We're going to be covering William Bradford, the second of our authors.
Last week we were covering Captain John Smith. Let me move to the board for
a second so we can talk about that. Last week we were talking about Captain
John Smith. And because of all the issues and because the board didn't work
and I didn't have what I have now that allows me to write on the board, I
couldn't give the type of overview that I really wanted to provide. With
Captain John Smith, and please anybody that's at home, if things don't work
from the point of view of audio or whatever, just let me know. From the
point of view of Captain John Smith, what we have is... On one side, an
explorer. On the other side, a pioneer. And also somebody that creates the
initial image, shapes, a person that shapes the initial image of America.
So this is really important because nowadays when we want to create our
image about a place, we have an overload of information. It's not a lack of
information. But in... In that time, you really had to believe the person
that went there to witness that and came back and gave an account. The
problem is that John Smith's account of things got more and more fantastic
as time went by. He was in America until 1608, and he left in very strange
circumstances because he was appointed governor, and afterwards he was
arrested. Whatever happened with his exploring expeditions happened, and
only the people that were there can probably give a good account about what
happened in that time. And then he retold his story over and over again. So
on the one hand, he has his 1608 work. I have the full name, and that's –
I don't remember if we read from the – 1628 version. The thing is that he
keeps retelling the same story. In 1608, he writes a true relation of such
occurrences and accidents of note as has happened in Virginia. In 1616 –
let me see if I can move this way. In 1616, he writes a description of New
England, something very, very – very influential. This is as influential
as his maps. His maps, there are two maps that he creates The maps of the
area of New England And the maps of Virginia Virginia from the point of
view as if you were arriving on a ship So it's a strange map to read When
you see it, the north is to the right It's not the north is upwards It's
designed in a way that someone on a boat would see the coastline And all
the different territories He was very, very good at placing names to things
And describing Indian traditions Especially he was a soldier So he was
interested in the military rank The military hierarchy How they defended
their forts How they built their cities Those type of things that maybe for
an untrained eye Would not be interesting for him That was interesting Even
more interesting Maybe the social relationships with the Native Americans
As P. Sanchet has written in the forum Or in the chat He has All of his
writings are self-boasting So there is There is the feeling That his
self-representation is going to be misconstructed Because he's a native
American He's going to be very favorable In terms of describing himself So
from that point of view And he speaks about himself in the third person As
if he were a character of a story So from that point of view How reliable
can we consider this character to be? But despite all of these facts His
story had a huge amount of attention in England Not only the stories Not
only the accounts The description of New England is very relevant Because
he even pinpointed a place Where four years later The pilgrims arrive And
that's what we're going to talk about today William Bradford And the first
colonizers The first colonizers For American tradition We're going to see
that We're talking about 1608 And then we skip forward 12 years To 6020
What's happening in the middle? Many things But from the perspective of
American Of American collective memory This is where it all starts. So
William Bradford represents a key figure in what is considered the
beginning of American mythology. And this American mythology is the
beginning or the roots of American tradition, American literature, American
history. When I was a child, I was born in San Francisco, we studied the
pilgrims and the Mayflower as people in Spain study Christopher Columbus as
the most important element of history of America to that moment. And it's a
misconstrued image. It's a fabricated image that places the pilgrims at the
forefront of history, of mythology, of tradition. And that connects us very
much to an idea that Captain John Smith starts to bring forward to the
forefront, the manifest destiny. This idea that we talked about last week
is the idea, it's a highly religious idea, but it's also very Eurocentric.
It's the idea that there is a hierarchy of races and that the white
Europeans are superior to any type of living people that they find in any
other territory of the world. They are more civilized, they are more
intelligent, they are superior. And they have more right to the land. They
have all the rights to the land, in fact. So from the point of view of the
pilgrims, And this is what we're going to study, and this is how we're
going to connect Captain John Smith to William Bradford. We're going to see
how Captain John Smith lays a foundation of two things. An interest for
America, an interest for America as a source of wealth, or at least a new
beginning. So this was a huge magnet. Imagine, if you were a destitute
citizen of the slums of London, what reasons would keep you back and not
explore and not get on the first available ship and trade two years of your
work for the passage to find adventure and find a new beginning. And all of
the description of Captain John Smith is laid in terms of opportunity. And
that... Those connect to the ideas of wealth and new beginning. The other
idea has to do with understanding the times that we're living, the 17th
century in Europe. They're the opposite of religious freedom. We know that
Spain is fighting the war with Flanders and with the areas of Europe that
are embracing Protestantism. Spain is a champion of Catholicism. And on the
other side, we have the... We have the Anglican Church, which is not very
tolerant at all either with other forms of religion. Maybe the religious
persecution is not as famous as the religious persecution in other parts of
Europe, but religious persecution did take place. And today we're going to
see a story of religious persecution and how the search for religious
freedom... takes a group of people first out of England to Holland and from
Holland all the way to America. So that's the other element, religious
freedom. And this idea of religious freedom ties together with the idea...
