More from David Bercot’s “In God We Don’t Trust”:
- Who we call Pilgrims were technically “Separatists” and did not know or use the term “Pilgrim”
- The were headed towards Virginia because of the success of Jamestown and accidentally ended up in Mass
- The Pilgrims/Separatists had already obtained freedom of religion/worship by escaping from England to the Netherlands, but came to the New World for better economic conditions.
- They didn’t come to America because they believed in freedom of religion as a universal ideal, they wanted to establish a settlement where they could worship freely. They passed a law prohibiting Quakers from living in their community and would fine/punish any of their own who attended a Quaker assembly.
- Church and state were united from day one at Plymouth Plantation
- They also had a double standard concerning the Natives and killed, tricked, ambushed many. John Robinson, still back in the Netherlands upon hearing of some violence said, “How happy a thing would it have been if you had converted some before you had killed any!”
- Myles Standish was a mercenary who once cut off a Chief’s head and posted it on a pole after first inviting him and others to a feast to “work out their differences.”
- During the slavery controversy of mid 1800s, Daniel Webster emphasized the Plymouth colony instead of the Jamestown (southern state) as the primary founders of America.
- Methodist Minister William Apess, who was half Indian, responded to Webster’s mythological patriotism concerning the Pilgrims:
- “If this were done today (to white men), it would be called an insult. And every white man would go out and act the part of a patriot to defend his country’s rights.”
- “but when a few red children attempt to defend their rights, they are condemned as savages by those who, if possible, have indulged in wrongs more cruel than the Indians.”
- In contrasting the spiritual weapons of Christians with what the Pilgrims relied on: “But let us again review their weapons to civilize the nations of this soil. What were they: rum and powder and ball, together with all the diseases such as smallpox.”
- “although the gospel is said to be glad tidings to all people, yet we poor Indians never have found those who brought it as messengers of mercy.”
