Do we really need others? For the past 15 years, I have made the issue of “community” a major issue in my life. The more I’ve taught & studied US history over the years, the more intense comes my belief that without a clear sense of holding together, the country fails. What’s another example of that? How about the experience of our first English successful colonies–Jamestown and the Pilgrims up in Plymouth.
We’ll go backwards in time, so let’s start with the Mayflower. In a few months we’ll be experiencing Thanksgiving, and we’ll all hear (again) about the various groups who started the country. Each semester that I teach early American history, I have my students read The Mayflower Compact. Here’s is a quick look at the document:
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.
There are several crucial ideas to see here, but for this post, let’s focus in on one main idea. The Pilgrims knew that the deck was already stacked against them. There were 100 travelers alive when the Mayflower came to rest off the coast of what would become Cape Cod, but about half of the people were NOT part of the church. Yep, that’s right–the Pilgrims were not just some group of people, but rather a specific church. Imagine your church, or better a part of your church, deciding that they were going to leave for various reasons and establish a colony on the moon. That is who the Pilgrims were. But, they could not to afford to take the entire ship, so others came too; the Pilgrims called them “strangers.”
For the “Strangers,” they had assumed that once the ship landed in Virginia, they would probably just go out on their own. However, once it was determined that the ship was much further north than assumed (they were probably shooting for land in what today would be considered Delaware or New Jersey), it was then clear that both the strangers and the Pilgrims needed each other. So, a decision was made to work together; the 41 men on the boat gathered together to debate, coordinate ideas and eventually create a type of governing document, a compact, that would protect everyone. The strangers did not want to be forced to participate in the church, and they also wanted to make sure that decisions would not only be made by church leaders. The Pilgrims, who are best associated with the non-violent descendants of the Anabaptists, groups like the Mennonites, wanted to make sure that the strangers would not just up and leave them, nor try to use violence to force their ways or decisions on the Pilgrims.
Knowing that information brings the following sentence into even higher focus: “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick.” They had different roads they could travel, but the decision was that we must combine together. Or, to say it another way, if they didn’t decide to work together, then we are doomed.
Why did they do it, according to the document?
- for our better Ordering
- for our better Preservation
- Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid
Did it work? Well, if you know the history, you realize that by end of their first winter (Dec 1620-April 1621), over 40 people had died and only a few adult women were left alive. In other words, even with the initial decision to work together, their success was tenuous. You know, of course, that they made it, with great help from Squanto (amazingly, the only Native American in the entire East Coast who could speak English, and he just coincidentally shows up to help what is considered the most “Christian” of the various early colonists). But, even with Squanto and the help of the Native Americans around them, had they not been focused on community, and on building collectively a “civic body politic,” the reality is that it just seems harder to imagine a scenario where the Plymouth colony would have survived.
If we current Americans hope to really succeed in the future, if experts like Dr. Robert Putnam are to be believed, we had better get back to basics about what it means to stay in community.