I'm not answering all the messages here, but I'm reading them at the same
time. So if you have anything that you want to mention, just go ahead and
ask it in the chat, and I'll address it as soon as possible. Thank you for
your comments. I can see, yeah, trailblazers. We're going to see a set of
trailblazers, not only Captain John Smith. I think that when we talk about
William Bradford, when we talk about Anne Bradford, when we talk about Mary
Rawlinson, they're all going to be trailblazers of one type or another,
pioneers of one type or another. We're breaking records. For example,
Captain John Smith. First... The first book published about America is his
book in 1608, The Occurrences, blah, blah, blah. It's a very long title.
The story that he tells and tells over and over again, he retold it in
1624, and he magnified elements that had to do with himself, and that's
what led us to believe that there is a problem, a problem with the
reliability and the self-representation that we were talking about. But I'm
going to leave Captain John Smith aside, because I already devoted him a
lot of time last week, and I'm going to devote more time... in that extra
20 or 30 minutes if I have the opportunity today to record them because now
the servers seem to be working better than before when I tried to record it
today. We're going to have the opportunity to discover why William Bradford
and the people that he represents, the pilgrims, are so important for
American tradition because they bring a story of strife, something that is
called the Jeremiad. And I'm going to talk about this several times during
the course of this year, especially in the first semester. I'm going to
read a couple of paragraphs from the additional book that I talked to you
guys about the other day. I don't know if you were connected last week to
the class. Okay, the other day, besides the textbook, the textbooks that I
spoke about, I'm going to talk about them today again in case the people
that are connected are different people to the people that connected last
week. This is a textbook. Your textbook probably has different covers. This
is the one I used when I was a student. So this goes to show it's got its
history of its own. And this is the study guide. Normally people don't take
into consideration the study guide. I consider it very important. If you
have a little bit of tech, the tech normally refers to the study guide.
Study guide for instructions. You can find the study guide in the library,
the bibliotheca has. Five or six copies if you don't want to buy it. If you
if you want to buy it, I think it's a great book It's got an incredibly
well Structured glossary of literary terms at the end that can help you
prepare the packs every unit is Helps you develop a skill that is specific
to becoming a literary scholar So I think this subject is so much more than
just American literature because I think it this is probably the the first
Subject where you're going to have the global idea of what it takes to
understanding literature from the perspective of not only a reader That
reads for entertainment Going beyond just reading for entertainment I think
that many of those tools are present in the study guide as well as in the
book the book focuses on What you have to know for the exam? Everything is
here. You know this by heart you get it. It's not easy But this is what
It's going to show you to go beyond and just the surface of these brief
extracts of text because The purpose for us in this course is not only to
cover 24 authors, which is a lot of work already but also to To help you
learn how to think as a scholar and to go and to start to develop that
sense of criticism that every Scholar has to have in terms of reading
literature And and finding not only the the parts of the literature that we
like that we enjoy But also the flaws of the author reflected in the text
what the Intention of the author the way that some authors use certain
literary devices and how especially two very important things that are The
bread and butter of this of this subject I comparing and contrasting
elements from different authors. How do Captain John Smith and William
Bradford represent themselves? This is an interesting question that maybe
you can answer at the end of the class. What is similar in the way that
they represent themselves? What is different in the way that they represent
themselves? From that point of view, our objective is to help you come to
those types of conclusions. Well, we're going to continue with what I was
talking about regarding William Bradford. William Bradford is a Puritan.
What is a Puritan? A Puritan is a type of... of reformist protestant, okay?
So Puritanism is a specific type of protestantism. Very connected to the
idea of Calvinism. So when we talk about Puritans, when we talk about
Calvinists, we're going to be talking in this course about the same type of
people, okay? Sorry? Yes, I mean, we don't... There are two things that we
don't do in this course. We don't go into the detail of religion. We just
talk about the joining factors of what Puritanism means. Because there are
some things that all of the forms of Puritanism share. Okay? And even
though they wanted to have a very fixed style of religion, they betrayed
themselves very quickly and soon they are unable to maintain what they
consider their principles. Okay, so this divine deal is the pacto divino,
the covenant, they call it the covenant. It's what they're always feeling
in constant failure. Puritanism is a sense of guilt as a religion because
they always have the feeling that they're failing themselves, they're
failing their mission. And this is what's interesting and what connects
Captain John Smith to the Puritans. Puritans feel that they are on a
mission. So this manifest destiny goes beyond just the European sense of if
I discover a land, I can occupy it. I can occupy it because I'm stronger, I
have better weapons, I have more military knowledge, better organization,
and I can do whatever I want. It's not just bullying. It's the idea that
they are the God-chosen people. So they're the God-chosen people looking
for the God-chosen land. So when the Puritans travel to America, they don't
have the feeling that they're running away from persecution. They have the
feeling that they're on a sacred mission that is almost biblical. And what
they're writing about... The annals is the account of their divine mission
to discover and to be in their chosen land and to live according to the
expectations of the image that they have of their God. The Puritan God has
something that is very characteristic, and I'm going to change the slide so
we can start talking about William Bradford and Puritanism. It's absolutely
that. So Puritanism is all about predestination, and therefore it leaves no
space for free will. So this is absolutely contrary to everything that we
give for granted when we talk about rejuvenation. Current religion never
questions free will. According to Puritanisms, Puritans were a selected
group of people, and they did not look for the salvation of the world like
modern religions do. They looked for their own salvation. So the story is
about the salvation of the Puritans, not the salvation of the people.
