FROM THE THANKSGIVING ARCHIVES: COMPACT COMPACT:

'Thanksgevynge' for the faith of our fathers (Suzanne Fields, November 27, 2003, Townhall)

Most of us know the origin of the holiday, when the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock celebrated their first year's harvest with Indian friends, giving thanks for the abundance of the new land. But few of us know many of the details of our forefathers' lives or the different traditions that merged to make it a national holiday of spiritual joy and secular satisfaction.

Our focus is on food, family and friends and the thanks that accompany giving; few of us spend much time thinking about the historical antecedents of the holiday.

It might be interesting to ask those at the table if anyone knows the name of a single passenger on the Mayflower. Four presidents are linked to a single family tree. Both Roosevelts and Bush father and son are descended from John Howland, a Pilgrim who fell off the Mayflower in a storm and was saved by a sailor's rope. Five other presidents trace their ancestry to the Plymouth Colony Pilgrims: John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant and James Garfield.

Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, half were Pilgrims who later came to be known as the Saints and the other half were seekers of fortune in the New World, who came to be called Strangers. The Mayflower Compact, a blueprint for autonomous government, prevented mutiny on the high seas between the two groups and later became a reference point for the Founding Fathers as they wrote the Constitution.

It's quite remarkable how much of American history proceeds directly from such a simple text, Mayflower Compact: 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 the Honour 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 Officers, 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 eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

Mr. John Carver,
Mr. William Bradford,
Mr Edward Winslow,
Mr. William Brewster.
Isaac Allerton,
Myles Standish,
John Alden,
John Turner,
Francis Eaton,
James Chilton,
John Craxton,
John Billington,
Joses Fletcher,
John Goodman,
Mr. Samuel Fuller,
Mr. Christopher Martin,
Mr. William Mullins,
Mr. William White,
Mr. Richard Warren,
John Howland,
Mr. Steven Hopkins,
Digery Priest,
Thomas Williams,
Gilbert Winslow,
Edmund Margesson,
Peter Brown,
Richard Britteridge
George Soule,
Edward Tilly,
John Tilly,
Francis Cooke,
Thomas Rogers,
Thomas Tinker,
John Ridgdale
Edward Fuller,
Richard Clark,
Richard Gardiner,
Mr. John Allerton,
Thomas English,
Edward Doten,
Edward Liester.

(originally posted: 11/27/03)

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 27, 2008 12:55 AM