English Comes to America

It's Independence Day here in America, so today's show takes the opportunity to look at some of writing of early English colonists in New England and how their ideas contributed to the national ethos that would emerge in the coming centuries.

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Transcript

Welcome, litterbugs and bookworms, to another edition of the sterling work done here at the Classic English Literature Podcast!  I’m so glad you’ve tuned in, and I hope you’re all doing splendidly.

It’s Independence Day here in the Land of the Free where everything has a price, the Fourth of July, which celebrates either the greatest experiment of Enlightenment political theory and the birth of modern democracy or the most consequential tax avoidance scheme in the history of the world.  Take your pick.  Of course, two things can be true.  In any event, I thought this an appropriate moment to consider some of the earliest English writing in what would become the United States of America and this, elegantly enough, coincides with where we are in our historical survey of English literature – the early 17th century and the reign of King Jamie the First.  

What may line up less elegantly for some listeners is that, as I have already done on occasion here, I’ll be playing rather liberally with the definition of “English literature” in this episode.  Usually, when we think of the word “literature,” we tend to think of creative or imaginative writing: poetry, fiction, and drama.  And that will certainly come during the period of England’s colonization of the so-called New World.  But the earliest writing from English-speaking people in North America took the form of letters, journals, memoirs, histories, and sermons – part of a type of writing that ELA curriculum coordinators and university education departments call in their bloodless, bureaucratic language “informational texts.”  What right-thinking readers and normal people call nonfiction.  So that’s what we’ll be discussing today, writing that contributed significantly to the intellectual and cultural DNA of the country whose birth we commemorate on July 4.

But before we light such literary fireworks, I invite you to contact me through the fan mail link on this episode’s landing page if you have anything you’d like to share – it’s the button that says “send us a text message.”  TikTok, Instagram, and good old-fashioned email work, too.  If you enjoy the show and want to contribute to the work done on it, please click the support the show button to make a donation.  Ad revenue continues to be down, so anything you can give would help immensely.

And speaking of which, I’d like to thank listener Terri for their recent gift.  Thank you so very much for your kindness and generosity.  I am deeply grateful.

Last year about this time, I spoke of the Tudor roots of American Independence (that’s episode 38 if you’d like to treat yourself to a summer rerun).  In that program, I argued that the idea of self-determination latent in the Protestant Reformation, and especially its manifestation in England's political climate, led directly to the doctrine of political autonomy that undergirds the Declaration of Independence.  More or less, I’m going to pick up that thread again today, looking at a group of English folk who turned theory into practice, actually acting upon the abstract arguments of theologians and philosophers.

But I’m going to skip over what may be called the Virginia texts – those written about the very first excursions into North America.  I’ve mentioned some of them in passing already in connection with the courtier poet Sir Walter Ralegh and his association with the Jamestown colony and also William Strachey’s letter during the program on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Two significant texts to which I’ve not referred before are Thomas Harriot’s “Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia” from 1588, which describes the flora and fauna of the new land as well as some anthropological descriptions of the indigenous peoples, and, much more famously, “The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles” by Captain John Smith from 1624, which includes the quasi-historical narrative of Pocahontas, rendered only somewhat less semi-legendary by Disney film studios.  I skip over these texts because, while important for other reasons, they have less bearing on the intellectual currents that led to the establishment of the American nation than do those written in New England, Massachusetts especially.  Furthermore, I am a New Englander and so fully recognize my region’s superior awesomeness in all things.

Those intellectual currents had to do with two major themes, as I see it.  One, they had to resolve the paradox inherent in a society grounded in individual conscience.  That Protestant idea, that the individual person is answerable for their salvation by direct access to God without any intermediary such as an institutional church – what we might call theological or soteriological self-determination – leads naturally to notions of political self-determination: if I don’t need a Pope to get to heaven, why do I need a king here on earth?  Queen Elizabeth’s Protestant Settlement at least nominally restricted the head of government from any provenance over the citizen’s private conscience.  

But, of course, radical autonomy is no basis for a functioning society – mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.  So how to reconcile these two political postulates?  That’s current number one.

Current number two is a providential view of history.  That is, the earliest English writers in America believed themselves to be part of a divine plan to establish the kingdom of God here on earth.  A clear development of the utopian ideas we saw early in the Tudor dynasty with Sir Thomas More.  In this iteration, however, English settlers framed their experiences as analogous to the Israelites of the Hebrew Scriptures, as a chosen people in exile establishing a new covenant with God.  That there was something unique about their project – almost a project to reestablish an Eden in the new world that had been corrupted in the old.  They saw themselves as, in some way, building toward the culmination of history, the great telos of creation itself.

