Them pilgrims. The reason the word is cited is that William Bradford in his chronicle and also in his poetry referred to them as pilgrims. Not uppercase, big p, famous pilgrims, but as pilgrims, people who went on a journey for religious reasons, went on a journey for personal discovery. And so that use of the word pilgrim gives them a group identity, but we all need to remember they themselves did not have a group identity. They were a very heterogeneous group that had to learn to live together. When you think about how did people sound in colonial new england, aboard mayflower and the first few ships that would follow, there were upwards of 17 different dialect regions represented in plymouth and they lived in an age prior to recording. Very rarely, unless you were in a big city, did you hear anybody speak english in a way other than your own dialect or accent. Imagine what it is like to be aboard ship with people that you are trying to figure out, what is she saying to me . Because as moderns, we are accustomed to watching television to get our news, to have a newscasters accent. We are accustomed to hearing people speaking differently than ourselves. Wasnt always the case back in the 1600s. There are Vocabulary Words and there are grammar practices. People sometimes might have been looking at each other and thinking, what . The mayflower was originally supposed to leave england in july of 1620 with another vessel, speedwell. When they got out to sea, it proved that speedwell was very leaky. They had to turn around for england twice. And so were delayed leaving until early september. And they had no choice. There was no turning around. People it sold their homes, given up their businesses. Some of them were religious dissidents. It was not safe to stay in england. So even though it was late in the year, and they would be arriving at what they thought was going to be virginia late in the fall, they had to move forward. It took three years for them to find merchants to back the mayflower venture. There was no going back. William bradford, the governor of plymouth colony, wrote a chronicle over the course of 20 years, and he describes the voyage in its earliest weeks as being fair and pleasant. But the second half, they were troubled by constant tempests at sea. So the first part, peaceful. The second part, very dramatic. Master jones, what we would call the captain of mayflower, brought them to new england because he was trying to make speed. He tries to get down the coast, only to discover new englands waters are very dangerous. Mayflower is almost broken apart on the shoals. And he refuses to go southward. So now there is no legal document holding them together. And the most powerful men within the company of passengers, they create a covenant saying, we will stand together until we can get new authority to be here in new england where we have to stay. Ultimately, the mayflower compact becomes the constitution for the colony. And for 72 years, it is the founding document. It is read at all of the court sessions. It is a very important example of american experimentation of self government. The 400th anniversary of the mayflower compact is particularly important during an Election Year because what you see are a group of strangers. There is a misconception that there were two groups aboard the mayflower the saints, that had come out of holland for religious reasons, and the strangers, people they did not know who were brought to the party by the merchants, who had no interest in religion. And this is not the case. Think of 102 people who did not know each other well. Yes, those in holland had been worshiping together for 12 years. But some of the people who joined them joined for religious reasons. They wanted the opportunity in the americas to worship as they wanted and make a little money. These are all people trying to figure out, can we get along, and then when there is crisis . And some people in the group say, we are in new england, not virginia. I am going to go off and do what i want to do. These people who did not have a strong experience of government drafted a document that held them together. What, to me, is amazing is that at the beginning, you have a community that could have imploded, but only six months later, when the first governor dies, there is safe transition of power. John carver dies, probably of heat stroke after working in a cornfield. And immediately power is transferred. The men gather and they approach William Bradford to become the second governor. And to look at the skillfulness and to look at the practice of conversation and consensus, that was because they were trying to create a community. They wanted rules and they wanted the rule of law. And so they spent the time determining commonly what they would do together. When the pilgrims arrive in new england, they are anchored off what is now provincetown, massachusetts. And it takes them a month to find a place to settle. They do three voyages of discovery on what we now call the lower cape, a little bit of the midcape. And then on the third discovery, they come here to Plymouth Harbor. During the course of exploration, realize that they have found a place of good soil, of constant water. The native word for this place patuxet, means land of little falls, land of little streams. That was one of the concerns about staying on cape cod, they could not find good water down there that they thought would be with them yearround. They thought the summer might be brackish. So they moved mayflower from Provincetown Harbor here to Plymouth Harbor late in december. They landed. There is the traditional story that they landed on plymouth rock, and they began to build their houses on christmas day, 1620. And then essentially, mayflower becomes a place where the colonists live until there is sufficient housing ashore for everyone. The ship staying in new england drives up the cost of the venture. So that when it returns home in april, that charter think of mayflower as a bus that has been hired to bring these people over. The charter is getting more and more expensive the longer that the ship stays. She leaves april 5, 1621, and no one from plymouth returns aboard her. She