We come on the ship they called the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing an American Tune
—’American Tune’, by Paul Simon
On a hot, windy day in July — July 4th, to be exact — a cluster of amateur airplane pilots flew over downtown Pagosa Springs, leaving a trail of air pollutants, just as they’d done many previous years during the annual parade on Main Street. But no parade took place this year, unless you wanted to count the seemingly endless stream of SUVs and pickup trucks and RVs with New Mexico and Texas license plates that crept through town, eastbound and westbound on Highway 160, headed somewhere…
…or the half-dozen pickup trucks flying American flags that drove through downtown around 11am, honking their horns…
…or the scattered tourists and locals decked out in red, white and blue, sucking on snow cones and wandering — mostly without face coverings — through the Park to Park Artisans and Food Market in Town Park.
The rest of the family — Ursala, Chris, Amelie and Simone — rode their bikes down to the Growing Domes in Centennial Park to view the fireworks, and reported that a fair number of people were in that same general area, maintaining social distances. Chris thought the show was one of the best he’d seen. But I stayed home with Frida, the dog, who gets disturbed by loud explosions.
I’m getting used to staying home, and I guess I’ve been feeling ‘independent’ lately. Avoiding groups of people. Seems a lot of folks are feeling the same way. Independent.
Some synonyms from wordreference.com:
free, autonomous, self-governing, self-determining, self-controlled, self-governed, liberated, sovereign
I don’t exactly feel ‘free’ or ‘liberated’, however. More like, ‘not wanting to be around other people.’ Makes no difference whether they are wearing masks or walking around with their faces exposed. I’m not terribly comfortable around either type.
Of course, none of us are truly ‘independent’ in the sense of supplying all our own needs and wants. For one thing, we exist in a global economy where we’re dependent upon people we’ve never met for our bread and meat, our shoes and socks, our transportation options, our medicines, our information. Even beyond that, we’re utterly dependent upon a myriad lifeforms — the bacteria in our guts, the microbes in the soil, the pollinating insects, the plankton in the oceans, and all the way up the food chain.
I’m also dependent upon my neighbors. I just don’t feel particularly safe around them, as the US sets new infection records several states, and watches cases increase in 39 states. So I’m staying home, most of the time now. Which is how I happened to be researching the events of 1620, the year the first load of Puritans arrived in Massachusetts on the sailing ship Mayflower. Exactly 400 years ago.
The English Puritans believed that church membership ought to be self-selected and democratic, but Act of Uniformity 1559 had made it a legal requirement to attend official Church of England services, with a fine of one shilling (about $20 in today’s money) for each missed Sunday and holy day. Penalties included imprisonment and larger fines for conducting unofficial services, and some Puritan leaders were executed.
To escape persecution, a group of Puritans led by William Brewster left England in 1608 for the town of Leiden in Holland, and attempted to fit themselves into Dutch society. But by 1617, the group determined to leave Europe and establish themselves as the second official English colony in America, following on the heels of the successful Jamestown settlement.
A daring quest for religious independence, and one that extracted a rather awful price.
Their journey was funded in part by English investors, with the understanding that half of the property and farms developed by the Puritans would eventually be handed over to the investors. It seems not all of the Puritans were aware of this stipulation.
The Mayflower sailed on September 16, 1620 with 102 passengers, headed for the area referred to as “the northern Parts of Virginia”, but they landed instead near what is now Cape Cod, following a miserable journey across the Atlantic. Apparently, some kind of sickness had spread among the passengers and crew during the two-month voyage — social distancing being impossible, and possibly unknown as well. By December, most of the passengers and crew had become ill, coughing violently. Many were also suffering from the effects of scurvy.
More than half the passengers and half the ship’s crew died that winter.
But prior to the onset of serious illness, and before even setting foot on land, the party had dealt with potential mutiny. Some of the passengers argued that, because they had landed far from the site specified in the contract with the English investors, they were under no obligation to abide by the contract.
This potential mutiny was addressed when 41 male members of the party signed an agreement to form a legal community, with democratically adopted laws and leaders. The so-called ‘Mayflower Compact’ stated, in part:
…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…
An article posted on History.com suggests that “The Mayflower Compact was important because it was the first document to establish self-government in the New World…” and that it was “an early, successful attempt at democracy and undoubtedly played a role in future colonists seeking permanent independence from British rule and shaping the nation that eventually became the United States of America.”
A typically chauvinist view of history?