Six weeks later, they sighted and then settled at the mouth of an inviting harbor in present-day Plymouth. “They had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies,” Bradford remembered. The occasion prompted both thanksgiving and sober recognition of grim days ahead. Yet they took heart from the now often-quoted words of their pastor, John Robinson: “The Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word.”Īiming for northern Virginia but blown off course, they dropped anchor at the northern tip of Cape Cod on November 11. They knew the peril of the journey and the odds of dying after arrival. Finding Holland less hospitable than they expected, a minority determined to move on to the “new” world. Facing severe reprisals, including hanging, some emigrated to Amsterdam in search of relative religious freedom. The roots of this pilgrimage go back to the 1580s, when a small group of Protestant dissenters, despairing of reform, started to separate from the Church of England. He cites the best-known leader of the group, Governor William Bradford, who in 1630 described the departure from Leiden, alluding to Hebrews 11:13: “They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits.” Turner, who teaches religious studies at George Mason University, is clear about what it means to be a pilgrim. We learn of male and female sachems who struggled to defend their homes against European encroachment, settlers who condemned other settlers’ rapacity for land and wealth, magistrates who suffered reprisals for their principled stands for something like democracy, and Christian missionaries (both European and Native) who labored at great personal cost and for few rewards. Second, Turner features lesser-known actors in the conventional narrative. In Turner’s telling, noble aspirations and ignoble behavior continually mix to form shadows where there is light (and light where there is darkness). First, he highlights the role of irony, ambiguity, complexity, and unintended consequences in the Pilgrim experience. Turner’s erudite study incorporates elements of both of these scenarios-and adds at least two new ones.
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