I haven’t yet worked out in my own mind whether these two currents are merely coterminous, coincidental, or if they are related causally (and, if so, which caused which?).  But perhaps that doesn’t matter for our purposes here.  So let’s just take them in the order I’ve presented them here.

Well, wait.  Let me pause for a minute.  I reckon a little primer on why these New English English writers were writing in New England anyway might be in order.  Right, for those unfamiliar with the history, here’s a super summary.

So, the Tudor years were a series of whiplashes between religious affiliations: Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church over questions of royal prerogative and extracurricular nookie.  When his largeness fell off the twig, Edward 6 radically embraced Protestantism.  When he too joined the choir invisible, sister Mary wrenched England back to Holy Mother Church, and when she bowed out, Elizabeth returned the kingdom to Protestantism, though of a less radical sort than her half-brother’s.  When James Stuart of Scotland became king of England, his view of divine right incorporated theological conformity, and so extremist Protestants – the Godly, as they called themselves, but we know them as Puritans – felt themselves a persecuted minority and some, who felt that no compromise with the Church of England was possible, or even desirable, or, indeed, even permissible, sought haven in the American colonies for the free exercise of their beliefs.  For more about the religious disputes under James, check out episode 66 The Bible in English.

Now, back to our story.  In 1620, a group of these zealous separatists, followers of Robert Browne (a reformer who taught that a true church was a voluntary association of like-minded believers, not citizens or congregants compelled by some authority) abandoned Europe for Virginia to establish their own community.  They had left England some twelve years earlier for the more tolerant Netherlands, but began to feel ill at ease there because the Dutch tolerated much more than these Brownists were comfortable with, fearing their children would be “drawn away by evil examples into extravagance and dangerous courses.”  So they shipped off for the western horizon aboard a leaky little tub called the Mayflower.  They had a smashing cruise.  

Here’s something special for my special listeners.  Through exhaustive research, archival plundering, and not a little bribery, I have discovered the original brochure from the cruise line that operated the Mayflower.  Would you like to hear it?

Experience Unmatched Luxury and Adventure!

Indulge in a voyage of opulence with our exquisite cruise. Enjoy luxurious suites with breathtaking ocean views, gourmet dining featuring world-class chefs, and spectacular entertainment from Broadway-style shows to themed parties. Dive into thrilling activities like snorkeling and zip-lining, or unwind with spa treatments and personalized service. Don’t miss out—book your unforgettable journey today and embark on the ultimate cruise experience!

That is, of course, a fabrication of revolutionarily industrial proportions.  Really, the trip was horrible (though, tbh, the idea of a modern cruise sounds revolting to me, too).  66 days of storms, vomit, and cold.  The winds blew the tiny ship hundreds of miles off course, so rather than landing in northern Virginia, as they had intended, they washed up near Cape Cod.  Trying to tack south nearly wrecked the ship, and so Massachusetts it was.

The ill winds which blew the migrants to the chill, rocky shores of New England necessitated what can legitimately be seen as the embryonic text of the American project: the Mayflower Compact.  Since their charter from the king only allowed for the establishment of a settlement in the Virginia territory, some binding legislative framework was required as a stopgap government for the unexpected colony until a new charter could arrive from Westminster.  102 passengers arrived in what became Provincetown Harbor, of which about a third were religious refugees, whom we now call the Pilgrims.  The remainder were military and commercial adventurers whom the godly referred to, charitably, as Strangers.  William Bradford, one of the Pilgrim leaders, feared that this group,“when they came ashore they would use their own liberty for none had power to command them.” To bind this community together, 41 of these settlers (males only, obviously) agreed to a majoritarian form of rule while still pledging allegiance to the Crown.  Written primarily by Bradford, who called it “a combination made by them before they came ashore; being the first foundation of their government in this place,”the text is brief enough to be quoted here in full:

Agreement between the Settlers at New Plymouth, 1620 

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, &c. Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement 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 politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof do 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 11. 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, Anno Domini 1620. 

