Picture of my daughter praying at a Support the troops rally in Tallahassee, Fl
Posted on 07/03/2003 11:40:34 PM PDT by carlo3b
Happy Birthday
1620–2003 ...The BeginningWithin the short span of a hundred years, starting in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a grand tide of emigration, one of the greatest population movements in all of the recorded history of mankind, swept from the European continent to new lands of America. This motivation to take the chance in a strange new world, was impelled by powerful and diverse forces, the natural tendency to seek escape from oppression and to crave freedom. Those few but hardy pioneers built a nation out of a stubborn wilderness and, by its nature, shaped the character and destiny of an uncharted continent.
The First to cross, The Mayflower Voyage
The first shiploads of immigrants aboard The Mayflower bound for the new territories, crossed the Atlantic more than a hundred years after the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century explorations of North America. In the meantime, thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. These travelers to North America came in small, horribly overcrowded craft. The Mayflower was not the first or only vessel chosen to make the crossing.
The first emigrants boarded a small 60 "tun" (tun barrels it could hold, rather than tons of water displaced) vessel called the Speedwell. They left the port of Delftshaven on July 22, 1620, amid fears, tears, prayers, and farewells
The Pilgrim group sailed to Southampton, a city on the English south coast, where they were joined by additional immigrants recruited by Weston and the merchant adventurers on a 180 tun ship out of London, the MAYFLOWER. Christopher Jones was the master. Following a five week dispute over the contract with the adventurers, the passengers on the two ships set sail for America on August 5. Their voyage was soon interrupted when the smaller Speedwell was discovered to be leaking badly. They put into the port of Dartmouth, Devonshire, and repairs were made, but the condition re-occurred once they were under sail again. The two ships were forced to make port a second time, in neighboring Plymouth.
There it was decided to leave the defective Speedwell behind, and continue on the MAYFLOWER alone. Some of the Speedwell's passengers and cargo were transferred to the larger ship, and on September 6, 1620 (my birthday, sigh . . . well not quite yet, of course, if it had been we may now be living in Carlo3bia, instead of America . . . but I digress), the MAYFLOWER set sail across the North Atlantic and its famous 102 passengers, into history.During their six- to twelve-week voyage, they subsisted on meager rations. Many ships of the day were lost in storms, many passengers died of disease, and infants rarely survived the journey. Sometimes tempests blew the vessels far off their course, and often calm brought interminable delay. In spite of all of these obstacles, they made landfall. Remarkably, there were only two casualties during the voyage of the Mayflower.
The First Pilgrims
The single most compelling motive of thse emigrants to leave their European homelands was the desire for greater economic opportunity. This urge was frequently reinforced by other considerations, such as the yearning for religious freedom, a determination to escape political oppression, or the lure of adventure. Between 1620 and 1635, economic difficulties swept England, and multitudes could not find work. Even the best artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Bad crops added to the distress. The new world offered HOPE.
The first view of their New Home
The colonists' first glimpse of the new land was a vista of dense woods. The virgin forest with its profusion and variety of trees was a veritable treasure-house—which extended over 1,300 miles from Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. Here there was abundant fuel and lumber. Here was the raw material of houses and furniture, ships and potash, dyes and naval stores.
The new continent was remarkably endowed by nature, but trade with Europe was vital, for the settlers needed to import that which they could not yet produce. Here the coastline served the well. Nearly the whole length of shore provided innumerable inlets and harbors, and only two areas, North Carolina and southern New Jersey, lacked the harbors for ocean-going vessels. Majestic rivers—like the Kennebec in Maine, the Connecticut, New York's Hudson, Pennsylvania's Susquehanna, the Potomac in Virginia, and numerous others—formed links between the coastal plain and the ports, and thence with Europe. The lack of a waterways, into the interior, however, together with the formidable barrier of the Appalachian Mountains, discouraged movement beyond the coastal plains region. Only trappers and traders with light pack trains went beyond the seaboard. For a hundred years, in fact, the colonists built their settlements along the eastern shore.
These obstacles were soon, in historical terms, overcome and the trappers, farmers, ranchers, and all kinds of adventuresome peoples made their way South, then West.
A New Start
For many of our ancestors, the new world offered religious freedom, financial opportunity, and adventure. In many instances, men and women, who had little active interest in a new life in America, were induced to make the journey by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers to the Pennsylvania colony in a manner more than suggestive of modern advertising techniques. Ship captains, who received large rewards from the sale of service contracts of impecunious migrants, used every method from extravagant promises to out-and-out kidnapping, to secure as many passengers as their vessels could transport. Many early travelers started their voyage with a hangover, the former revelers awakening to find themselves tethered to the deck of a ship on their way to the New World. Also a small but significant lot started in courtrooms, as judges and prison authorities were encouraged to offer convicted persons an opportunity to migrate to America in lieu of a prison sentence. Hence, the good, the bad, and the unconscious were the early crops of this democracy . . . and like all plants, flowers and weeds, the seeds of our nation took hold and flourished.
Their Faith... IN GOD WE TRUST
It started as an exploration of a New World, far away from the homeland, and evolved into an experiment of colonization . . . and that, with the tenacity of a very special few, developed into the greatest nation on earth. What the founding of our country took was a great deal more than words. It took more than spunk and courage, to carve a republic out of clay, and it took FAITH. A special kind of FAITH, the all powerful faith in themselves and an infinite power.
Much of the above was lifted, as in stolen, plagiarized, and pilfered directly from the faithful works of skilled historians, and learned folks. While it then becomes obvious from wherein my humble American lineage sprouted, from the emptying of the stockades, but I acknowledge the following out of a bit of shame and a great deal of respect.
The Bibliography of Principal Reference Works.
Bassett, John Spencer, A Short History of the United States, The Macmillan Co., 1927
Beard, Charles A. and Mary R., The Rise of American Civilization, The Macmillan Co., 1939
Curti, Merle, The Growth of American Thought, Harper and Brothers, 1943
Hamm, William A. , The American People, D. C. Heath and Co., 1939
Hicks, John D. , The American Nation, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1941
Hockett, Homer C., Political and Social History of the United States (1492-1828). The Macmillan Co., 1925
Morison, Samuel Eliot and Commager, Henry Steele, The Growth of the American Republic (1000-1865), Oxford University Press, 1942
The Growth of the American Republic (1865-1942). Oxford University Press, 1942
Muzzey, David, The United States of America-From the Civil War, Ginn and Co, 1924
Nettels, Curtis Putnam, Roots of American Civilization, Crofts, 1938
Nevins, Allan, A Brief History of the United States, Oxford University Press, 1942
Nevins, Allan, Ordeal of the Union, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1947
Nevins, Allan and Commager, Henry Steele, A Short History of the United States, Random House, 1943
Schlesinger,Arthur Meier, Political and Social Growth of the United States, 1852-1933, The Macmillan Co., 1939
Wright, Louis B., The Atlantic Frontier, Alfred A. Knopf, 1947, Encyclopedia Americana, 1948 edition, Americana Company, New York and Chicago, The New International Year Book, 1946, Funk and Wagnalls Co., New York and London
Picture of my daughter praying at a Support the troops rally in Tallahassee, Fl
Thanks, Cal, for the headsup.
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