arrives in england in the middle of may. Much to the distress of the merchants, she returns utterly empty, with nothing to compensate them for the investment they had made. I cant even imagine what the first winter was like. 102 passengers arrived in november and by the end of february, half of them are gone. We know from the writings of William Bradford and Edward Winslow that there were times in february when two and three a day were dying. Their houses were incomplete. Imagine simple little houses that are clapboarded on the outside, and for some insulation , there is two or three inches a clay standing within lathe, but people are watching that just wash away. Imagine the sickness, the death, and houses literally melting in the winter weather. They set their seed in february. Because february comes beautifully, like an english february. They didnt know that it would be followed by a brutal new england march. The native people come to them late in march. And this is the first time that they have seen each other. And they have motioned to each other. The first time that they can actually talk is march of 1621. They treat of peace, a peace that will be sustained, with periods of problems, for the next 55 years. Squanto, who will remain with the english and be their translator among all the weapon on people all the wampanoag people, and massasoit, who will teach them how to plant the indian corn. There are native People Living just on the other side of town brook, so the english can look over and see what the native women are doing in their cornfields and also learn that way. The first harvest comes in and is a good harvest. William bradford, the governor, sets aside days for a special manner of rejoicing. We would think of it now as the as a harvest feast, but i think those words, a special manner of rejoicing, mean that it is part of a harvest feast tradition, but as reformed christians would be practicing it. Their neighbors across the way come, and for three days, there are at least 90 native men with massasoit, probably women and children are coming from the other side of the brook as well. There are 52 living english men, women, and children. Who, at a minimum, there are two native people to every english person. For english men, there are four wampanoag men there. Just imagine the old traditional way we once thought about thanksgiving as a long table full of english people with a couple of native people at the end. Flip that imagination. It is far more native people. And half of the english people, children under the age of 16 years old, and some that are just infants. What we see in that first year in new england is an excellence of diplomacy. Think about how much the wampanoag had suffered in the years before the english came. There had been a plague that took away upwards of 70 of the population from what is now portland, maine to the border of massachusetts and rhode island. Some communities completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Massasoit, when he came to the english in 1621, he was making a choice for the preservation of his people to get the technology of the strangers, because as power politics were shifting in native new england, that made him and his people a little more stable in that shift. And for the english, it gave them access to native technology, knowledge, entrance into the beaver trade. So in march, when a peace treaty is agreed to, the first thanksgiving that will follow, for many that is confirmation of that treaty. Those facetoface encounters that just kept alive the relationship that they were able to sustain for 55 years. What you are seeing is the ship as it wouldve looked when she returned to england in april , 1621. Everything gone. I am able to stand up aboard the mayflower because when the ship was designed in the 1950s, it was understood that eventually it would be a museum site and people needed to be able to walk comfortably, but really the height would have been about a foot to a foot and a half less. Because ships are not made for people, they are made for cargo in the 17th century. This ship is described as a 180 ton vessel. That is not ton in our modern sense of 2000 pounds. A ton is a cask about this high and this ship could carry about 180 tons. This area would have all been cargo that was adapted. You need to imagine that the passengers are bent over much of the time to get wherever they are going, if indeed they can get up on deck. For us, it is brightly lit. The gun ports are open. The gratings above are open. And in 1620, it would have been pitch black, with the gun ports closed, the gratings covered. Canvas over the top to keep them dry. Imagine that you have all of of these little cabins running both sides. And then, in the middle, somehow there are pieces of a 33foot long boat. And there are so many people down here that they have to sleep in the parts of the boat. So there are mattresses in the different pieces. When they arrive at cape cod, it takes the ship carpenter days to put the shell up together again for their exploration, because it has been driven apart by people sleeping in it. Think of how congested it was, and the smells. Because the chamber pots are being emptied right down into the bilge. It is collecting below. So think how fetid the air was. We know that when they were at cape cod, one of the first things they did when they got to shore was they cut juniper, because juniper burns so sweetle was they cut juniper. Juniper burns so sweetly and was such a fine perfume. They could fumigate down here. When theyat at least were anchored in provincetown, they had braziers where they were able to keep themselves warm. Campus ande cramped wooden cabin bunks, people practically on top of each other trying to get along with people they did not know very well. Over time, they would prove to be very troublesome. We know that while John Billington senior was a sure, one of his boys was in this cramped cabin and he decides to play with his fathers gun. He sets off a musket. The gunpowder he was using spills. Right nearby, there are people around a brazier trying to keep themselves warm and there is spilled gunpowder. The ship could have blown because of that boy. Middle of the voyage, a young man went overboard. Think about the size of mayflower. In the period, if a man goes overboard, they just keep sailing. Because it would take almost an hour for a ship to make a complete turn to get back to somebody. People do not swim in the 17th century. It was considered questioning gods will to put yourself in a situation of that kind of risk. But for some reason, we do not overboard. Shes we are told by William Bradford that he was fathoms below the ship but he was able to catch onto a rope. They pulled him out and men hold up their trousers with belts. Even in the past, men had belts. They were able to put a boat hook into his suit and pull him out. And he lived. One of the things to think about, if that man had not lived, if his wife had not survived the first winter and she was the only member of her family to survive that first winter there are 2. 