”. They believed that this form of government was God's will.
After a while they found that the sandy soil near Provincetown could not feed them. So a group of them decided to sail to the other side of Cape Cod Bay. On December 21st they landed near what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts . Most of the remaining settlers followed five days later.
The colony survived the first winter only with the support of the natives, who helped the colonists with food and taught them their own agricultural techniques, which were better adapted to the local climate and soil; this peaceful cooperation is celebrated to this day in the Thanksgiving festival. With the increasing strength of the colony, at the latest from the Pequot War in 1637, the relationship between the two groups was often characterized by excessive violence on both sides.
The main primary source of the Pilgrim Fathers' views is the history of the colony, written by Governor William Bradford from 1620 to 1647. A comparison with Thomas Morton's book of 1637 (in which a much friendlier view of the indigenous peoples and the landscape is conveyed) shows what extreme views the Pilgrim Fathers had of the land and its inhabitants.
Later story
The direct legal successor of the original Pilgrim Fathers Congregation is today's First Parish Church in Plymouth , which broke away from traditional Trinitarian congregational theology in 1801 under the influence of its pastor and joined the Unitarians ; today she is a member of the very liberal Unitarian Universalist Association . Many parishioners who did not agree to this change started a new, still congregational church, now The Pilgrimage Church , also in Plymouth.
Individual evidence
- ↑ M. Schmidt: Robinson, John . In Religion in Past and Present , 3rd edition, Volume V, Tübingen 1961, column 1131
- ^ Allan Weinstein, David Rubel: The Story of America: Freedom and Crisis from Settlement to Superpower . DK Publishing New York, NY, 2002, ISBN 0-7894-8903-1 , pp. 60-61.
- ↑ M. Schmidt: Pilgrim Fathers . In The Religion Past and Present , 3rd ed., Volume V, Column 384.
- ^ Clifton E. Olmstead: History of Religion in the United States. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1960, pp. 18, 64-69.
literature
- William Bradford: Of Plymouth Plantation. 1620-1647
- Thomas Morton: New English Canaan. 1637.
- Emil Brunner: The Memorable Story of the Mayflower Pilgrim Fathers. Basel: Reinhardt 1920
- Friedrich Jahr: A ship goes to America: The Pilgrim Fathers. Munich: Claudius 1962
- John A. Godwin: "The Pilgrim Republic" Boston: 1888 ( online version )
- Stephan Maninger: " War and violence in Puritan New England ", then 6/2007, June 2007
- Nathaniel Philbrick: “Mayflower, Departure into the New World”, Munich: Blessing 2006
Web links
- Mayflower Society website
- Duane A. Cline: On the History of the Pilgrim Fathers
- Paul K. Johnston: The Pilgrim Fathers and Their Concept of "Wilderness" (1997)