As literature goes, hardly rhetoric to stir the soul.  Rather workmanlike legal language and, if we’re being honest, rather vague in its provisions: the “better ordering and preservation . . . for the general good of the colony” does leave a lot assumed: how to define the “general good” exactly?  and for whom in particular?  Given the relative homogeneity, religious convictions aside, of the community, one may credit that most shared overlapping assumptions in answer to such questions: Bradford rests the case on “God’s ordinance for [our] good.”  But what is remarkable about this text is the phrase “in the presence of God and one another, covenant, and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick.”  Note that the association here is voluntary – they combine themselves – which implies that any leaders chosen would govern at the will of led.  Remember that, at this point in European history, power was distributed according to strict rules of class, caste, and heredity.  The colonists of New Plymouth possessed no such distinctions, and so the development of a civil body politic among the low and middling sorts marks a minor revolution in political thinking.  By 1621, the new official patent had arrived, which superseded the jury-rigged compact, but nonetheless we can see this ad hoc agreement as one of the touchstones in the emergence of modern self-government.

So we see immediately that the Mayflower Compact intended to balance the competing claims of individual autonomy and social cohesion while stitching together a government from whole cloth.  Nearly ten years after the settling of the Plymouth colony, another group of Puritan migrants established a settlement at what is now Boston, Massachusetts.  Either immediately before his group’s departure or while crossing the fitful Atlantic in the spring of 1630, John Winthrop, a lawyer who had been voted governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, delivered a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity,” a vision-statement for the ideal earthly society.  In enumerating the reasons for the settlement’s undertaking, Winthrop develops the doctrine of human equality inherent in Bradford’s compact.  He says, “that every man might have need of other, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection. From hence it appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy, etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man.”  

Winthrop neatly threads the needle here.  He begins by noting a community’s interdependency, that community is indeed impossible without it.  From this predicate, he determines that no man (and I think the gendering of the noun important here) is more important or worthy than any other because of anything that man has done for himself.  Winthrop, like a good Puritan, rather dismisses the notion of meritocracy here – no one has earned his place in the world.  Everything flows from the just determination of God.  We’ve mentioned this older conception of justice before, that it flows from a harmonious and hierarchical ordering of the cosmos, not from our modern ideas about equality or equity.  

Yet this classical view of justice still demands mercy.  Concerning the establishment of an heavenly city on earth, Winthrop asserts that “the work we have in hand. . . is by a mutual consent, through a special overvaluing providence and a more than ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical. In such cases as this, the care of the public must oversway all private respects, by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us. For it is a true rule that particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.”  He later exhorts his followers to “be knit together in this work as one man.”  So there is some idea of a demos here, a people equal in dignity if not in station.  Obviously, this is a bedrock ideal of the American aspiration –e pluribus unum.  Out of many one.  I suppose I need not say, however, that it remains for many people merely aspirational, yet to be realized.  But it’s there at the very beginning, in some protean form anyway.

Now, I’m not Whiggish enough in my view of history to swallow this pill without a good deal of water.  I’m sure you all know that the same Puritans who demanded tolerance were notoriously intolerant themselves.  Anyone not part of the in-group was a Stranger, remember?  Catholics, Quakers, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists were often subject to rather harsh treatment in the godly settlements.  Even Anglicans got the hairy eyeball.  One fella who simply could not take the hypocritically repressive Puritan regime was Roger Williams, a dissenter cast out from Massachusetts Bay and founder of the Providence Plantation, what is now the state of Rhode Island, from whence yours truly hails.  I am happy to say that the place of my birth was the first, perhaps in all of history, to guarantee freedom of conscience, a right enshrined in the colony’s 1663 royal charter which later, of course, became integral to the Bill of Rights.  Interestingly, one of the reasons for Williams’ expulsion, apart from theological nonconformity (which, incidentally, rested on an idea of radical autonomy of faith – there should be no institutional church of any kind – one should be a lifelong seeker.  He famously said that “God is too large to be housed under one roof.”), was what should appear to us both rather obvious and rather modern: Williams denied that Massachusetts Bay Colony had any right to take and settle the land it occupied.  Even the king could not grant land that rightly belonged to someone else: namely, the Wampanoag and other indigenous peoples.  Well, how did he get Rhode Island?  He purchased the land, in an honorable deal, from the Wampanoag’s sachem (chief) Massasoit, making Rhode Island, I believe, the only state in the union to occupy land not taken by conquest or exploitative dealing.  So, good for us there, too!

Williams’ trial and persecution by Puritan authorities no doubt cemented his belief in the need for an absolute separation between church and state.  He argued that when people

have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wildernes of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall it selfe, removed the Candlestick, &c. and made his Garden a Wildernesse, as at this day.