5 million americans today who would not be alive. Not 2. 5 Million People over time. There are 2. 5 million americans today descended from that one couple. Had either one of them died, American History would be radically different. John howland and Elizabeth Howland were the grandparents of joseph smith. There would have been no church of jesus christ of latterday saints. There are strands of the roosevelt family, the churchhill family, of the bush family that would not have affected American History. And to me, a film lover, one of the great sadnesses, there would have been no casablanca because Humphrey Bogart was a howland as well. So every life matters. When we brought the ship home from massachusetts from the Mystic Seaport museum, some of the crew were living history educators who had portrayed john howland. They talked about about what it was like to be aboard the ship under sail and to be in the railings, to be working the ropes, and suddenly have these insights. They saw themselves as the ship was moving, how the ropes were moving. The three young men talked among themselves and said, yes, they could see how the ship is in dramatic water, the rope spills over, and that is what it is doing in the water with john howland. The power of museums is that we are experimentals. We experiment in archaeology, meaning we try to recreate the work of the past. And in that recreation, we discover something about those people that came before us. So sailing the ship gives us insight into the original 1620 voyage. The restoration brings the ship closer to the original 1950s vision that William Baker had for the ship. It has been rebalanced so the ship rides differently than it has since 1957. It gets us closer to the physics of the ship. There is so much discovery yet to be done. The passengers brought a years supply with them, because they knew that they were going to have to depend on dried peas, dried beans, salted beef, salted pork to get them through until the first harvest could come in. So the deck below us was the hold. It was filled with supplies. And families brought their personal things. There is a tradition that families were allowed one chest and six feet of space. I have no idea where that tradition comes from, but it is so romantic and compelling. But people brought what they had because they were going to be removing their households from holland or from england to here. So there is furniture, there are linens. And what we know is one of the men who started out on the companion ship with mayflower, the speedwell, his name was Robert Cushman. Ultimately, when it was decided that only one ship could come to new england, that some people might have to stay behind, Robert Cushman was one of those that remained behind, not only for reasons of health, but also so that he could be helpful to those remaining behind. Robert cushman said, isnt it sad that we are all students and that there is no one to teach us . We know that the letters that go back early on, the colonists in new england are writing to friends or to those interested in coming to new england and saying, this is what you should do. Edward winslow wrote a letter in december of 1621, in which he advises, bring a kid goat that you can slaughter and have some fresh meat halfway across. If you can, bring lemons or other fruit because these seem to fight off the scurvy. They tried to teach those that would follow them in the record, but they bring everything they have, but they didnt have as much as we do today. There are probate inventories that exist. Plymouth started a practice of writing down everything that the deceased owned. So that estates could be divided equitably. This for us is a perfect catalog of the households in the 1620s. They didnt have a great deal. Rooms were not full of furniture as our rooms are full of furniture. Beds are actually mattresses that go down on the reeds at night and then go off on a barrel into the corner to get out of the way so families have spaces to move about. But they did everything with forethought. Three years of planning to find the merchants, to find the voyage to america. And then reading about what had happened in virginia, learning from the virginians as they planned this particular voyage to the best of their ability. So one years supply, all of their personal goods coming, and we even know that books came over on mayflower because libraries were also inventoried. Its entirely possible that a copy of machiavellis the prince came over on the mayflower. Its possible that myles standish, the captain, the man chiefly responsible for the defense of the colony, we know that he owned the earliest english translation of the iliad. We know that he owned an english translation of caesars commentaries on the gaelic wars. So not only furniture, linens, and food, but also this was a place of thought. These are people who read and brought their libraries with them. The deck that we are standing on would have been filled with things that were needed every day. Linens, canvas bedding stuffed out with straw. Curtains to give families a little bit of privacy in their small bunks. We are not sure how they fed themselves. That is still a matter of controversy, or up for grabs. We dont know whether the cooking is being done by the ships cook and then food distributed