Dem
47
GOP
53
These things take a while to write, and there is a LOT of news these days. Our initial plan was 2-3 entries a week, but we're going to have to aim for one per week right now. We most certainly will do 25 entries, no matter how long it takes.
Today's subject is the Pilgrims and the Puritans. It is not easy to juggle the terminology here, though we'll do our best. The Pilgrims were Puritans, and so technically we could just use "Puritans" throughout this piece, and we would not be wrong. However, in American historiography, the two terms are generally used to refer to two different "waves" of migration. The Pilgrims were the first group of Puritans to arrive, and were driven by religious motives. The group historians usually refer to as "the Puritans" largely came a few generations later, and were motivated primarily by economic opportunity.
When someone asks (Z) what his area of expertise is, it's actually a trickier question than it seems. The short version is "the Civil War." But that's not exactly what he studies, or what he writes about. His actual speciality is the memory of the Civil War, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century. In short, questions of what people remember, what they forget, what they distort, and why.
That background will inform this entire series, but it will particularly inform today's entry. The way we are going to organize this piece is that we will look at six myths about the Pilgrims and the Puritans, what the truth is, and when and why the myth really took hold. And with that intro, away we go:
The Myth: The Pilgrims intended to found a "city on a hill," that would be a beacon of religious tolerance and enlightened thinking.
The Truth: It is true that John Winthrop, an early leader, gave a famous sermon in which he decreed:
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.So, the "city on a hill" part is correct. But the purpose of the city on the hill was not to be a model of enlightenment ideals or religious tolerance. The Pilgrims, in particular, only favored some elements of enlightenment thinking (such as the notion that kings do not speak for God). And they most certainly did not embrace religious tolerance. Schoolchildren are often taught that the Pilgrims left England for the Netherlands to escape persecution, which is basically true. And then, goes the story, the Pilgrims left Netherlands for the same reason. This is not correct; the Netherlands was broadly tolerant of different flavors of Christianity, and did not persecute Puritans. The reasons the Pilgrims headed west was that they believed Dutch secular values were corrupting their religious practice and, in particular, their young people. That means the Dutch have been a bad influence for 400 years and counting.
This being the case, the message of the city on the hill was not "religious tolerance," it was "we're going to be a shining example of the right way to relate to God." Inasmuch as this was about a century after Martin Luther's theses, and was right in the thick of the Protestant reformation, relating to God in the "right" way was certainly the hot issue of the day.
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1770s
Why the Myth Took Hold: The United States was not created by Puritans. It was, however, created by fellows who were big believers in the Enlightenment and in religious tolerance. And so, rethinking the Pilgrims and their "city on a hill" was a pleasing way to affirm the values of the newly formed United States. Or, at least, the values the founders wanted to promote.
Ever since then, people who love the idea of American exceptionalism have embraced this line of thinking. For example, in his farewell address, Ronald Reagan decreed:
And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.The irony is that most people who think along these lines—though, admittedly, the Gipper was not one of them—do not actually embrace freedom of religion, and tend to think that their way of being religious is the correct one. Think someone like Pete Hegseth, who is only mildly OK with other forms of Christianity and with Judaism, and not at all OK with Islam or with non-Abrahamic religions. This being the case, Hegseth is not at all in line with the mythological version of the city on a hill, though he is in line with what the Puritans actually meant by "city on a hill."
The Myth: The Puritans were sexual prudes.
The Truth: The Puritans definitely did not approve of sex outside of marriage, but within the confines of that institution, they were big, big fans. Here's Winthrop again, in a letter written to his wife in 1618:
Being filled with the joy of thy love, and wanting opportunity of more familiar connection with thee, which my heart fervently desires, I am constrained to ease the burden of my mind by this poor help of my scribbling pen, being sufficiently assured that although my presence is that which thou desires, yet in the want thereof these lines shall not be unfruitful of comfort unto thee.That may sound noble, because it's old-fashioned and feels vaguely Shakespearean. However, it's basically the seventeenth century version of Penthouse Forum.
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1840s
Why the Myth Took Hold: You can thank the Victorians, who actually were sexual prudes. The Victorians glommed onto historical examples that supported their philosophy of modesty and sexual restraint. There aren't too many of those, at least in the West, as most western civilizations were pretty OK with sex. However, the Puritans were adaptable to the purpose, especially since there weren't any of them still around in the 1840s to correct the record.
The Myth: The Puritans were theocrats.
The Truth: Early on, you had to be a member of the church to hold political office, but they got rid of that by 1664. Further, ministers were legally barred from holding political office, while politicians could not be removed from office for religious offenses. This is the opposite of a theocracy.
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1850s
Why the Myth Took Hold: By the mid-nineteenth century, two things were true. The first is that all the Founding Parents were dead. The second is that the Second Great Awakening was well underway. The Great Awakening caused some fervently religious people to decree that the United States was a Christian nation, and had always been a Christian nation. And the exit of the Founding Parents meant that none of them were around to object, even though they had left behind plenty of documentation indicating their intentions. Claiming that the original founders (i.e., the Puritans) were a theocracy helped bolster the case that America was always intended to be a Christian nation governed on Christian principles.
