Galen Watson's Blog: The Psalter - Posts Tagged "separatists"

Thanksgiving is nearly here. Families are making travel arrangements; supermarkets are stocking 45 million turkeys for the celebration; Autumn partiers are making booze runs; and sports fans are checking the football lineup. Tales of the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving celebrated with the local Indian tribe are being polished for retelling. But, the origins of the family holiday began well before the 1620 Atlantic crossing. I would argue the concept of Thanksgiving was the result of events caused by the Tyndale Bible: the first, mass-produced English translation.

William Tyndale was an English scholar, greatly influenced by German religious reformist and virulent anti-Semite, Martin Luther. In a nod to the German reformation, Tyndale changed the translations of a few words, and the result undermined the legitimacy of the Catholic Church and Church of England. He re-translated the Greek word ekklesia to mean congregation instead of church; and presbuteros became elder instead of priest. The effect on readers was dramatic. Such small changes in a few words emphasized the authority of individual congregations over a centralized church. Readers of the Tyndale translation found no Biblical authority in the new English version for the Pope, priests, or even King Henry VIII as head of the state church.

New religious sects sprouted like weeds throughout the British Isles. Seekers believed the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England were corrupt since they had no scriptural basis and shared a common heritage. In fact, they believed all churches were corrupt. Adamites took their name from 2nd century, North African Christians and practiced their faith in the nude. Ranters believed God existed in every creature; rejected the idea of a personal God and immortality; and strived to make their human selves more godlike—essentially, Elizabethan New Agers. Like Adamites, they were theologically inclined to worship in the buff and utterly rejected obedience, which made them a threat to prudes and to the state. Two London Tailors—John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton (I know, Harry Potter)—read an English version of Revelation and proclaimed they were the last prophets, as earth rapidly approached the 17th century last days. They rejected science and logic, and cursed anyone who criticized their faith. I can picture them outside Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre wearing ornate sandwich boards proclaiming, Repent ye, for yon apocalypse is nigh. The Tyndale Bible also produced Anabaptists, Philadelphians, Diggers, Barrowists, Puritans, Grindletonians, Sabbatarians, Quakers, and more. These religious sects became collectively known as the English Dissenters or Separatists -- the British version of the Protestant Reformation.

One of the most prominent separatist congregations was the Brownists, a sect started by Elizabethan cleric, Robert Brown. Shakespeare mentioned Brownists in The Twelfth Night as comic fool, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, protested, ‘I had as lief be a Brownist as be a politician.’ Translation: ‘I’d rather be a heretic than a schemer with fancy plots.’ During the meteoric rise of these nascent religious rebels, 12-year old orphan, William Bradford—who would become governor of the Mayflower colonists—was invited by a friend to hear a sermon by Brownist minister, Richard Clyfton. He found Clyfton’s words so magnetic he defied his uncles and continued to attend the services. Later, when some in the congregation decided to escape a violent England--where Puritans and Calvinists battled the State and Church in a bid for power--18-year old William Bradford abandoned his uncles’ prosperous family farm and joined them in the Dutch city of Leiden. However, ten years hence, the emigrants lamented that while they could now practice their faith in peace, many in their company remained poor, with little opportunity in a foreign country. Worse, their children began to lose their English language and identity. William Bradford, by this time, had become well-to-do, having inherited his family’s property, and was one of the Brownist emigrant leaders. The congregation resolved to leave Holland, and negotiated an agreement with London financial backers to found a colony in the New World. Fifty members left the Netherlands aboard the leaky ship, Speedwell, to join the Mayflower for the Colony of Virginia, with Bradford and his wife among them. After meeting the Mayflower off the coast of England, the Speedwell was judged too un-seaworthy, and the Brownists abandoned her, joining non-religious Londoner colonists aboard the Mayflower.



Most of what we know about the Atlantic crossing and the first Thanksgiving comes from William Bradford’s journals and his history of the Plymouth Colony recounted in, Of Plymouth Plantation: cramped conditions; late season Atlantic storms that buffeted the ship, waves that pried caulking from the planks and filled the hold with water; sick passengers soaked and delirious in their berths. Worse, storms and poor navigation placed the colonists far north of their intended destination—Massachusetts, near the tip of Cape Cod instead of the Virginia Colony. They arrived in late November, and suffered through a harsh New England winter. By spring, half the company had died, including Bradford’s wife. The leaders of the group surely questioned their decision to leave their comforts in England and the Netherlands only to lead faithful followers to a place of death, sickness and privation. There’s an unwritten agreement that if one gives advice, the advisor takes on a sort of obligation to his or her followers—unless they happen to be Bernie Maddoff or doomsdayer Harold Camping.