Before we get too excited over Raging Roger’s progressivism, let’s think carefully about what he’s saying here.  Note the metaphors: the church is a garden, that is, something nourishing and beautiful that requires tending and care.  Like the garden of Eden, yeah.  The world (by which he means the social or civil world, not necessarily the natural one, though 17th century Christians had quite different ideas about that than our own, too) – the world is a wilderness: untamed, untended, chaotic, and savage.  What we’ve got here is not an argument that religion encroaches upon one’s political rights, but that politics will always pollute religious faith.  But again, what he’s talking about is personal religious faith, not institutional orthodoxy.  In a polemic called “The HIreling Ministry, None of Christ,” he maintains that 

The civil state is bound before God to take off that bond and yoke of soul oppression, and to proclaim free and impartial liberty to all the people of the three nations to choose and maintain what worship and ministry their souls and consciences are persuaded of; which act, as it will prove an act of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so is it of a binding force to engage the whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common freedom and peace; however, an act most suiting with the piety and Christianity of the Holy Testament of Christ Jesus.

While modern readers may find Williams’ religious fervor off-putting – and it certainly can be – the influence of his ideas, both in tension and in harmony with his Puritan colleagues, point to a conception of the American project as the best means of compromise between the sovereignty of the individual and the maintenance of the state.

Yes, yes.  Thank you for your call.  Bye bye.

Pardon me.  I just received a call from listener Franklin B. Stickler who points out that my discussion of Roger Williams has strayed the episode rather too far from the Jacobean period proper.  He is concerned that, since much of Williams writing and political activity took place during the Caroline period and the Interregnum, I have advanced overmuch in the chronological survey of 17th century English writing.  I appreciate your constructive criticism, sir, and assure you that I’ll be drawing back to our proper place in the timeline with all speed.

But it is convenient, for the purposes of episode flow and continuity, that Roger Williams named his settlement Providence, for that allows me to neatly segue into the other main topic of this show – that providential view of history held by many of the writers of the New England colonial settlements.

A providential view of history interprets historical events as being guided or directed by a divine or supernatural force for a specific purpose, attributing significant events, developments, or even individual actions to a higher, divine plan or will. For our purposes, divine intervention is a key aspect.  The New England colonists held a teleological perspective, firmly believing in a God who actively intervenes in human affairs to achieve a purposed end.  Thus, they interpreted all events as having deeper spiritual or moral meanings beyond their immediate historical context.  This, it then follows, indicates an underlying belief in progress or advancement towards a better future guided by divine providence, God’s plan for humanity.  Obviously, such a view is quite foreign to many people today, who tend to hold secular or purely materialistic views of history that emphasize human agency, socio-economic factors, and cultural developments as primary drivers of historical change.

For instance, in the very first chapter of his book Of Plimouth Plantation, William Bradford adopts an almost apocalyptic view of history, arguing that this world is a battleground between the forces of good and evil, as personified by God and Satan.  Now I need to be clear: Bradford is not using analogy or dabbling in metaphor.  He literally believes, as did his followers, that supernatural entities exist and were locked in a struggle over humankind.  He writes of the

 wars and oppositions. . .Satan hath raised, maintained and continued against the Saints,  from time to time, in one sort or other. Sometimes by bloody death and cruel torments; other whiles imprisonments, banishments and other hard usages; as being loath his kingdom should go down, the truth prevail and the churches of God revert to their ancient purity and recover their primitive order, liberty and beauty.

Bradford sees the Roman persecutions of Christians, the corruption of the Catholic Church and its Inquisitions, and the various heterodox (to him) beliefs as the active work of Satan in the world.  By extension, he praises his Separatists, or Saints as he dubs them, as the agents of God charged with recovering the pure, primitive Church.  Listeners might be reminded of Ben Jonson’s satire of such beliefs in his character Tribulation Wholesome from The Alchemist.

Accordingly, Bradford interprets all of the tribulations of their exile in Holland and of the Atlantic crossing as akin to Saint Paul’s hardships during his missionary journey to the island of Melita, and elsewhere (see Acts of the Apostles, chapters 27 and 28 for that thrilling tale).  Thus:

Being thus passed 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 weatherbeaten bodies; no houses or much less town to repair to, to seek for succour. It is recorded in Scripture as a mercy to the Apostle and his shipwrecked company, that the barbarians showed them no small kindness in refreshing them, but 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 season 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, fall of wild beasts and wild men—and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. 

Indeed, the Saints had it worse than the Saint, since Paul eventually received succour from the people he met, while Bradford and his lot faced slaughter by the native peoples.  The Pilgrims could see no salvation in the new land and could only turn their eyes “upwards to the heavens.”  