The Myth: The Pilgrims were the starting point for what became the United States.
The Truth: These days, there aren't too many people who think that the Pilgrims were the founders of the United States. Most people know that Jamestown, VA, preceded the Pilgrims by over a decade (1607 vs. 1621). But for well over a century, the Pilgrims were given credit as America's founders. There are countless statues honoring them as such around the United States, perhaps most famously the 1889 National Monument to the Forefathers, which is thought to be the largest solid-granite monument in the world. There are considerably fewer statues honoring John Smith and Jamestown (a story that largely did not become a source of pride for Americans until it was distorted into a tale of racial tolerance, thanks to Smith and Pocahontas).
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1870s
Why the Myth Took Hold: By the time of the centennial in 1876, and then later the World's Columbian exposition of 1893, Americans had become very interested in their own origin story. The Pilgrims were generally calm, law-abiding churchgoers who ostensibly believed in "enlightenment values" (not really; see above), were big on education (that part is true), and believed in industry and hard work. The folks who founded Jamestown were violent and often criminal, were fortune seekers looking for the "easy" path to success, and were slavers who just so happened to be the starting point for the Confederacy. The Civil War, of course, ended in 1865. So, most Americans of that era glommed onto the Pilgrims as their "founding generation," and pretended that Jamestown never existed.
The Myth: The Puritans wore black clothing with lots of big buckles.
The Truth: Metal was fairly scarce in colonial Massachusetts and, more importantly, black was a rare and valuable coloring, and its use was limited (by law) to clothing worn by important officials—mostly ministers and judges. The Puritans did not utilize big buckles, and their clothes came in a variety of colors, with a heavy emphasis on earth tones.
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1880s
Why the Myth Took Hold: In the 1880s, black clothing, big hats, big buckles, and leather shoes all suggested "old-fashioned." In modern terms, think about a man who wears a bow tie, or a woman who wears a big brooch or stockings.
As with the 1690s, and the 2020s, the Gilded Age was a time of rapid change in America. In times of change, many people look backward, to when times were allegedly "simpler" and "better." This is really what MAGA is about; Donald Trump has made clear that his goal is to return America to the 1950s. And there was much about Gilded Age culture that was backward-looking (a theme that will come up again in a future entry in this series). The Gilded Age is also when Thanksgiving, first celebrated as a national holiday in 1864, really took hold as a core element of American culture. And when crafting a narrative for this pleasant, nostalgic holiday, it's no surprise that people put them in old-fashioned (by 1880s standards) clothing.
There's actually another character who has a historical basis but is heavily fictionalized, and who also became a core part of American culture in the Gilded Age. This character does not wear black, but does have a big hat, leather shoes, and a big buckle. If readers care to guess the identity of this character, we'll reveal the answer at the end.
The Myth: The Puritans were superstitious fanatics who often tried, and executed, accused witches.
The Truth: Religious people of the 17th century, particularly Protestants, tended to see witches everywhere. In Europe, over the course of that century, it is estimated that 100,000 people were put on trial for witchcraft, and 50,000 of those were executed. By contrast, the Puritans of Massachusetts were quite restrained. From the first witchcraft trial in New England in 1638 to the last in 1697, 265 people were tried for witchcraft and 36 were executed. The majority of the trials (200) and executions (19) happened during the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93, which were actually not so much about witchcraft, and were a backlash to rapid economic and social change taking place in Massachusetts at that time.
When the Myth Took Hold: The 1920s
Why the Myth Took Hold: Following the horrors of World War I, theism took a big hit, particularly the type of devout and/or fundamentalist theism embodied by the Puritans. In 1925, for example, journalist H.L. Mencken, who had absolutely no use for religion, offered his definition of Puritanism: "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Slurring the Puritans as witch-hunting fanatics served this anti-religious, often militantly atheistic, worldview well.
It also did not hurt that the biggest anti-Communist zealots in the 1920s, and again in the 1950s, tended to be wearing-their-religion-on-their-sleeves Christians. And so, the witch trials became a useful metaphor for both Christianity out of control and for political paranoia out of control. Of course, it was a nice Jewish boy (albeit a non-believing nice Jewish boy), Arthur Miller, who permanently linked the witch trials with anti-communism in the popular imagination.
It is exceedingly common that past groups and individuals who are perceived as good, noble, honorable, etc. are reinterpreted, over and over, by subsequent generations, so as to serve the needs of that particular generation. Often, these reinterpretations take a "historical evidence be damned" approach to the subject in question. This will be a major recurring theme of this series.
And that's the REAL story of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. (Z)
P.S. The other character who took their modern form in the Gilded Age is, like the Pilgrims, linked to a holiday that only became a major institution in that era. We speak, of course, of Santa Claus.