Charting The Mayflower: Pilgrim Fathers' Brave Voyage |Parable

A new life, in the new world. In Europe, kings dictate what their subjects believe. But not everyone accepts royal rule. The Pilgrim Fathers preach their own way of living. Radical in their beliefs, liberal in their social attitudes. The Pilgrims want to determine how they live themselves, and are prepared to risk a journey into the unknown. They want equal rights for everyone, regardless of their religion. They draw up a contract which becomes the template for a nation. Fear of the Native Americans, danger and death mark their arrival in the new world. But the very people they fear help them to survive. Radical sectarians are compelled to sit down with American Indians. This is the story of the creation of the United States of America. For many Americans, the origins of their country begin with the Mayflower. The Pilgrim Fathers have come to symbolize many American virtues. In July 1620, English separatists set sail from their temporary home in Holland. They are searching for a new home in the new world, somewhere they can live by their beliefs. A place their children and grandchildren can be raised and educated according to their faith and philosophies. One man becomes a prominent leader, William Bradford. He chronicles their adventures in his book Of Plymouth Plantation. It describes the first 30 years of life in the settlement, a life he was to significantly shape as governor of the colony. Bradford was extending the English horizon to the new world. His success was not a foregone conclusion. Bradford was an orphan and had to fight for the place in history he enjoys today. But his prospects to succeed were probably greater living within this small group of Puritans, where the individual counts for more than the hierarchy. The agreement of all members in important matters is paramount to the Puritans. They want to live peacefully with each other. For them, serving the covenant God through free discussion and even decision-making, what they called the decision and the consent of the major part, that was their means of trying to understand the mind of Christ in any given situation. And once a vote or a common consent was reached, then that was the will of God. A decision arrived at by a vote and seen as God's will. An insult to every divinely ordained monarch. William, come along! William Bradford was born in 1590 in Northern England, at the end of the Elizabethan age. Orphaned as a boy, he finds comfort in a Puritan parish. He spends every spare minute studying the Bible translated by John Calvin, the famous Protestant reformer. But the Reformation in England doesn't go far enough for the Puritans. After more than 50 years of religious upheaval, which has shaken the state and society, they continue to try and change the Church from within. The Puritans in early 17th century England were not happy people. They had spent the better part of the last half of Queen Elizabeth's reign desperately trying to get Queen Elizabeth to legislate changes in the Anglican Church, in the Church of England, to make the Church more reformed, to conform the Church more to their idea of the kind of Church it should be, devoid of a lot of the vestiges of the Roman Catholic faith, a lot of the ceremony, the vestments, the incense, all of those things, those trappings that they felt needed to go away, that were incompatible with Scripture. She was very reluctant to make any changes at all. They got nowhere with her. And so when James I comes to the throne in 1603, they're hoping that since he was raised in a reformed Protestant Church, that he would be more sympathetic with the Puritan point of view. They thought. They went to see him, and he was very unresponsive. In fact, he basically told them, if you persist in trying to get me to change the Church, I will harry you out of the land. And the harrying out of the land is what really happens to William Bradford and the people that he's close to. It was not only Bradford and his people. There were other people who also were harried. Some of them evidently died in jail. Some of them went to Holland. Some of them kind of disappeared off into the country. Open opposition to the Anglican State Church borders on high treason. The monarchy responds with persecution, torture and execution to try and force religious conformity. Bradford's parish in Scrooby gives up any hope of being able to change the Church. Emigration seems the only option left to the separatists. Liberal Holland, which has freed itself from Spanish rule, seems to be the ideal place to realise their ideals. In 1608, parishioners around Bradford travel to their new homeland. The charismatic Reverend John Robinson leads the group to the Dutch city of Leiden. Leiden is the right place for a new beginning. The city is flourishing. There are thousands of small businesses and everyone is welcome who wants to work and will obey the laws. Religious refugees from all corners of the world flock to Holland, where a surprisingly tolerant climate for the times exists. Work, commerce and profit are what counts here. Work shapes people's lives from sunrise to sunset. Reverend Robinson and his people take up residence in the narrow alleyways around Pieterskerk. Robinson's home is De Groene Poort. It's the meeting place for the parish. It is here that he presents his ideas. Robinson said in his justification of separation that there are really three forms of government in a covenanted church. They are first a monarchy with reference to God and Christ. That even was a threat to King James. And they were an aristocracy with reference to the eldership