Because they were convinced that those people were going to burn in hell.
They interacted with those people because it was convenient, but they had
the feeling, the established feeling, that only the Puritans were worthy
enough to go to heaven. So that idea is incredibly radical if we take it
into consideration with the type of religions that we face nowadays.
Puritan writing is characterized by two elements. It has to be didactic. It
has to serve the future generations of Puritans. It has to be written in a
biblical manner, lacking any decor. It has to... It has to have a lack of
artificiality. So you can imagine that there's no space for metaphors, no
space for fictional writing. Everything was about accounts that happened to
them. They were in charge of chronicling rather than writing for pleasure.
And the other element, one is didactic purpose, and the other one is a
Puritan plain style. Plain style is what I was saying before. It's
stripping the text of anything that isn't purely functional for the purpose
of the text. I don't know if anybody in the chat has any questions. So when
we go to William Bradford's introduction in Unit 2 of the text, in the
study guide that's on page 20, it says the same things that we're going to
see in the presentation. So if you have the study guide around and you have
a look at it, you'll see that it says the same things that we can see in
the presentation on slide number 4. What do we want to walk away with? We
want to understand a few elements about Puritanism and Puritanism embodied
in the person of William Bradford. William Bradford is a very relevant
Puritan. Puritans are considered to be the core of Americanism. Or
American-ness. And this American-ness that we talk about nowadays is so
embedded in culture. I told you before the idea that when I went to school,
the first thing that was taught to me was William Bradford and the rest of
the pilgrims arriving to America aboard the Mayflower. I was so confused
when I was a kid that I really didn't know if Christopher Columbus came
after the Mayflower or the Mayflower came before. That is not something to
joke about. That means that there is an intentional objective of placing
the fates of American history in the hands of the pilgrims. So America has
never disdained embracing religion at the core of their value. If you open
a dollar bill, it says, in God we trust. If you listen to an American
presidential speech, if we eliminate from the picture the current president
of the United States, the American addresses always end with God bless you,
God bless America. God and America are embedded and intertwined in a way
that is certainly shocking for other people. Normally for European, more
secular. More secular countries such as Spain. But in America, there is the
idea of connecting the idea of the pilgrims to the idea of the beginning of
the American-ness. And that American-ness has to do with the idea of the
American dream. The American dream is an artificial fabrication that is
based upon the ideas that, are the self-made man, that rises to fortune and
to wealth and to success through hard work. an idea that seems to be taken
from the handbook of Puritanism. This idea of chosen people in the chosen
land with the idea that they're on the best place in the world, if you have
a look at the current presidential campaign, it's about the idea of America
being great again, as if it were already great and it was the greatest
country in the world. This idea of having the moral superiority over the
world, of having a sense of leadership over the world, is something that is
embedded in these ideas that come from Puritan culture. Puritanism has to
do with, I'm not worried in saving the rest of the world because there are
a bunch of sinners. I'm worried about saving my group of people and having
children so we can be worthy of God. But if you think about it, all of
their destiny is already pre-written for them. There is no opportunity to
move aside from what has already been determined by God. So everything in
their life is pre-destined. Whether they fail or they succeed in life, they
always find the cause in it was God's will. Okay? So there's always going,
there has to be a divine explanation to everything. What is Puritan writing
like? Puritan writing is very similar to a style of writing where
everything that happens... has a direct explanation in the will of God. If
something good happens, we were deserving of it because it was a will of
God to reward us this way. If something bad happened, it was a trial, it
was a punishment by God because we had done something wrong before. Not
because God was cruel, because God was almighty, and a God to fear. It's
not a loving God, it's a punishing God. The idea of religion is radically
different to the ideas of religion that we manage nowadays for Christianism
and for Catholicism. So from the point of view of religion, it's a very
fundamentalist religion. So it's a very radical fundamentalist religion,
but it's also always at the core of American culture and American history.
Ideas of the American dream, ideas of the frontier, moving west, the
exploring, the adventure, they all stem from this idea of being in the
chosen land and being the chosen people. So they connect very well to the
idea of Puritanism. Okay? So let's talk about these concepts that are
suggested in the initial objectives. We want to understand how Puritanism
shapes the 17th century colonial discourse. And as I was saying, it goes
far beyond that. Right now, it is an honor to descend from one of the
pilgrims and they say Marilyn Monroe is a direct inheritor of one of the
pilgrim fathers. This group of pilgrims was a small religious group that
moved because of persecution. We're going to talk about that right now.
From England, from the Scooby congregation to Holland, from Holland to
America. And that is the story that we're going to deal with in today's
class. We're going to see how William Bradford was the leader of the
pilgrims and he left a long-lasting trail because he chronicled his entire
life in America. So, the story of Plymouth, he called it of Plymouth
Pilgrims. Plantation was initially published in 1630. So, right now we're
going from 1620 when they arrived to 1630, 10 years later. And there's
going to be an addition to that work because what he does is he chronicles
the years where he's one of the leaders of Plymouth colony. He was the
second governor and he governed for 30 straight years. So, that length and
that importance. That length and that importance gives him the breath of an
entire generation to look upon and to talk about the arrival of the
pilgrims and how they developed into. a very important colony in America.
