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Simon Middleton, Pilgrims
Glenn Rainey, "I want to know more about Squanto..."Mr Rainey might start with Neal Salisbury's, Manitou and Providence. Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643 (New York, 1982). Michael Leroy Oberg, Uncas. First of the Mohegans (Ithaca, 2003) is also very good. Although it relates to the Mohegans rather than the Wampanoags, both were part of the Algonquian family of communities. Oberg's notes will give good guidance for other stuff, but for the best background study of pre-contact Indian society in southern New England Kathleen J. Bragdon's, Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650 (Norman, 1996) is hard to beat. All are available in paperback from online booksellers like abebooks
Dave Nicholson Pilgrim Fathers
Doctor Kanda is right. In fact people in Britain were paying more tax for troops to defend the English-speaking colonists against incursion from French and Spanish colonists.I learned this from a huge biography of King George III by Henry Farrar. Americans celebrate the Pilgrim Fathers and forget Jamestown in much the way that they celebrate Independence and forget the reasons………….slavery was illegal in mainland UK. A writer in the UK actually argued that Britain should arm the slaves and the Indians. Samuel Johnson! And John Wesley agreed with him!Americans like to forget that their “ freedom “ was based on genocide and slavery in the same way Britons like to forget that until we went in for dachshund kicking in 1914 our ruler’s name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as was his Granny’s and that Kaiser Bill was at her bedside when she died. Mass denial.
Dr. Akira Kanda : Pilgrim Fathers
Several issues regarding this founding philosophy of the USA deserves some more attention. 1. After this, what happened then to the relation between native Americans and the decendents of the Pilgrim Fathers? 2. I understand that just before the independence war, British Parlament passed a law forbidding further expansion of British colony towards the west. Moreover, British subjects in UK were paying more tax than the people in the British North America. 3. Native culture became extinct not under colonial British rule but under anti-colonial US rule. After the WWII, UK returned India back to Indian people. Virtually all ex-British colonies who gained independence after the WWII stay in the British common-welth. No note-worthy change seems to have taken place regarding the distressing status of native people of the anti-colonial giant the USA who willingly spent hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of US service men's life a year just to make sure that people at the other end of the world has "freedom". During the civil right movement in the 60's native people of the USA were left out. Nationalism in the form of patriotism seems to create myth. The role of the idealistic philosophy of the founding fathers in the short history of America seems to demand more study. After the "vitory" in the cold war, in America it has been said many times that idealism is evil.
Jeff Dorchen: Pilgrims
Dear Melvyn,Regarding your musing: "Incidentally, it's always seemed a bit curious to me that given what the Americans say they owe to the Separatists and the Pilgrim Fathers, and indeed it could be proved that they owe a great deal, the English are so often the villains and while we have people in America happy to be Afro-Americans and Irish Americans and Hispanic Americans, I have yet to meet anyone in the United States who has told me that he was an Anglo-American". It's not really so curious, Melvyn. Anglo-Americans consider themselves, quite ethnocentrically, simply to be American. No extra label necessary. They are, to their minds, generic - regular - normal. (This incidentally is why anti-discrimination laws are so often decried as "special treatment" by rightwing rhetoricians in the USA, who perceive every issue from the point of view of the majority, and view the minority as troublesome people who won't "get with the program.")Only the minority need have a label. There are numerous ethnographic studies on this phenomenon. Particularly interesting are some writings on "whiteness"-- again, the "normal" ethnic quality, beside which all others are "other." A particularly good one is "Racial Situations" by John Hartigan, Jr. It's specifically about Detroit, Michigan, but really opens the mind to unexpected facets of racial issues.In understanding ways in which the majority denies rights to minorities, or how the majority defines itself out of the picture of responsibility for discrimination, whiteness is an important topic to examine. I'm not sure how it would fit into your program, which it seems to me would have to tackle whiteness in a more global context.In any case, Anglo-Americans generally feel they require no identification, but if they deign to supply one it might be something like "I came over on the Mayflower," or "I'm a Daughter of the American Revolution," which statements contain complex implications about privilege and entitlement.Thanks for your excellent program.
Ray Hedley: Pilgrim Fathers
The discussion jumped from Holland to Southampton to Plymouth omitting East Anglia. Logistically, Harwich was the first port of call from Holland.There was a major contingent from this part of England, with leadership and a large financial contribution.
Peter Household – Pilgrim Fathers
Which were the political philosophers who were the inspiration for the covenant they made on the Mayflower?
Simon Richards again! - The Pilgrim Fathers
The 'compact' of the Berkeley group was signed willingly before they left, rather than enforced by the 'Saints' on the 'strangers' before they were allowed of the ship. Where does the real moral authority lie? Is this the real problem of US origins, now re-displayed in Middle-Eastern adventures?
Louise Woodroff Occupation of Northern America
Please don't forget again that the French were not only colonising what became Canada, but had LARGE amount of land in Louisianna which was acquired in 1821 which few people know of as The Louisianna Purchase...
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