who ruled daily affairs of a congregation. And they were a democracy when it came to the whole people and decisions had to be made ultimately by the whole people of God. That was what they called the popularizing tendency that was a threat to church and crown. It is also a primitive form of democracy. But the separatists have not given up hope of being able to change the Anglican church. They print pamphlets and secretly ship them to England. King James is outraged and calls the Dutch ambassador. Under pressure, the authorities in Leiden imprison the authors. But they are soon freed as they have not broken Dutch law. Undeterred, the separatists continue to publish their beliefs. They believe they serve a higher cause and want to show England and the world their righteous way. You know, they were very self-assured, very cocky that they were the chosen people and had the right answer. And if you didn't agree with them, you were wrong. Look at Winthrop's very famous speech in 1630 where he says, We are going to be a city upon a hill and the eyes of the world are upon us. We've had to leave England because it's so corrupt and we're going to form our own experiment here. And just by example, we're going to be so great and so wonderful that everyone else is going to want to be like us. So, you know, I'm not convinced these people would be very palatable to us today. The members of the Leiden parish continue to view themselves as Englishmen in exile. But the liberal Dutch attitudes, which first drew them to Holland, now begin to repel them. Their children are under no circumstances to become Dutch freethinkers. The idea to find a new home slowly begins to take shape among some of the parish. Bradford, who is now married, is one of them. Robinson senses that alienating themselves from life in Leiden could be a dangerous move. He preaches tolerance for dissent and hopes to present the Puritans as a more open-minded people. Looking at the story of Genesis, Robinson decided that the story of the fall, the expulsion from paradise, meant that every theological dogma, every doctrinal statement, was itself inherently flawed. And that this meant that people should be relatively patient and tolerant of other people's ideas because you couldn't yourself be sure that your own understanding wasn't flawed and that you were rejecting it by mistake if you disagreed with someone. So your own ideas could not be perfect, and someone else's ideas might not be imperfect in the places you imperfectly thought they were. This led to mutual toleration, which was very unusual at the time. The situation in Holland grows tense. The Dutch are on the brink of war again with the Catholic Habsburgs. Finally, the separatists decide to vote whether to found a colony in North America. Half the parish wants to risk the dangerous journey into the unknown. William Bradford is among them. The inexperienced pilgrim fathers rush to buy a ship. The speedwell is to travel first to Southampton, where they believe fellow believers are waiting to join them. Their plan is to then set sail for the New World in two ships from the southern coast of England. But they are ill-prepared for the harsh journey across the Atlantic. Everything seems to go wrong. First, a storm forces them back. Then the speedwell springs a leak. Their journey doesn't seem to have God's blessing. Many families decide to give up, but William Bradford is determined to make the trip. Treacherous autumn storms arrive as 102 passengers finally set sail in a rented freighter, the Mayflower. The Puritans are not the only passengers on board. There are also adventurers seeking their fortune in Virginia. The pilgrims call themselves saints and the rest of the passengers strangers. But they realise that they all need to get along if the new beginning is going to succeed. John Robinson urgently calls upon his followers to exercise tolerance and respect for others. It is clear to him that a new colony will only succeed if there is harmony among the settlers. The Mayflower sets sail too late for a safe passage across the Atlantic. The travellers pay a heavy price for their lack of planning. Fierce storms batter the ship. The captain has no choice but to drop sail and leave the Mayflower to the mercy of the elements. The physical and psychological strain on the passengers is tremendous. They confront death every day in the dark, stinking steerage. Added to that is the knowledge that if they do survive, they have no idea what the future will bring. It was a big leap into the unknown for all of them, for the passengers, for the sailors, for everyone involved. About halfway across, the Mayflower was in a very severe storm. Large waves were crashing on deck, water was leaking down below. And during one of those storms, the main beam, the beam that helps support the main mast of the ship, bowed and then cracked, sagged down, allowing a lot of water to run on board. It must have been a very frightening thing. They must have thought that they were foundering. And even the sailors, who are used to life at sea and the dangers of being on the ocean, were concerned about what was happening. They were fortunate in that they were able to prop that beam back up into place using an iron screw that was probably brought over for house construction, to get that beam up into place, and then they supported it with a couple of posts, working with the ship's carpenter. And they were making a decision about whether to continue on to the New World or to turn back at that point. They knew that if they turned back, that that was probably the end of the Plymouth adventure, the end of their opportunity