Michael Medved: What the Pilgrims really sought

Posted by Kendall Harmon

As American families sit down to their traditional Thanksgiving feasts, they will naturally recall the familiar story of the Pilgrims and, in the process, distort the true character of the nation's religious heritage.

Most children learn that the Mayflower settlers came to the New World to escape persecution and to establish religious freedom. But the early colonists actually pursued purity, not tolerance, and sought to build fervent, faith-based utopias, not secular regimes that consigned religion to a secondary role. The distinctive circumstances that allowed these fiery believers of varied denominations to cooperate in the founding of a new nation help to explain America's contradictory religious traditions — as simultaneously the most devoutly Christian society in the Western world, and the country most accommodating to every shade of exotic belief and practice.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

6 Comments
Posted November 23, 2009 at 12:34 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Dan Crawford wrote:

The Puritans and their descendants, sad to say, did not feel as passionately about the native Americans “right to be left alone”.

November 23, 3:37 pm | [comment link]
2. Choir Stall wrote:

BTW:  The first Thanksgiving was not the Pilgrim Thanksgiving, but the thanksgiving in Virginia on December 4th, 1619. Still held today at Berkeley Plantation.

November 23, 5:19 pm | [comment link]
3. Loren+ wrote:

Choir Stall:  Floridians might point out that the first thanksgiving event was even earlier, initiated by the Spanish Roman Catholic explorers.

From the Jacksonville, Fl newspaper:
About a half-century prior to the historic harvest meal of 1621, when the Pilgrims and Indians feasted at Plymouth Rock, Spanish Explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles and the Timucua Indians shared America’s real first Thanksgiving.

It was on Sept. 8, 1565, that Menendez stepped ashore in St. Augustine, claiming Florida for the Spanish crown and participating in a special Mass of Thanksgiving given by Father Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales.

After being declared governor of the new land, Menendez invited the Timucua to join the Spanish in a Thanksgiving feast.


Which brings us back to Medved’s article, asking what were the northern pilgrims looking for and what were the other explorers/settlers/immigrants looking for?  I do need to review my history as I thought the Puritans had left Holland because of tension and pressure there. Medved states it was otherwise.  I am curious.

November 23, 7:54 pm | [comment link]
4. Meridianan wrote:

Loren+:  The Pilgrims/Separatists left Holland - not the Puritans.

November 23, 9:43 pm | [comment link]
5. Br. Michael wrote:

The Puritans went to the Bay colony in 1630.  One significant thing was that they brought their charter with them and to all intents and purposes were self governing until 1684 when Charles II revoked it.  It became a royal colony in 1691.

November 24, 5:37 am | [comment link]
6. Ron Troup wrote:

Mr Medved gets at least two things wrong -
1, The Puritans were in a dangerous situation in England when they decided to leave for Massachusets.
2, I’m sure there were no Mennonites in George Washington’s army.
  <>< Ron Troup

November 25, 6:59 am | [comment link]
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