We're going to understand what the Mayflower Compact is. It's a contract,
and we're going to talk about it. And I think it's going to help us
understand what the pilgrims are like and what are their intentions and
also their style of interacting with the rest of the population We're going
to explore principles of Puritan plain style, and we're going to see how
what I said before, the didactic purpose of the plain style, what they look
like. We're going to read from the book. Of Plymouth Plantation is the book
that we're going to work upon today, and it's the first and foremost
example of, what does that mean? That means that history is not chronicled
from the point of view of leaving a faithful account. It's chronicled for
the purpose of leaving a biblical style chronicle for the future
generations to extend on that idea. So, what does that mean? When you read
of Plymouth Plantation, you get the feeling that you're reading the Bible.
You don't get the feeling that you're reading a bestseller and that you're
going to be entertained and you're going to learn from that. You get the
feeling that you're reading something that has like that biblical tone and
those biblical devices. And it's a pity that we couldn't read Captain John
Smith's work. last week. I hope we have time to read all of William
Bradford's work today, so I can give you some hints of where that
providentialist style is. We're going to talk about what I said before, the
didactic purpose of Puritan plain style, and we're going to again as well
as with Captain John Smith, where Captain John Smith creates the first
image of the Native American as deceitful savages, sometimes referred to
with words that remind us to religion like devilish, but also Captain John
Smith brings the idea of the good savage, like being less human than the
rest of the people, but having goodwill and being able to be manipulated in
a similar way that we use pets or animals. The idea that we're going to,
that is going to become mainstream in the readership, because all of these
works are being read on the other side of the world across the Atlantic,
and they're shaping the image that people that have never seen a Native
American create about the Native American. In the eyes of the Puritans that
do not care about the Native American, they're not going to consider the
non-Puritans to be equals. You can understand that the Native Americans
were not even considered human. So, this idea of dehumanizing opponents or
people is a very easy way of creating an enemy that has to do more with
biblical references of the devil, of being unnatural, or of being unworthy
of salvation, of respect, of even considering them for their life to be
valuable. Their lives are not valuable because they're not humanized.
They're as important as a bear, or a raccoon, or something to avoid, and if
it gets in the way, to kill without any type of remorse. Because
dehumanizing... Dehumanizing Native Americans makes it much easier to
confront them. And they're always put in terms of being inferior to other
people that are European, and of course, inferior to the Puritans. Okay, so
we're going to see how we keep shaping the idea of indigenous inhabitants
of North America through the eyes of the Puritans. And we're going to
compare... If we have time, the devices and strategies that Captain John
Smith and William Bradford have to represent themselves. As you can see,
it's a demanding unit. And very quickly, talking about William Bradford's
life, he was born in England in the Yorkshire. He very quickly felt the
urge to join a separatist church at the age of 12. And these separatists
that are what you were saying before, one kind of protestants, strict
Calvinist protestants from the town of Scrooby, were called the Scrooby
congregation. And that Scrooby congregation worked as if they were a
people. They decided everything and one of the things that they decided was
to leave England. To avoid persecution because persecution in the 17th
century was still something that was very relevant and a sure threat for
people that weren't embracing Anglican religion. Their ideas go in the...
In the line of what it says there, the second book of Corinthian that
reads, Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate. So it says,
separate yourself from the rest of the people that are not willing to abide
to the faith of God. If they don't follow the same standards that you do,
you have nothing to do with that people. So it's a separate, what I was
saying, it's a very radical religion. It's extremely fundamentalist in its
origin. Says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. Everything that is
not Puritan is unclean, unworthy of heaven. And I will receive you. This is
the King James Bible, the second book of Corinthians. The Scooby
congregation left for Holland in 1608, which is around the time that
Captain John Smith was drawing a fabulously accurate map with very few
tools of New England and placing names. And that is the same map that he
would present to the King, to the young Prince on his return. And over the
map of New England, the Prince would name the river that flows through
Boston with his names. And that would turn into the River Charles because
of the Prince of the moment. So we can see how relevant Captain John Smith
was. These people read the stories, see the maps of Captain John Smith.
They have access to Captain John Smith idea. Uh, a description of New
England, his account. And they feel that even they, they, even though they
had fled to Holland because they were fearful of their lives. they see that
Holland is not a place where they can stay forever. Because they also have
conflicts with the people from the place. They want a fresh start, a new
beginning. They're awaiting a sign from their God. And probably that sign
from their God is reading about New England and seeing how it seems to be
heaven on earth. And that heaven on earth, who could be more worthy of
heaven on earth than the Puritans? So they decide to travel to New England.