to start a colony. In general, their diet was slowly degrading their health. The lack of vitamin C wasn't helpful. The amount of salt in their diet and the inactivity all lent itself to causing them to become more tired and weaker as the voyage went on. Many of the sailors probably hadn't been over to this side of the world before, really didn't know what to expect. It was often related to going off into outer space. It's a completely unknown, alien world that all these people were travelling into. During the crossing, a child is born. His parents name him Oceanus. The sailors are contemptuous of the pious land rats, and often curse the seasick pilgrims. One crew member even wishes out loud that the passengers could be tipped overboard in white shrouds, just like the dead. When this bitter crewman himself dies just days later, the pilgrim fathers see it as a divine message. The Mayflower's destination is the north coast of America, where the English hold some sway. They hope to settle in the Hudson River Valley, the area which is now known as New York. At the time, this was the northern tip of Virginia, the site where several years before, the Jamestown colony was established. The pilgrims have purchased a patent to colonise this region in England. After the endless storms, the pilgrim fathers only have a vague idea how far off course they've been blown. They suspect that as the journey has lasted so long, the Mayflower is too far north. The passengers are sick and emaciated after the journey. Their supplies have nearly vanished. There is nothing left to do but put their fate in God's hands. On the morning of November the 9th, 1620, after 65 days below deck, the longed for cry finally echoes from the crow's nest. The pilgrims can already smell the land. They watch in wonder as the tint of the sea merges from deep blue to pale green. America. A quick glance at the coastline tells the captain that this must be Cape Cod, a bay well known to many English fishermen. The captain realises they have drifted hundreds of miles too far north. He steers back and begins the journey south along the coast, only to turn back again. It can be fatal at this time of year to try and sail through the reefs off the Cape. The ship finally lowers anchor at the tip of the bay. Some said in the Mayflower when it reached Provincetown, since we are not in New York, since we are not in the Hudson River Valley area, turn the boat around and go home. And others said, since we are not where we were bargained to be, we will do as we please when we get ashore. And that's when they sat down in the cabin of the Mayflower and drew up the compact so that everything they did was an extension of that basic covenantal idea of freedom. You agree to do something, I agree to do something, ultimately hoped that it would all serve God that way, and therefore it became a part of their modus operandi. Gentlemen, we are here. No matter where we are supposed to be, this is where we have landed. We must sign to make ourselves one. Will you sign, gentlemen? Will you sign to make us a company? Aye, I will sign. I will sign. Mr. Bradford, will you sign? I will sign. This was the Pilgrim's way to achieve unity. Democracy and equal rights for all are a new phenomenon in an age when monarchs rule and rights are allocated according to social status. Here in the New World, the settlers set their own terms. Rights and responsibilities are written down in a social contract, which takes into account the many different groups living in the colony. Puritans wanted to have everything written down. We talk about the English Constitution, which doesn't really come into existence in a written form until the late 17th century. Well, the Puritans were writing rules down because they wanted to know what was expected of them. They were very legalistic. Everything needed to be written down, including their system of government. How would elections take place? Who would have the right to vote? What would be the conditions of the voting rights of the individuals? How are the laws going to be formed? And what are expected in terms of people to their laws and the government to the people? So that's what made this first document such a critical thing. It was such an important thing. It was a constitution, very primitive, but nevertheless the first constitution in American history. The Compact is just a seedling on the way to full constitutional democracy. But it was the ground out of which seeds could grow, that people could order themselves freely in a freely democratic way, and that the majority would rule. Those principles continue to linger strongly. When everyone has signed, Bradford is sent to explore the coastline with an armed party of men. The water is so shallow that the Mayflower has to anchor a long way from shore. They reach land in a small sloop, and wade the last few yards through freezing surf. It is November the 15th, 1620. Winter has already arrived. Bradford later writes, We fell on our knees and gave praise to God, who has led us over a mighty and angry ocean, and freed us from all dangers and want. The dunes the scouting party wander over remind them of the Dutch coastline. They find the remains of a shipwreck washed ashore years before. It almost seems as if no humans have ever been here before. They fear the silence. But it also reassures them, as what they fear most is the Native Americans. They know little about the people who live here, but back in Europe have heard many horror stories about the indigenous people. Here in the sand, they find traces of human life. They discover a wealth of seed, stockpiles of a type of corn they