PRIMARY SOURCES WORKSHOP:

The Meaning of the Pilgrim Feast of 1621

Overview

This group will examine the meaning of the Pilgrim feast of 1621 through an examination of several different types of sources. Each group member will work through a series of primary documents and analyze the selected materials for what they reveal about the circumstances or the event in question. Each will write a brief analytical essay (limit 3 pages) advancing an interpretation of his/her findings concerning how the selected materials illuminate the event. Essays must include an annotated bibliography of at least ten journal articles on the topic located through FirstSearch or America: History and Life.

Once all members have drawn conclusions about their materials, the group as a whole will undertake a comparative analysis of their findings and develop a presentation which assembles the insights gained from each type of evidence into either a coherent account of the event and its significance or an informed historiographical debate on the topic.

You are free to organize the presentation any way you choose, but it must include the following: 1) presentation and comparison of findings; 2) discussion of the specific features and problems of each set of sources represented in your group; 3) expanded inquiry into how the group's investigation confirmed or challenged what members had always believed about this event's significance; 4) critical analysis of at least 3 websites devoted to your topic. Each group will be responsible for a full class period, so members should prepare for a question-and-answer period after the presentation. The presentation itself should raise issues of historical interpretation for full class discussion.

Note: The following set of reference works will help you get a jump start on your work:

Commager, Henry Steele. Documents of American History. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1973. An excellent source of many foundational documents in American history; heavy on political history.

Commager, Henry Steele and Richard B. Morris. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by the Participants. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Rich sources on this period, though includes no documents before 1773.

Morris, Richard B. and Jeffery B. Morris, eds. The Encyclopedia of American History. 7^th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. An excellent one-volume guide to key events in American history. A great source to check for questions concerning chronology, people, and events.

Oxford English Dictionary. 20 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Also accessible online through CMU Libraries home page. The definitive source for the meaning of any English word.

For each major primary source referenced below answer the following questions:

When was the source produced?
How was the source produced?
Why was the source produced?
Who produced the source?
Where was the source produced?
How reliable is the source as evidence for the events or issues under consideration? How immediate a witness is it to the events or issues? What information is included? What is left out, and why? What evidence of bias do you find in the source? How does the bias influence the portrayal of the events or issues? How might you compensate for the weaknesses, biases, or informational gaps in the source?

Extra pages (endnotes, bibliography, source critique) will not be counted in the 3 page limit.

Pilgrims and Puritans. Read Chapter 1 of Governor William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation and compare it with Governor John Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity. What does Bradford say that his group believed about the outcome of the Reformation? Why did his group separate from the Church of England? Compare this with the common Puritan view of the church laid out in the Cambridge Platform of 1648 (scroll down to the first couple of articles of Chapter 3). How do the Pilgrims and Puritans differ in their understanding of the Church? Apart from that, what similarities do you find between Bradford's views and Winthrop's? How did they view the purpose of their trek to North America? How did they view their situation in that new land? How did they view their responsibilities toward one another? Toward God? Why do historians who write about the Pilgrims call them "Separatists" rather than "Puritans?" What was the difference?
The Mayflower Compact. Read this along with Bradford's commentary on it in Of Plymouth Plantation. What does this document reveal about the purpose of the Pilgrim colony? What was the relationship between the Pilgrims and the monarchy in England, according to this document? Why did the Pilgrims need such a document?
Relations with the Indians. Read the linked primary accounts from Mourt's Relation parts III and IV and William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation. How would you characterize Pilgrim and Indian relations from these accounts? Why do you think the Wampanoag responded to the Pilgrims as they did? What was in the relationship for the Wampanoags? What was in it for the Pilgrims?
Thanksgivings. Review the linked Thanksgiving proclamations:
Now go to the University of Michigan Library's MIRLYN, (http://mirlynweb.lib.umich.edu/WebZ/umAuthorize?sessionid=0), click on the blue UM Library Catalog button in the center top of the two rows of buttons at the lower part of the screen, and once there click on the "use advanced search" link. Enter the term "massachusetts bay" in the first keyword window, "proclamation" in the second keyword window, and "evans" in the third (this last term will limit the search to documents contained in the Evans collection of early American imprints at the U of M). You should retrieve about 15 items. Do a brief skim of the titles, noting how many of them are for thanksgiving and how many for fasts or humiliation. It may interest you to know that for the seventeenth century, only 4 or 5 thanksgiving proclamations remain in existence while more than twice that many proclamations for fasting and humiliation exist.

From the documents themselves, what was the purpose of thanksgiving days in early American life? What sorts of things appear to have warranted a public thanksgiving? Does feasting appear to have played a role? Now look at Mourt's Relation, Part VI, our only account of the "First Thanksgiving." How does the description of this feast compare with the other thanksgiving proclamations you read?
Now having worked through all the documents above, answer the following question: "was the feast of 1621 a thanksgiving feast? If so, why do you think so judging from the other evidence you have examined? If not, why do you think not? And what kind of feast was it if not a thanksgiving?"