And this works out for them, says Bradford, for eventually they discover 

a pond of clear, fresh water, and shortly after a good quantity of clear ground where the Indians had formerly set corn, and some of their graves. And proceeding further they saw new stubble where corn had been set the same year; also they found where lately a house had been, where some planks and a great kettle was remaining, and heaps of sand newly paddled with their hands. Which, they digging up, found in them divers fair Indian baskets filled with corn, and some in ears, fair and good, of divers colors, which seemed to them a very goodly sight (having never seen any such before). . . And here is to be noted a special providence of God, and a great mercy to this poor people, that here they got seed to plant them corn the next year, or else they might have starved, for they had none nor any likelihood to get any till the season had been past, as the sequel did manifest. Neither is it likely they had had this, if the first voyage had not been made, for the ground was now all covered with snow and hard frozen; but the Lord is never wanting unto His in their greatest needs; let His holy name have all the praise. . . .

So the Pilgrims stumble across the remains of an abandoned native settlement and scavenge what they can from the wreckage for their own use.  This village had been called Patuxet and its ruin had been accomplished by a plague of smallpox among the Wampanoag brought by European fishermen a few years before, a period from 1616-19 that the victims called The Great Dying.  So, you know, the collapse of a thriving indigenous culture is all part of the great plan for some grumpy Puritans.  Now, to be fair, the Pilgrims did intend to pay the natives for these goods and actually did so some six months later.   But still, a few shillings versus a lot of dead folk . . . .

Bradford also records the armed resistance of the native peoples successfully put down by the Pilgrims’ European weapons.  He writes, “Thus it pleased God to vanquish their enemies and give them deliverance; and by his special providence so to dispose that not any one of them were either hurt or hit, though their arrows came close by them and on every side.”  Sidebar – with apologies to Mr. Stickler – in his most famous work, “The Bloody Tenant of Persecution,” Roger Williams pointed out “that cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it.”  But that’s from 1644 so we’ll let that pass.

To appease Mr. Stickler, let’s return to Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity,” that sermon cum manifesto of the Puritan vision for Massachusetts from 1630.  The entire text is framed by his profound belief in providential history.  The sermon opens:

GOD ALMIGHTY in his most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission.

Right, so an explicit invocation of providence as well as a reinforcing assumption of justice as the harmony between the higher and lower elements of a society with the attendant virtues appropriate to each class.  The body of sermon explores how these are to be applied practically in the establishment of a new civilization, as we talked about earlier.  At the end, Winthrop gives us his most famous line, one that has been invoked repeatedly throughout American history.  Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama have all quoted it in their vision of American exceptionalism: its definitions and responsibilities.  Winthrop claims that God

shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it likely that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. 

That metaphor, the city upon a hill, comes from the Gospel of Matthew, 5:14.  Here’s the Geneva Bible translation: “A city that is set on an hill, cannot be hid.”  It has come to symbolize a community that serves as a shining moral or ethical example to others, describing a place or group that aspires to high ideals, sets a positive example, and encourages others to do likewise.  While Winthrop obviously sees the Massachusetts Bay colony’s example as specifically Christian, and a rather strict version of it at that, the idea has come down throughout American history.  The presidents I just mentioned referenced this idea to articulate America's perceived exceptionalism, America's unique role and responsibility in promoting democracy, freedom, and human rights across the globe.  The United States has a unique mission and character among nations of that globe: it’s not just another country, but a nation with a special destiny to serve as a beacon of moral leadership.

Do with that as you will.  I admit I find it both aspirational and arrogant.  I hope that my country ever renews its commitment to become a more perfect union, but recognize that it has also at times stumbled on its way, occasioned by a sense of entitlement and mission that has sometimes led to damaging interventions and unilateral actions on the world stage and a divisive xenophobia at home.  Indeed, one may say the nation, inspired by its highest ideals, that was so instrumental in defeating totalitarianism in the last century may now, alarmingly, warp those same ideals as it is enticed by its own totalitarian id.

But that, too, is part of the legacy of these first English writers in what became the United States.  They were men of passionate conviction and deep contemplation and their works bequeathed to the world ideals of freedom of conscience and social cooperation while at the same time often failing to embody those ideals themselves.

Thanks for listening.  Please, please take a moment to rate the podcast on your listening platform – that raises the show’s profile and alerts more folks to our little conversations.  Tell your friends and family about the show, too – word of mouth is a great way to attract more listeners.  Send a few bucks, if you can.  I appreciate all your support.  Have a great Fourth – I can smell the burgers on the grill, so I’m off!  Talk to you soon!