have never seen before. The settlers have precious little seed left, and winter has arrived. The discovery seems to be a gift from heaven. The pious men have no qualms about simply taking what they need. It is, it is. As they were coming from their landing place and up the coast, they went into the storage areas. The Cape Cod was not a habitable place for the native populations through the winter months. Once the fall set in, they all moved out of Cape Cod. But, because it was a favorable place for summer, and this is where they had their gardens, etc., they left there in the storage pits their seed plants and the whole bit that they were going to need. And it has been said that the people, the newcomers, took the seed and left a note that they would pay later, which they never did, of course. And so the Indians, we have a laugh about that, said they were lying from the beginning. The Pilgrim Fathers continue to search for a suitable area to establish their colony. They need arable farmland, which is easy to defend, and ships must be able to anchor off the coast. The men wander the tidal flats as they search. Life is very hard. The damp penetrates everything. The bitter winter nights are freezing. Some never recover from the ordeal. A fire to keep warm is out of the question, so great is their fear that the Native Americans might see them. Suspicious noises and eerie shadows surround them, as if by a miracle no one is harmed. But now they have proof. People live here who do not welcome their arrival. When they fail to find somewhere to settle, they make their way across to the other side of the huge bay. Their map has an English name for this area, Plymouth. The adventurer John Smith founded a colony in southern Virginia years before. Is a familiar name, in a mysterious land, a sign that they should settle here? They have searched for more than a month. It is now December the 12th. The heart of winter, as William Bradford calls it in his book, draws closer. When they arrived here, even though they did have John Smith's maps of New England and probably Virginia as well, the maps were not that great a help in deciding where to settle. They had to find where there was fresh water, they had to find where there were good anchorages, they had to find where there was arable land. None of those things are indicated on the map, and the map is not altogether accurate even then, unless you know what it looks like today. So they had to make trips up and down along the coast until they found a place to settle, and they finally did at the harbor that on Smith's map was called New Plymouth, because Plymouth had been named the harbor had been named by Prince Charles, and in an attempt to ingratiate himself, Smith had given the prince the map, and he said put names on it, and Charles did. But they make a gruesome discovery on the Plymouth coast. Human remains strewn all over the beach. They have no way of knowing what happened here. Was it a battle or disease which claimed the lives of these people? It would be possible to settle here, but Bradford and his exploratory party are not convinced. Death seems to surround them. The men are exhausted. Their initial euphoria vanishes. They are too weak to continue their search. There was just this barren, empty land. He said we've gone through all this in England and Holland, and we get to this godforsaken place which is nothing but a sandpit, and here we are after all of that, and this is all there is? A much more painful loss awaits William Bradford. When he returns to the Mayflower, he learns that his wife Dorothy has fallen overboard and drowned. Bradford is devastated by the loss of his wife and the uncertain future in this wasteland, but he clings to his faith. He believes that when fate is at work, when it's led by God, this test will be the meaning. After an arduous journey, after persecutions in England, there are some who theorize that Dorothy may have jumped overboard, that she may have committed suicide. There are some who theorize that, based on the fact that Bradford is absolutely silent about anything but that she died. On December the 21st, 1620, the first group of settlers finally land on the frozen Plymouth beach. The Mayflower is a hotbed of fever. Men, women and children have died on board. So they arrive, they have no opportunity to plant, there are no fresh vegetables, there is nothing that they can resort to. Many of the Plymouth people die. Their level of nutrition falls away, they suffer from vitamin deficiencies, scurvy is a problem, vitamin D deficiency is a problem, and they also of course contract fever. So as a result there is a 50% attrition rate. 50% of these individuals who arrive alive die in that first winter. Christmas arrives. The settlers work hard and build their first houses. The celebration has little meaning for the Puritans. Like many others, William Bradford is desperately ill. Fever and dysentery sap his strength. Some seem to hear strange cries in the darkness. Are they Native Americans? Or is it Satan and his minions come to punish them? There is almost no one left fit enough to care for the ill. Everyone is sick. Settlers die every day. On top of everything, they live in constant fear of the indigenous people living here. None of the settlers has actually seen an American Indian up close. But surely some are very near. Are they a threat to the colony? What kind of people are they? Little is known in Europe about the Native American people. Apart from the propaganda spread by the Spaniards and Portuguese to morally justify their gruesome repression and extermination campaign in Central and South America. They