A Pilgrim

The Pilgrims, who we honor today, were in effect the first Colonists. No Colonies, no States. No States, no United States of America. It helps me grasp the 'feel' of the period in which the Pilgrims arrived to remember that at the time of the Mayflower's arrival Shakespeare had been dead only four years. He lived, as everyone knows, in a time of extreme religious persecution. It is entirely possible, so says the recently published book on Shakespeare, Will In The World, that the first time Shakespeare walked into London he could very well have seen the murdered bodies, beheaded, strung up on the bridge crossing the Thames. Bodies of Catholics.

Whenever one gets misty eyed about Pilgrims some fiend, anti-sentimental, will blather on and on about the Pilgrim's persecution of the Indians, and the Indian's retaliation in raiding colonist's villages and taking children to Canada, children who later, as adults, refused to go 'Home.' 

Instead of sliding down that slippery path I want, at Thanksgiving 2005, to acknowledge a Pilgrim Minister who left for us his library, and half his property to found a college, a college that became a bastion of free speech, and that rarity even today, complete academic freedom. I've seen a bronze (?) statue of that minister, about life size, mounted on a stone pedestal in front of the college administration building. He looks young, thin, and expensively dressed. He died when he was only 31. The Pilgrims lived in perilous times. Pregnancy, for example, exacted a 50% death rate.

Our hearts should go out to the Pilgrims at least once a year: the rest of the year we can, if  we absolutely MUST, dwell on their bad politics, their supposed racism and religious extremism. We owe them plenty: in fact, almost everything.

Barry

Main Entry: Har·vard
Pronunciation: 'här-v&rd
Function: biographical name
John 1607-1638 American clergyman & benefactor; left his library and half his estate to college at "New Towne" (later Cambridge, Mass.); college named in his honor in 1639

Main Entry: pil·grim
Pronunciation: 'pil-gr&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French peligrin, fromLate Latin pelegrinus, alteration of Latin peregrinus foreigner, from peregrinus, adjective, foreign, from peregri abroad, from per through + agr-, ager land -- more at FOR, ACRE
1 : one who journeys in foreign lands : WAYFARER
2 : one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee
3 capitalized : one of the English colonists settling at Plymouth in 1620