And they go on their pilgrimage mission. Pilgrimage means peregrinaje and
pilgrimage means peregrino. So you can connect the idea of what they
consider themselves. They're on a sacred mission. They're on a mission
appointed by God. So that gives you the importance that they give to
themselves. They come to become known and even contemporary tradition calls
them the pilgrim fathers. Normally they're not referred to in history books
as Puritans. They're referred to as the pilgrim fathers. Because they are
considered the fathers of American tradition. So even though they have
nothing to do with America as a country, there is nothing that connects the
Puritans as such to the nation of America. America that is still 150 years
away in time. All of this fabrication that I was saying about the Puritans
finding their chosen land, being the chosen people, being on a sacred
mission, going on a ship. Thank you. All of this toil is taken by tradition
and turned into the seed that represents what makes these people different
to the people that are in England. Because it's always an idea of
contrasting and what makes America a different and a better country. So
this sense of superiority is born very soon in the sentiment of the people
that inhabit the territory that will become America in the future, or the
United States in the future. So as you can see, this idea of pilgrimages,
pilgrim fathers connected to Puritans, how do they go to America? Well,
almost unsuccessfully. They acquire a ship called the Speedwell that is
neither speedy nor fares well at the sea, and it sinks before arriving to
England, and they barely make it to get it to a repair shop. The repairs of
the Speedwell are going to take too long, and it's going to be too
complicated, so they embark on a merchant ship that is not prepared to
hold, a congregation of religious people, but they pay handsomely, and they
buy their passage on a ship called the Mayflower. The Mayflower leaves
Plymouth in September 1620, reaches Cape Cod 66 days later, is unable to
land on Cape Cod due to the weather, and ends up disembarking in a place
that is later called Plymouth, Plymouth Rock. Which, right now, nobody
knows exactly where it is. It's around an area. The Mayflower Compact is a
contract that they write aboard the Mayflower with the rest of the passage,
and it's a civil agreement that allows them to coexist in a peaceful way to
provide social and economic freedom. So, we can see that these people,
they're not only religious zealots. They're intelligent people that know
how to come to agreements, how to talk to other groups of people even
though they're not on the same page in terms of religion, and come to an
agreement that is favorable for both parts. It's considered the first
contract written. And for American purposes, so it's also a trailblazing
moment. William Bradford is appointed the second governor of the Plymouth
colony. and he is re-elected into his office 30 times, 30 consecutive
years. His relevance goes beyond his historical importance, and his role of
chronicling American Puritanism is considered central to the creation of an
American literature because it is the first piece of writing on American
territory that is truly important because of its historical importance but
also because of its literary quality. Okay, so he's not a nobody. He's a
person of extreme importance. Literary works. He is one of the co-authors
of the Compact. Very humbling. The Puritans can be called many things, but
they cannot be called humble. They refer to themselves in the Mayflower
Compact as the saints, and they call them... the other party, the others.
And that's how the Mayflower Compact is written. It's written between the
pilgrims, the saints, and the rest of the passengers, the strangers, or the
others. It's created to establish a government, and it creates a
majoritarian model taking into account that women and children could not
vote, and all of the settlers pledged their allegiance to the king. So it's
an interesting document, and you have... a picture of the Mayflower Compact
on the right of the screen. And... Plymouth Plantation is a two-volume
work. The first volume are 12 chapters that describe the events from the
moment that the Scrooby congregation moves to Leyden and the voyage and the
beginning of the colony. It was written mostly in the year 1630 and
published at that moment. It is afterwards completed between 1646 and 1650,
even though the second part is unpublished until the 19th century. The
second part of the second volume are annals that go from 1620 to 1646 and
reflects on how the author is gradually disappointed with the loss of
unity, and this is going to be a constant in Puritanism. They never feel
that they're up to what they wanted to do. The type of life... The type of
life that they wanted to lead. The type of religious zeal or religious...
The covenant that they wanted to maintain. Besides these two works, he also
wrote a journal, some poems, which seems to be one of the hidden enjoyments
of Puritans. We'll talk about that next week with the first poet in
America. The first published poet in America and the first female writer
and also an example of how Puritanism writes rules and has to rewrite them
because they don't make sense according to what they do in life, according
to what the expectations are, and some dialogues, very similar to Platonic
dialogues. He is... The story of William Bradford is incredible because
he's self-educated, but that doesn't mean that his education was limited.
He taught... He learned Greek, Dutch, and he taught himself Hebrew because
he wanted to read the scriptures in their real form. just for that purpose.
So you can understand the magnitude of the genius of William Bradford as a
person that not only had to go through very difficult times first in
Holland and then in America, but also was able to educate himself in order
to perfect his service to the community because it was all about giving
back to the community. The words that he is quoted for, for the reasons for
learning Hebrew, was he wanted to see in his own eyes the ancient oracles
in their native beauty. Okay, so that was the idea. Who appointed Bradford
as governor? Puritans, of course Puritans. There's a question in the chat.
In the chat, it's an elected post. And were Puritans the only people that
lived in Plymouth Plantation? No, but they were a majority. And what we're
going to see is that religion very quickly, it connects to the concept of
power in America. Where does power come from in America? It comes from two
sources. It comes from religion, and it comes from education. Every single
university that is founded in America in the first two or three centuries,
is connected to religious school of thoughts. And were basically
universities that were connected to studies of theology. That was the only
thing that was studied there, theology. It was a factory of the pastors and
the preachers of the congregations of the area. So the idea of power is
very tightly connected in these initial centuries to the idea of religion
and to the idea of education. There's going to be an upper class that is
going to be very well educated and is going to be very religious. I think
if we look at the east coast of the United States, not many things have
changed in certain areas of the territory. So. It's something that has been
a stable factor for a very long period of time. Religion has a very
significant role and so does the importance of influencing through
education. Creating the governors, the presidents, the majors of the
tomorrow. Through these religious connections. I wanted to read, I also
said that last week. That I use an additional book. This is in the extended
bibliography. You don't have to buy this book of course. But I like it
because it normally connects ideas between the authors. Something that our
textbook doesn't do for the purpose of practicality. Every author is
segmented and therefore sometimes you don't have. So. a wider view of the
bigger picture. And that's why I think I like to bring this book to class
and read certain paragraphs because I think it does a very good work of
connecting authors and connecting ideas. In the second chapter of this
book, it goes on to talk about Puritanism. At the end of the first chapter,
it already talks about Puritanism very much connecting Puritanism from the
beginning of the arrival of Europeans to North America to the present
moment. But in the second chapter, it focuses on the legacy, on the roots.