speak of depraved cannibals who one must force-feed Christian culture and civilization at the point of the sword. Savages. Worse than savages. Slaves. Not even human. It is now March, and winter doesn't seem to want to end. The constant cold and damp drain the last of the settlers' strength. Every day is a struggle for survival. The settlers know that they are being watched. This is not the time to show any sign of weakness. An attack now would spell the end of the colony. During the day, even the sick stand guard. Exhausted men are propped up against trees as decoys. The day's dead are buried at night in order to prevent those watching from counting how many able men left to fight. In spite of everything, no one thinks of returning. One of the great American traits is perseverance. You know, you've got the Apostle Paul kick against the prickers and you've got to go on no matter what. And you can't give up or give in. We often do. But the ultimate goal is to endure anything for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the covenant, or some principle not in oneself. And that's what they did. The first warmth of spring in 1621 fills the settlers with hope. Perhaps the worst is behind them. Now they have only one fear left, the Native Americans. Will they tolerate new arrivals in their homeland? Carver, Bradford and the others finally settle in an abandoned Patuxet Indian village. March 16th, 1621 is the day of their first encounter. A Wampanoag Indian appears on Watson's Hill on the edge of the village. He is tall, self-assured and seems to have little fear of foreigners. The Europeans in general had a very grave misunderstanding of what the peoples, the native peoples were. They thought of them more in terms of wild animals in the woods when they were very highly skilled and intelligent people. There seems to be a much better record among the pilgrims than among later, later immigrations who did terrible things to the Native Americans here and saw them not as wild animals but as people to be converted, which was not a negative thing. You have to accept them as human beings who can also be a part of the covenant eventually. The stranger greets them in English. No one anticipated that. The man asks for bread and beer, the items only Europeans have. His name is Somerset and he has learned to speak English from cod fishermen. He proves a priceless source of information for the colonists. Massasoit has sent Somerset, the mighty chief rules over all the people in a wide area. Somerset promises to return with Chief Massasoit and his interpreter, whose English is even better than his. His intentions seem peaceful. They had a pretty good idea as to what they were getting themselves into when they were dealing with these folk and understood very well the significance of the relationship. But also, too, it was a symbiotic relationship where both sides had something to gain by forming an alliance. The Native Americans at the time in Massachusetts were very weak. They had been decimated by European diseases, things that we would call harmless childhood diseases like chicken pox and mumps, but that Native Americans had no experience with, no immunity to, so as many as 70, 80, 90 percent of the inhabitants of a village could be wiped out. People who know both American Indians and European settlers can have great influence as mediators. Squanto, Massasoit's interpreter, is such a man. Years before, he'd been sold as a slave Squanto did provide a great service to the English, but he was also out for his own benefit. And to do this, he tried to undermine Massasoit's authority and assert his own. He wanted to achieve a leadership position as the one intermediary. Five days after Somerset's first visit, he returns to the English village with Squanto and the great Massasoit. Massasoit and the Wampanoags wanted the English to be there. They were a good buffer against their enemies. They had all this really cool high-tech stuff like, would you rather chop down a tree with a stone axe or a steel axe? It's a reciprocal relationship that I think both sides understood quite well. Welcome to our village. This is my chief, Massasoit. Please, come in. Gentlemen, please, into my house. Take some comfort. Be seated. Follow me, please. One of the most important adjustments, shall we say, that they were able to make was that they were able to strike on somewhat uneasy peace, which lasted for quite a while with the Wampanoag people and Massasoit, who was the chieftain of the Wampanoag people, forms a treaty, which he keeps throughout the remainder of his life, which enables Plymouth to establish itself without fear of reprisal from the local people, from the local Native Americans. As a result of that, they were able to focus more on settlement, more on friendship. We are very pleased to be here. There are more, there are more here. We will honor this treaty and we will keep it sacred to our people also. We are very pleased to have your furs. We are very pleased to have your friendship and we would give you these knives, good English steel. Massasoit has carefully considered his response to the settlers' arrival for a long time. He has spent months in the swamps with his priests to establish contact with the spirits, with the English. Given their superior strength, it would not be difficult. But Squanto, who knows the English better than most, exerts a great influence. He explicitly warns Massasoit about the European superior weapons. Squanto hopes to secure and strengthen his standing. He leads Massasoit to believe that the men from across the ocean have their deadly diseases caused by the Wampanoag. It