IN MEMORIUM - NOW AND THEN

11-11-11

Men of U.S. 64th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division,
 celebrate the news of the Armistice, 11th November, 1918

On another 11th of November 391 years ago:

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Almost half of the colonists were part of a separatist group seeking the freedom to practice Christianity according to their own determination and not the will of the Anglican Church. It was signed on 11^th November, 1620, by 41 of the ship's 101 passengers, while the Mayflower was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.  No women were signatories of the document. What appears below is not the original document, but a modern version of the text. 

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, etc.

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor 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 politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, 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 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

1.      John Carver 2.      William Bradford 3.      Edward Winslow 4.      William Brewster 5.     Isaac Allerton 6.     Miles Standish 7.     John Alden 8.     Samuel Fuller 9.     Christopher Martin 10.           William Mullins 11.           William White 12.           Richard Warren 13.           John Howland 14.           Stephen Hopkins

15.           Edward Tilly         16.           John Tilly   17.           Francis Cooke   18.           Thomas Rogers   19.           Thomas Tinker   20.           John Ridgdale   21.           Edward Fuller   22.           John Turner   23.           Francis Eaton   24.           James Chilton   25.           John Craxton   26.           John Billington   27.           Joses Fletcher   28.           John Goodman

29.           Digery Priest  30.           Thomas Williams  31.           Gilbert Winslow  32.           Edmund Margeson  33.           Peter Brown  34.           Richard Bitteridge  35.           George Soule  36.           Richard Clark  37.           Richard Gardiner  38.           John Allerton  39.           Thomas English  40.           Edward Doten  41.           Edward Leister

There are a number of names which are very familiar to most Americans and who have become part of the country’s mythology: Miles Standish, John Alden, John Carver (the fist governor of the colony) and William Bradford who was one of the leaders of the settlers and served as governor for over 30 years after John Carver died. Bradford is credited as the first civil authority to designate what popular American culture now views as Thanksgiving in the United States. It is due to be celebrated two weeks from today.

So far as the ‘compact’ is concerned, it should be noted that, although they claim to act in the presence of God, and for his glory, to set up a colony, they “covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, 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.”

This is a text put together on a seventeenth century vessel, after 66 crowded and gruelling days at sea, marked by disease claiming two lives, and landing at the wrong place.  It was time to get down to business. They knew what they wanted to do, and the foundation they agreed on, was defined in 69 words out of a total of 196 (Just over a third) to form a civil body politic with just and equal laws; and, although claiming to be in the presence of God, there is no mention of God or any religion forming part of that civil body politic. That thought continued through to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and to the setting out of the Constitution of the United State

Oddly, for a country so steeped in fundamentalist religion, and forever appealing to the glory of God, and trusting in God, the written documents, which form the cornerstones of its civil institutions, remain secular in their intent. A position maintained and supported by the Supreme Court of the United States, despite the many claims for it to be otherwise.

The establishment of the United States was not without its problems and one such event occurred in 1778. It is known as the Cherry Valley Massacre, which was an attack by British and Seneca forces on a fort and the village of Cherry Valley in eastern New York on the cold, snowy and rainy morning of 11^thNovember, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. It has been described as one of the most horrific frontier massacres of the Revolution. Fighting in and near the Mohawk Valley was fierce on both sides, and retaliation escalated.

The 1939 film of Drums Along The Mohawk, released in November of that year, and directed by John Ford, reflects the conflict of that time. The film was based on a novel by Walter D. Edmonds.
Note: The 'Tories' and the Indians are the bad guys.