And it starts with a quote from William Bradford and it says, I must begin
at the very root and rise. And that's the idea of what the pilgrims do.
They arrive to America to create a land. And they have the feeling of being
a people. And that is a very different idea. And I think that is why the
American imagination, the collective imagination, always saw in the
Puritans a perfect role model. Because from the very beginning, they did
not arrive to create wealth and go back to England. They had no intention
of going back to England. They were fine. They were finding their own space
in the world. And their own space in the world was in North America. And
they had no intention of ever going back. And what we're going to see as we
surpass the four initial writers and the 17th century is how easily all of
that legacy is diluted or lost partially in the next generations. The next
generations don't embrace religion as much. And we see how religion loses
its predominant role. But it's still considered to be a key figure of what
makes America a different and a distinct people. Talking about what I said
before, Bradford's diary record must constantly be amended and adjusted. It
eventually takes the shape of a Jeremiad. I said that word before,
Jeremiad. If you look that up in the glossary. It will say something
similar to what this book says. It says, a primary type of Puritan writing,
the writing that is more than a tale of woe or failure. It is an
interpretative account of hardships and troubles and an anguished call for
return to the lost purity of earlier times. It's always thinking that the
good things that happen... are a small reward from God for doing things
right and all the terrible things that happen and you can imagine going to
a new unexplored world many things can happen nature is against you all the
wildlife is against you Native Americans consider you that you're invading
their territory and they're going to be incredibly hostile the more you
press them to the west the more hostile they're going to become all of
those hardships are reinterpreted in the light of religion in the light of
looking for a divine explanation that's what a Jeremiab is and they always
blame that they've lost some type of purity and they have to go back to
their beginnings and recover their covenant with God covenant is acuerdo un
acuerdo divino they have to recover this covenant with God always a
movement of history details of the daily event demands scrupulous attention
because these things partake in an allegorical mystery there is a sense of
allegory of parable in everything they tell everything they tell is like if
you were reading a fable or a parable because there is there is a moral at
the end because it has a didactic purpose they want to explain something in
terms that could be understood in this light okay let's continue and we're
going to read from the book and Today we're going to have half an hour, I
think. Yeah, around half an hour, a bit less. 25 minutes to read from the
text. I would like you to take the opportunity when you download the
presentation. It's already online. So have a look at those links because I
think that many of those links, they go beyond the textbook and maybe
they're going to help you connect ideas and understand Puritans better. You
have access to the text of Plymouth Plantation in a link there. It's fully
available online. You can listen to it on LibriVox. And even though the
origin of Thanksgiving is normally traced to the pilgrims, the pilgrims had
nothing to do with the modern Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving was instated,
in fact, 200 years after this. So as you can see, what we're seeing today
are the origins, the basement of American history. American history is not
as consistent with its foundation as it should be. And here are the
explanations of why American history has normally relied on the pilgrims to
trace their origins. I'm going to read from the textbook. This is on
page... Let's see. 30, page 30. Before page 30... Well, if you have a look
at the... At page 28, you can have a look at the... You can have a look at
the... The area where they landed, where they made landfall, you can see
how Cape Cod is a complicated inlet. And what we're going to see is in this
text, we're going to read about how they arrived to America, a very
important part of the Plymouth Plantation, their work. And we're going to
see how William Bradford uses the term pilgrims to refer to themselves. He
also writes about himself in the third person, but never about himself
individually. So something that is very important for you to understand as
a contrast between Captain John Smith and William Bradford is that Smith is
self-boasting, whereas, as Bradford is selfless, he doesn't consider
himself to be part of the story. For him, the story is everything else. The
story are the pilgrims, their interaction with God. He is just part of the
people. So he's going to refer to himself also in the third person, but for
a completely different reason. He doesn't want to give an artificial sense
of accuracy. As Captain John Smith wanted to. He didn't speak in the first
person because he wanted his account to sound very reliable. So he spoke
about everybody in the third person, but he was always a hero in those
stories. but he talks about himself in a way that makes him just be part of
the story but never in the spotlight never the main character of the story
on page 29 Professor Thibet says in the last paragraph Bradford wrote the
first book of the history of Plymouth Plantation 10 chapters in 1630 and
put aside his manuscript until 1644 where he completed the 11th chapter he
finished the work between 1646 and 1650 although it was not published until
1857 however it had exerted an influence long before the mid 19th century
we've already talked last week about how important some ideas are even
though they don't have a name the idea that we referred to before when we
were talking about Captain John Smith the manifest destiny is not an idea
that was called manifest destiny in the days of Captain John Smith manifest
destiny is a 19th century word why did it take 200 and something years to
give it a name because it wasn't like an idea it was a global idea
Europeans had the right the God given right to go wherever they wanted to
explore and to conquer because there was implicit not an explicit sense of
superiority that didn't even need to be worded because they already
consider themselves to be superior to the rest of the peoples So when they
arrived to a place, they took whatever they found there. When they arrived
to a place that they wanted to colonize, they colonized it. If they
couldn't colonize it, they conquered it. If they found too much problems
with the locals, they exterminated. They committed genocides in those
territories. What we're going to see is a three-century, almost
three-century genocide that sweeps east to west and pushes millions of
Native Americans or hundreds of thousands of Native Americans away from
their territories. The more you push people away from their territories,
the more you create conflicts between those displaced Native Americans and
the tribes that were already occupying the place where they are displaced.