is a brazen lie intended to push Massasoit towards a peace treaty and consolidate Squanto's position. The treaty was basically one of mutual understanding and respect. It was a little heavily weighed towards the English, but then the English were making it and were not sure exactly what the native people who didn't have basically respected and left each side to do as they wanted. Shortly after the conclusion of the treaty, Governor Carver dies unexpectedly. The fledgling colony needs a strong successor in these testing first months when simply surviving is the priority. William Bradford is selected. After initially hesitating, he accepts. It is to become a member of the Wampanoag. The peace treaty allays the colonists' fears and Plymouth prospers. The Pilgrim Fathers are able to establish themselves in the New World. The Wampanoag teach them how to cultivate the native plants. The seed they stole from Cape Cod flourishes here. The seed they brought from Europe flounders. The Wampanoag also teach them how to plant Indian corn. Massasoit and the Native Americans with him helped the colonists with providing them food and in many cases showing them for example how to plant Indian corn. It is the wonder crop that helps the world eat today and if it hadn't been for Native Americans showing the pilgrims how to grow that they probably wouldn't have been able to do today. lasts for more than 50 years and is one of the reasons for the success of the English settlement in North America. The first marriage in Plymouth takes place in the spring of 1621. In England at the time marriage is still performed by an Anglican cleric in a church. In Plymouth it is a civil ceremony and the introduction of civil marriage was a clear concept of the separation of the duties of the civil society from those of the church. In Pilgrim Colony in Plymouth Colony with a congregation of covenanted members by no means was everyone expected to be a member of the church. Therefore one had to have equal treatment to people who were not members of the church. This meant there needed to be two spheres of operation the church and the state. One of them to deal with believers who were covenanted in the congregation and one to be dealing with the equal treatment and application of laws for everyone else in the colony who were considered politically equal. Suffrage, let us say the right to vote was never made conditional on being a member of the church in Plymouth Colony. The first fall in Plymouth. Colonists harvest enough food to see them through winter and the coming year. The harvest festival approaches. Massasoit and 90 of his men are present at this first thanksgiving on American soil. They bring five deer and the celebration lasts for three days. Subsequent generations of Native Americans interpret this first thanksgiving in a very different light. It is no reason to celebrate. It's worse than a story. It's a lie. It's worse than a myth. It's a lie. There is nothing in the thanksgiving story that you have heard and all of America has heard about, either glorified or celebrated by Native people. Today, many American Indians view the first thanksgiving as a day of national mourning. At the same time, I think they felt it very important that they would include the Native Americans in the area because even though they may not understand, even though the Native Americans might not understand the Calvinist theology behind the idea of thanking their God, they wanted to also, of course, reaffirm the friendship that had been established at this point in time. We often say, well, would the Natives really have been invited into this European, Calvinist kind of environment? After he was voted in as governor, William Bradford, the orphan from England, helped shape the success of the Plymouth Colony for the rest of his life. He rules with foresight and a firm hand, but it was mainly due to the help of the Native Americans that the colony survives. Massasoit could not have known that this handful of colonists would be followed by another continent under their control. A few years after the deaths of Bradford and Massasoit, war breaks out in New England between the European settlers and the Native Americans. After the settlers win the war, they deny the American Indians their freedom and deport men, women and children as slaves. Today, Plymouth is a bustling tourist town and the name Bradford can be seen everywhere. The graves of the first settlers lay here, on Burial Hill, the colony's oldest graveyard. The Pilgrim Fathers accepted attitudes other than their own, a groundbreaking development for the time, and founded their colony on the basis of democratic consensus. The Puritans felt they were a society dedicated to freedom, equality and justice for all, even if the reality often looks very different. Today, religion is a private and personal matter in the United States, perhaps because it has such an enormous political significance. They create something new and what is new the Mayflower has become a symbol, it has become a part of our social consciousness. There's a Plymouth in every town, in every state in the country. What they're doing is saying this is now their land, not yours anymore. You have to speak their language, you have to obey their laws. That was the story of the conquest of America. To such a degree that they are willing to take this trip and place themselves on a foreign shore and risk their lives for the sake of what they believe. I wish I had lived back there, only to warn people of what was to come. We're in Bradford's garden and sometimes when I leave the church at night and lock up, I think I still see him