The dwindling colony chose an abandoned Indian village, Patuxet, for their settlement because the land had already been cleared and hills surrounded the site, providing an excellent defensive position. When they surveyed the dwellings and environs, however, the creeped-out settlers found skeletons and scattered bones, and perhaps that was the colonial origin of American ghost stories in the genre of Sleepy Hollow. I’m just making the ghost story part up, but it could’ve happened. They would later discover from the neighboring Wampanoag tribe that the Patuxets died from a plague—likely smallpox--contracted from English fishermen. One of the most tickling tales to come from the Plymouth colony is the myth that colonists stopped to make beer. It’s not truly the reason, but beer played a part. Beer was an important staple in 17th century English life. British waterways were a bacterial mess since they often served as sewers. On the other hand, water for beer-making had to be boiled; plus, hops used to brew beer possess anti-microbial properties, so drinking beer was just plain safer. That happens to be the reason I eschew tap water for my favorite pilsner. When many colonists aboard the Mayflower fell ill from scurvy, malnutrition, and their beer barrels were empty, the captain took action. According William Bradford, ‘As this calamity fell among the passengers that were to be left here to plant, and were hasted ashore and made to drink water that the seamen might have the more beer, and one in his sickness desiring but a small can of beer, it was answered that if he were their own father he should have none.’ --Of Plymouth Plantation

On a Spring day--March 16, 1621 to be precise--as ill and malnourished colonists went about their chores, an Abenaki chief named Samoset strolled into the Plymouth encampment and greeted slack-jawed settlers in broken English. He had learned his few words from fishermen who plied their trade along the New England coastline. Samoset spent the night and left the next morning, but returned March 22, bringing the last remaining Patuxet Indian, Squanto, who spoke the Queen’s English. Despite having been enslaved by an English ship captain, kidnapped to England, and making his way home to find his people exterminated by English plague, Squanto took pity on the colonists. He taught them how to sow corn, fish, avoid poisonous plants, and he helped negotiate a treaty with Massasoit—chief of the neighboring Wampanoags.


The Colony’s governor, John Carver, died a month later, April 1621, and colonists elected William Bradford to succeed him. And thanks to Squanto’s guidance, the harvest was a grand success. We don’t know exactly what the partiers ate for that first, 3-day Thanksgiving feast, but we have some ideas. Plymouth chronicler, Edward Winslow, wrote that Governor Bradford sent four men ‘fowling’ and the Indians brought five deer. Turkey was a possibility since it was plentiful. Benjamin Franklin quite admired the large birds and suggested in a letter to his daughter that wild turkey was a more noble choice as a national bird than the bald eagle, since the eagle was ‘of bad moral character’ and ‘too lazy to fish for himself.’ Of course, Franklin also made the case for the rattlesnake as a symbol since it typified ‘the temper and conduct of America.’ I doubt there were any rattlesnakes at the first Thanksgiving, but I’ve heard the feast likely included swans, seals, and lobster. It’s Cape Cod, after all. And, with such a fine grain harvest, I do believe the party must have included copious tankards of freshly-brewed beer.

It’s the accidents of history and that absurd fork-in-the-road filter called choices that make us who we are. I think it was existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre who opined, “I was Catholic because I was born in France.” Imagine if William Tyndale had not editorialized his translation of two, little Bible words, or William Bradford had decided to become a Ranter instead of a Brownist. Then Nathanial Hawthorne might have written The Scarlet Nudist, and Protestantism in the New World might have resembled sinless Adamites, worshiping freely in the New World, au naturel. Evangelical Ranters might have donned birthday suits and stridently preached that God existed in every living creature, and it’s our human acts of goodness that make us godlike. They would still likely reject science and logic, I believe, if the Texas Board of Education is any indication. For American Indians, Thanksgiving must resemble the Muggletonian ‘last days,’ as they remember 20 million dead ancestors, victims of an Armageddon that followed the Brownist immigration, as it was known for 200 years. Today, we refer to Brownists as Pilgrims, as polemicists transformed history into a sanitized, idealized, and nationalized mythology.

Now, let’s celebrate our traditional Thanksgiving with a grateful prayer that our forefathers weren’t Muggletonians, swill a bottle of microbrew beer, and feast on turkey, venison or perhaps lobster. Lastly, let’s not forget our American brethren to whom we haven’t been so kind; and for god’s sake, show a little respect and change the name of the Washington Redskins.

Happy Thanksgiving.