So all of those tensions that broke out between the rival tribes also had
an impact on the settlers. So it was all a terrible mess. We're going to
see centuries of a constant push and pull and moving, all of these Native
inhabitants more and more towards the west as first the colonies and
afterwards the nation gets bigger and bigger because there is no space. for
the Native Americans. They're not considered people. They're not considered
someone that you want to integrate with you, you want to intermarry, you
want to have children with. No, that's considered, it's considered a sin to
marry outside of the Puritans. Imagine what kind of sin is considered to
marry outside of the white people in this moment. We're going to talk about
this very much, but one of the dominant ideas of the 17th and the 18th
century, no matter how horrible it is, we have to talk about it, is
miscegenation. Miscegenation is the idea that interracial marriage was a
bad thing, was a sinful thing. So this idea was not only rejecting the idea
of miscegenation, it was... It was rejecting the idea of humanizing the
Native Americans in the territory. But let's read from William Bradford's
work. On page 30, it says, well, it starts from a book one, chapter nine,
of their voyage and how they passed the sea and of their safe arrival at
Cape Cod. I want you to see how... There is an intention to look for
purpose in everything that happens in these stories, okay? September the
6th. These troubles being blown over and now all being compact together in
one ship, now they're in the Mayflower, they put to sea again with a
prosperous wind which continued diverse days together which was some
encouragement unto them yet according to the usual manner many were
afflicted with seasickness and I may not admit here the special work of
God's providence. There was a proud and very profane man, one of the seamen
of a lusty able body which made him the more haughty. He would always be
condemning the poor people in their sickness and cursing them daily with
grievous execrations and did not let to tell them that he hoped to help to
cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end and to
make merry with what they had and if he wished, he were by any gently
reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly but it pleased God before
they came half-seas over to smite this young man with a grievous disease.
It pleased God. Starts a sentence. It pleased God. I would underline that
part over there. I'm going to stand up for a second and turn on the light.
Ah, thank you. It's getting dark in here. Um. Eh. Please God before they
came half-seas over to smite this young man with a grievous disease of
which he died in a desperate manner and so was himself the first that was
thrown overboard. Thus his curse is light on his head, on his own head. And
it was an astonishment to all his fellows for they noted it to be the just
hand of God upon him. This is not a loving God. This is a God that takes
revenge on people that are unworthy of being on the earth. After they had
enjoyed fair winds and weather for a season. See, he's talking about
himself in the third person. He said, they, the pilgrims. They were
encountered many times with cross winds and met with many fierce storms
with which the ship was shroudly shaken and her upper works were made
leaky. And one of the main beams in the midship was bowed and cracked,
which put them in some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the
voyage. But to admit other things that I may be brief after long beating,
that see, they fell with that land which is called Cape Cod. The which
being made and certainly known to be it, they were not a little joyful.
After some deliberation had amongst themselves with the master of the ship,
they tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward. The wind and
weather being fair. To find some place about the Hudson River for their
habitation. But after... After they had sailed that course about half the
day, They fell amongst dangerous shoals And roaring beat breakers And they
were so far entangled therewith As they conceived themselves in great
danger And the wind shrinking upon them withal They resolved to bear up
again for the cape And thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers
Before night overtook them As by God's providence they did Again, every
time something good happens to them at the end There is the hand of God If
something bad happens to them It's God's punishment for something they've
done wrong And the next day they got into the cape harbors Harbor where
they rid in safety Being thus arrived in a good harbor And brought safe to
land They fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven Who had
brought them over the vast and furious ocean And delivered them from all
the perils and miseries thereof Again to set their feet On the firm and
stable earth Their proper element and no marble If they were thus joyful
Seeing why Seneca was so afflicted With sailing a few miles on the coast of
his own Italy As he affirmed that he had rather remain Twenty years on his
way by land Than pass by sea to any place In a short time So tedious and
dreadful Was the same unto him This is really interesting because It is not
very common For Bradford to search for a non-religious reference And he
only looks for the reference Because it's It highlights how difficult the
passage of the Atlantic had been for the pilgrims in comparison to the very
small trip that a very wise man had had to endure and would never endure
something like that again. He was comparing something to a reference that
the readers would have as something that they understood. Normally, the
references are going to be biblical. The references are going to be
classic, but from the scriptures. So this is a rarity. However, in Captain
John Smith's work, there are references to classic works, but because that
gives the work prestige. It gives the work a sense of being more reliable,
of more literary value, if it has a reference to classics, to Greek
mythology, to Latin references, etc. So the intention why Captain John
Smith and why William Bradford refer to classical references is completely
opposite. That's something interesting that you should take into
consideration when you analyze both authors. But here I cannot but stay and
make a pause and stand. I'm half amazed at this poor people's present
condition. And so I think will the reader too, when he well considers the
