Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Plymouth, MA, from the prospective of the 400th

On this day in 1921, President Harding addressed a crowd at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of an English colony there.  Why they regarded the founding as 1621 in 1921, and we regard it as 1620 in 2021, isn't really clear to me.

At any rate, apparently this year there's been trouble actually figuring out how to celebrate the anniversary, with COVID 19 playing a definite role in that.  Celebrations planned last year were pushed into this year, and a news story indicates they're still up in the air.

A 400th anniversary only comes about once, of course, so something ought to be done to mark the event, although the big shadow that hangs over it is the reassessment of the country's early history and its association with colonization, imperialism, and race.  This started prior to 2021 with the New York Times releasing its 1620 Project, which has been controversial, and under the Trump Administration sparked the 1776 Project, which in turn was immediately terminated following the election of President Biden.  Nonetheless, this may be an event which the dampening impact of SARS-CoV-2 which is oddly a good thing in some ways, although the disease and pandemic certainly are not.

On the same day, President Harding informed Congress that the US was obligated to loan $5,000,000 to Liberia under an agreement reached in September, 1918.  The loan itself had come about in the context of World War One, and was part of an inducement for the Liberian declaration of war against Germany.  Germany had constituted 75% of Liberian trade prior to the war.

It was the first flight for the Curtis CR-1, a racing airplane designed for the U.S. Navy.

A grand total of four were built.

If it seems odd that a racing plane was built for the navy, racing aircraft were a major feature of fighter, or as they were then called "pursuit" aircraft development between the wars. Even the Supermarine Spitfire was developed from a racer.

The relationship between the CR-1 and the Curtis Hawk series of biplane fighters is obvious.

Curtis P-6.

I've always thought the P-6 was one of the most beautiful biplanes every built.

In Spain, riots broke out and troops mutinied over recent Spanish defeats in Morocco. At this point, in fact, Spanish Morocco was in control of the Rifian government, save for a small portion still held by the Spanish.

December 21, 1620. The Mayflower Passengers Land.

 That is, exactly 400 years ago.

The landing was partially precipitated by the fact that the Mayflower had run out of beer, which was a more important matter than it might sound.  The English were overall used to drinking beer, but the reason was that beer, because of the way that it was made, was safe to drink. Running out of things to drink is bad anyway you look at it.

In modern times its become common to levy all sort of criticism and virtue signaling on this event, noting how "horrible" Europeans were for colonizing North America.  All of that views the world from was the comfortable late 20th and early 21st Century prospective which has only been shook up a little by the visitation of a plague upon is, something that people in the 17th Century regarded as one of life's norms.  It is true, of course, that the Mayflower passengers were essentially landing where they weren't invited to take land that wasn't theirs, but they didn't see it that way. And its important to remember that the native residents of the land that they were essentially if unknowingly invading viewed the world much differently than anyone in North America does today, through eyes that tended to regard their own tribes as "the people" with everyone else being some sort of alien people.

Indeed, the Mayflower passengers were only in possession of marginally technically superior implements than their unwilling hosts, who themselves were a more or less constant state of war, near war, or soon to be war, with their neighbors.  It's not true, as some have suggested as a reactionary counterfactual, that the Europeans were regarded as one more tribe. They were definitely different. But early on the technological advantage that's so often assumed to be there simply wasn't.  In warfare the natives were every bit the equals, and maybe the superiors in every sense to the new arrivals.

And none of this is to suggest the old grade school version of the "pilgrims" either. They were religious bigots whose situation was brought about by the fact that they couldn't get along at all with the Church of England or darned near anyone else.  They would have regarded Catholics, which all the British had been less than a century ago, as heretics and they didn't view the Church of England cheerfully.  They had adopted very rigorous concepts of Calvinism and regarded most people damned by God to Hell from the moment of their conception, a novelty that no  Christian had held before the Reformation.  Our concept of them and what they approved of and didn't approve of is accordingly massively off the mark.  They approved of piety, but because it was temporal proof of their predestination. As noted, unlike many who look back to them now as religious ancestors, they approved of alcohol as well.  They were also huge supporters of marital sex, which is something we don't associate their piety with.

They disapproved of most forms of entertainment, which was another thing that had gotten them in trouble in Europe.  They required church attendance on Sunday by law, but then that was also a legal norm in much of Europe. They'd approved of the Calvinist ban of sports on Sunday in England during the Cromwell era.

Not everyone on board the Mayflower was a member of their group by any means.  Indeed, the "pilgrim" passengers.  The ship held 102 passengers but some were just that, not religious dissenters.  Be that as it may, the puritans dominated the ship in culture and conduct, and as colonist.

Their journey was no doubt arduous, and coming in winter, risky in more ways than one.  One person died on the way, and another was born.

I personally have no known connection with them.  The first of my ancestors to set sail across the Atlantic for the New World left from Normandy, not Holland, and arrived in Quebec, not New England.  I'm completely comfortable with that.  But my much more American by ancestry wife has a demonstrated ancestral connection with the 102 passengers of the Mayflower but, as her curiosity on historical matters is much lower than mine, if I asked her right now who it was, she wouldn't recall, and wouldn't be interested in looking it up. Still, that means my two children likewise have ancestors who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

And its important to note, that really was something, no matter how human or failed those people may have been.  I can't say, as I look around, that people are doing much better in any segment of human conduct today.

September 16, 1620. The day the "Pilgrims" . . .

 set sail for the New World.

It was at sea for ten weeks, putting in near Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.

August 27, 1920. Recalling Plymouth Rock.

Three hundredth anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims, Provincetown, Mass., August 27, 1920