The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1921-11-25

remain English, they could not return to England
without risking contamination by contact with
Puritans and Angl!cans.
The wilderness of America, with oil it's terrors.
seemed to offer them the essential conditions.
They early decided not to go to jamestown, be-
cause the Episcopal church was already established
there. They tried to get definite concessions from
the established church as to their own government
and worship, and then abandoned such attempts.
Finally. in June, 1919, they got a patent from the
virginia company. They concealed their real pur-
pose. and got the patent In the name of John Wa
cob. They hoped to sail without revealing who
they were and what they purposed. Later they
abandoned this patent for another granted by the
Virginia company to John PIERCE and associates.
Under this instrument their anonymity was COM
plete.
They then negotiated a seven-year contract with
Thomas Weston and a group OF London merchants,
afterward known as the Adventures. The con-
tract, as first arranged, covered the financing of
the enterprise and planned to set up a trading
post. The question then was-hOw many would
go across the sea, and who?
1t was decided that If a majority voted to go.
Robinson should lead them; If the majority voted
not to go, Brewster should lead those who went.
The majority voted not to go. and Robinson never
saw the New world.
On September 10, 1920, the M~ayfower left
Plymouth on her immortal voyage. In mid ocean
they nearly turned back because Of some structural
weaknesses In the ship. Land was sighted on the
nineteenth of November. The sailors said ii was
Cape Cod; so they turned south, as they were
under a Virginia patent and must land in territory
controlled by the Virginia company. They quick.
ly ran into the shoals and breakers that lie about
the cape, and then turned nOrthward.
In doing this they abandoned their patent en-
tirely. The famous compact signed In the May
flowers cabin before they landed was drawn up
not as a kind Of earlier Declaration Of 1ndepen-
dence, as orators time out Of mind have said, but
because some of the men denied that Bradford had
any authority over them after the patent had been
abandoned. The new instrument was intended to
be a declaration that all stood on an equal footing.
The critical period Of the Plymouth colony was
from 1920 to 1927. In those seven years Its found
ers achieved the success and rendered the unique
service that have nightly Influenced the subse-
quent development Of the world.
These were not the first religious zealots who
landed in the New World, for the Huguenots had
preceded them; nor was Plymouth the first col
ony, for many settlements had been made earlier;
tut they first interpreted America to Europe. The
thing that impressed Europe was not the high
ideals of the Pilgrims. not their religious devotion
the fact that counted was their economic success.
II Is not easy for us to understand what ii
meant In those days to demonstrate to the Old
World that men could live, could even prosper. In
the New World. without aid from over the sea-
No one had previously done 1t; no one believed II
could be done. The men and. women of Plymouth
came to the New World to make homes, to stick
even though ~they'died In the struggle. They stuck
and they died. In the first year more than one
half their number died. In the next six years, out
of a population Of one hundred and ninety mine
only six died.
The great Puritan migration which began In
1%627--whicl, directly created Massachusetts, and
had nm almost unreasonable influence In founding
New England-was the direct result not of the
Pilgrims religious beliefs but of the economic sue
cess achieved at Plymouth.
Six, possibly more, Of the guarantors Of the Ba,
colony had been MEMBERS of the Adventures wht
purchased the Mayflower and backed the originr
enterprise. They knew the whole story intimately
and p~roited by the experience.
t t AaE - - 49,