page_title: Moses
section_title: Pilgrims
hierarchical_section_title: Moses / Legacy in politics and law / US history / Pilgrims
caption_attribution_description: Protestant pilgrims are shown on the deck of the ship Speedwell before their departure for the New World from Delft Haven, Holland, on July 22, 1620. William Brewster, holding the Bible, and pastor John Robinson leading Governor Carver, William Bradford, Miles Standish, and their families in prayer. The prominence of women and children suggests the importance of the family in the community. At the left side of the painting is a rainbow, which symbolizes hope and divine protection.Weir (1803–1890) had studied art in Italy and taught art at the military academy at West Point. The dimensions of this oil painting on canvas are 548 cm x 365 cm (216 inches x 144 inches; 18 feet x 12 feet)
context_page_description: Moses, also known as Moshe Rabbenu, is the most important prophet in Judaism, and an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and a number of other Abrahamic religions. In the biblical narrative he was the leader of the Israelites and lawgiver, to whom the authorship of the first five books of the bible, the Torah, or "acquisition of the Torah from heaven," is attributed.
  Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE; Jerome suggested 1592 BCE, and James Ussher suggested 1571 BCE as his birth year. Scholarly consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed.
  According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in population and, as a result, the Egyptian Pharaoh worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites.
context_section_description: References to Moses were used by the Puritans, who relied on the story of Moses to give meaning and hope to the lives of Pilgrims seeking religious and personal freedom in North America. John Carver was the first governor of Plymouth colony and first signer of the Mayflower Compact, which he wrote in 1620 during the ship Mayflower's three-month voyage. He inspired the Pilgrims with a "sense of earthly grandeur and divine purpose," notes historian Jon Meacham, and was called the "Moses of the Pilgrims." Early American writer James Russell Lowell noted the similarity of the founding of America by the Pilgrims to that of ancient Israel by Moses:
  Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the world.
  Following Carver's death the following year, William Bradford was made governor. He feared that the remaining Pilgrims would not survive the hardships of the new land, with half their people having already died within months of arriving. Bradford evoked the symbol of Moses to the weakened and desperate Pilgrims to help calm them and give them hope: "Violence will break all. Where is the meek and humble spirit of Moses?" William G. Dever explains the attitude of the Pilgrims: "We considered ourselves the 'New Israel,' particularly we in America. And for that reason we knew who we were, what we believed in and valued, and what our 'manifest destiny' was."
caption: Pilgrims John Carver, William Bradford, and Miles Standish, at prayer during their voyage to North America. 1844 painting by Robert Walter Weir.
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