The Mayflower Compact

Signing the Mayflower Compact
Bradford St.
Provincetown, Mass.

After a torturous three month crossing of the Atlantic Ocean a small group of Pilgrims (separatists from the Puritan Church of England) found themselves in a new land. Having taken a more northerly course than originally planned the crew and the passengers of the Mayflower began to survey the harbor and the surrounding land of what is now Provincetown, Mass.

They found the area unsuitable to their needs and went on to establish their settlement in what is now Plymouth, Mass., but while still in the harbor the Pilgrims wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact. This compact or agreement was meant to establish a new form of governance for their new colony under the auspices ands authority of their sovereign King James I. It was signed by 41 of the colonists. The text is as follows:

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, 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, etc.

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 of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to 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 hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], 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 Dom. 1620.

This bas-relief of the signing can be found on Bradford St. in Provincetown at the base of the Pilgrim Monument.

Guess Who's Coming to (Thanksgiving) Dinner?

The First Thanksgiving

Interested in spicing up the conversation at your Thanksgiving Dinner? Plimoth Plantation is sending Edward Winslow and Hobbamock to spend Thanksgiving with an anonymous winner of its auction on Ebay. The auction winner, a Cape Cod resident, will be hosting employees of Plimoth Plantation portraying Edward

Winslow, the former Governor of the Plymoth Colony and Hobbamock, a representative of the Wampanoag Indian tribe, for Thanksgiving. The winning bid was for $5,000. The Daily News Tribune of Waltham has their version of the story by Edward S. Colby here.

I thought this was a good idea from the people at Plimoth Plantation. This is kind of a variation of the old question: if you could meet an historic figure from the past, would would it be? A very difficult question to answer, but I'm going to answer a variation of the question. What if I could just choose my dinner companions?

In choosing dinner companions I would be naturally be looking for famous people from the past that I admire and who led interesting lives. I would also choose people who were famous for their intelligence, wit and after-dinner conversation.

Narrowing it down to just three, my choices would be: Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) and Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965). First enjoying dinner and then spending an evening listening to the conversation of these three gentlemen, maybe while they played Billiards and smoked cigars, would certainly be a night to remember.

The Dogs of War

Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare

Mark Antony's famous line, "Cry Havoc and let loose the Dogs of War," in Shakespeare's play Julius Casar, was his promise to take revenge upon the conspirators who assassinated Caesar. He knew very well that this would lead to a bloody civil war of Roman against Roman. His term Dogs of War, which formerly simply meant soldier, has changed somewhat over the years. Today it is a term often used for mercenaries.

The hiring of mercenaries has been a part of statecraft for thousands of years. While it was usually preferable to use native soldiers, rulers in the past were often forced to hire foreign born troops to augment their armies. The ancient Greeks hired themselves out to the Persians, the men of Genoa were known for their ability with crossbows and the Swiss fought in many of Europe's wars under other flags.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities in his American colonies King George III was faced with the immediate prospect of needing more troops. Rebuffed in his efforts to hire Russian soldiers from Catherine the Great, King George turned to the divided German states for his needs. The German Princes were more than willing to rent out their native sons for currency. Most of the soldiers came from Hesse-Kassal, which led to the German troops being referred to as Hessian's, but soldiers from Brunswick and other states were also hired.

Also during the American Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben, along with many others, took up the cause of freedom and fought the British. Ireland's Wild Geese, Irish soldiers fighting under foreign flags, made a name for themselves throughout the world. During the Spanish Civil War many idealists fought against Franco's regime, while Nazi Germany sent troops, including the Condor Legion, to support Franco. Frances Foreign Legion, whose enlisted ranks are made up solely of foreign born soldiers, has been making history since 1831. Finally Jews from all over the world have fought for Israel since its creation in 1948.

Under the Geneva Convention and according to the laws of many nations, a mercenary is someone who hires themselves out as a soldier and is paid more than the common soldiers whose army he has joined. This is to differentiate a mercenary from someone who has joined a foreign army to fight for a cause he believes in, or quite often, because soldiering is the only trade he knows.

In the past being a mercenary, or as he is sometimes referred to, a soldier of fortune, was considered an honorable profession. Myles Standish in his hiring by the Pilgrims, the Ronin of feudal Japan, the hired soldiers fighting for Biafra's independence, were all mercenaries. They all fulfilled a need to provide military expertise, or perhaps just a sword, in a dangerous world. Today's world is not really all that different. It is perhaps a much more dangerous world in that today many choose to believe that the world no longer needs mercenaries, or for that matter, soldiers.

Vandals raid Plimoth Plantation

According to news reports, sometime during the night of Friday August 1, vandals broke into several of the houses on the property of Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Mass. and stole a number of pelts, some tools and some replica armor. They also broke china, tore up plantings and burned a book. Employees arriving for work Saturday morning discovered the vandalism. No estimate for the cost of replacing/repairing the damage was given in the news reports.

Every news report I read and the one report that I heard on the radio referred to the perpetrators of these crimes as "vandals". A term not much used anymore, except perhaps by the media, it has a couple definitions. The first definition is that of someone who "willfully or maliciously defaces or destroys public or private property". That certainly applies here.

The second definition applies to an east German tribe of the 5th century A.D. They are best known to history for the sacking of Rome in the year 455. Rome was no longer the great center of empire that it had been before, but this was still viewed as a tragic event because of the culture and civilization that had once thrived there.

Vandalism of public and private property is a common problem all over the country. It has perhaps become even more of a problem over the last three decades. The destruction caused by vandals, who serve to gain little or no monetary profit from their efforts, is usually thought to be the work of teenagers.

Perhaps this is due to boredom or excessive drinking or maybe peer pressure. It may very well be that those responsible for the trespass, theft and destruction at Plimoth Plantation will never be caught. If caught, they may receive little or no punishment. One can only hope that they don't do it again.

Wind power on Old Cape Cod

Old East Mill
Heritage museums & gardens
67 Grove St.
Sandwich, Mass.

Years ago windmills, like this windmill in Sandwich, could have been found all over Cape Cod. Water power was always the preferred method for powering mills, but the lack of rivers and streams on the Cape led to using wind power instead. As times changed and the windmills were no longer needed, attrition reduced the number of windmills on the Cape. At the present time there are only a handful left.

The first windmills on the Cape were built in the early 1600's at Plymouth. Many of the original founders of the Plymouth Colony had lived in Holland prior to coming to the New World, giving a Dutch influence to the windmills. As the Pilgrims began to spread further out onto the Cape, establishing the towns of Sandwich, Eastham and others, more windmills were built.

In addition to grinding grain, windmills were used in the Cape's salt industry, both to grind it and to produce it from (evaporated) seawater. Salt was vital to the Cape's largest employer, the fishing industry.

The Old East Mill was built in 1800 in Orleans. By 1893 the mill had fallen into disuse as it had become cheaper to purchase milled grain from the mid-west. In 1968 the mill was purchased and moved to its present location by the founder of the Heritage museums and gardens, J. K. Livy III.