same. Being thus past the vast ocean and a sea of troubles, before in their
preparation, as may be remembered by that which went before, they had now
no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their
weather-beaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek
for succor. This is a reference that connects us to St. Paul's account in
the Bible of how he was welcomed by barbarians and the contrast with how
they were unwelcome by the barbarians of the time. So he's looking for a
sharp contrast between a biblical reference and themselves and saying,
we're doing everything, and it's even harder than everything that's been
done before, and it's to state the degree of importance of their
achievements. And here it talks about the direct reference to St. Paul's
account in the Bible. It is recorded in Scripture as a mercy to the apostle
and his shipwreck company that the barbarians show them in refreshing them,
but these are not. These savage barbarians, when they met with them, as
after will appear, were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than
otherwise. And for the reason it was winter, and they that know the winters
of that country know them to be sharp and violent and subject to cruel and
fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an
unknown coast. Besides what could they see but a hideous and desolate
wilderness full of wild beasts and wild men. There is an idea of men being
wild in this place. And what multitudes there might be of them they knew
not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of the Pisgah to view
from the wilderness a more godly country to feed their hopes for which way
so ever they turned their eyes saved upwards to heaven they could have
little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. What is a
Pisgah? The Pisgah is the mount that Moses went up to view the promised
land. So that idea of we couldn't go up our Pisgah because we were held
tight in our ship suffering the terrible winter. So everything here has a
highly biblical tone. I don't know if you're able to recognize it when you
read it yourself. For summer being done all things stand upon them with a
weather-beaten face and the whole country full of woods and thickets
represented a wild and savage hue. Something that is not told here half of
the pilgrims died in that winter. just traveling across and having to stay
on a boat in winter, overpopulated, underfed, malnourished company with
women and children. Half of the pilgrims died in that trip. William
Bradford's wife died on that trip. There's no reference in this to William
Bradford's wife. Why? Because she was just another pilgrim and he was just
another pilgrim. He didn't have the right to turn into the main focus of
the story because he was writing for the people, not writing about himself.
And that gives you a very clear idea of what is the purpose and the intent
and the style and maybe also the selflessness that these people had in
terms of they consider themselves to be creatures or tools of God. Not
people that were worthy of being mourned more than the rest of the people
were. Okay? The second passage we are going to read is about an episode
which took place the following winter when the colony was fully, firmly
established. Their first winter had been extremely harsh and half of the
group died of exposure, malnutrition and illness. Out of 102 passengers,
only 51 survived. They made friendly contact with the Wampanoag Indians who
taught them how to plant corn. That is normally the representations that we
see of Thanksgiving. Well, this is the concept that it brings us back to
how the pilgrims interacted with the Indians to learn how to plant corn.
That spring, the settlers planted their crops and in autumn of 1621, they
celebrated the harvest with a feast later associated. With that of the
Thanksgiving holiday on the 4th Thursday in November. It was a traditional
English harvest celebration which lasted three days and was attended by
Indian guests. the regional leader Massasoit, and about 90 of his men who
provided five deer. In the 19th century, Alexander Young, in his Chronicles
of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1841, erroneously identified the 1621 harvest
celebration as the first Thanksgiving. These mistakes are going to be so
common in American literature, they're going to be so devastating for the
sake of history, that one mistake seems to remain in American ideals
forever, and it's impossible to take out. So because of this 19th century
mistake or misinformation, the concept of Thanksgiving is normally
connected to the pilgrims, when it has absolutely nothing to do with the
original celebration. The former was a secular feast with minstrels. It was
a feast of meals and times for recreation, and took place in November,
whereas the latter was a religious observance at church, and took place in
July. The first real Calvinist Thanksgiving in New England was celebrated
in Plymouth Colony in 1623, after a providential rain shower saved the
plantation's crop. Apart from the end of the drought, the 1623 Thanksgiving
also celebrated the news that a ship carrying new colonists feared sun, and
that the junk was safe. From Book 2, Chapter 12, Anno 1621 They began now
to gather in the small harvest they had and to fit up their houses and
dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength
and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in
affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing about cod and bass and
other fish of which they took good store, of which every family had their
portion. Okay, I have to leave it there because they're really strict with
the ending hour in this period of coronavirus. I think that we're only a
paragraph away from finishing the book. Read it. Afterwards, read the style
that they have. You can see it on page 34. That way you can see the type of
English that was really spoken and written in that time and it gives you a
sense of the style. It gives you a sense of also understanding the way that
English was written in the 17th century. I think that we've covered most of
the topics. I'm fairly satisfied with today's class. If you have any
questions, you know you can contact me through the forum. Thank you very
much for coming. Please come next week. It's terrible to do this alone.
Thank you everybody. That connected. I hope that the sound quality and the
video quality and the content quality was okay. Talk to you next week. Next
week, Ann Brasford, our first poet, okay? Yeah. See you next week.