Plymouth colony 1660 to 27 BC

[Otto Kretschmer]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony

What makes this scenario interesting is that.
1. The population is self sufficient
2. Haa a large room for expansion
3. Is very zealous and puts a huge emphasis on education for it's time.

Hence given it's insane fertility rate, it is going to expand rapidly across North America and is going to absolutely dominate both Americas.

What relations does it have with the world which is largely pagan at this time?

stevep

[stevep]

Nov 17, 2022 18:22:41 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony

What makes this scenario interesting is that.
1. The population is self sufficient
2. Haa a large room for expansion
3. Is very zealous and puts a huge emphasis on education for it's time.

Hence given it's insane fertility rate, it is going to expand rapidly across North America and is going to absolutely dominate both Americas.

What relations does it have with the world which is largely pagan at this time?

stevep

  Is it self sustainable by 1660?  Probably largely so but likely some articles they still rely on imports from England or the rest of Europe for.  However by that time their probably fairly secure although have you heard of King Philip's War?  That was bloody enough and could be markedly worse for the colonists if they can't call on support from or trade with the rest of Europe or possibly even other colonies.

  I think it likely they will pull through but its not certain.

  If so it has a good chance of being the dominant power in the region assuming they can maintain their technological and social advantage over their neighbours.  However a number of peoples and tribes in N America sought to learn from the invading Europeans with at least some measure of success and here the isolated colonists are going to be more vulnerable.

  True their now got a much weaker opposition who will be hit by a new wave of disease that the locals in the 1660's may have started developing resistance to.  However this also means the region have less development and less local workers to be press ganged into labouring for them.  Climate and some of the wildlife will be somewhat different as well so if something threatens their food supply the colonists could be in a dire position. 

  Also how likely is it that those attributes, i.e. high fertility, favouring of education etc will stay for an extended period.  If they become a ruling elite over a large number of native slaves/serfs they could easily become a lot more complacent and corrupt.  Not to mention as they spread further and further its less and less likely they can be able to maintain a high level of unity.  You could see groups breaking off simply because of the distances involves or because of internal disputes leading to some factions seeking to break away from 'persecution' by whoever's in charge in the original colony.

[Otto Kretschmer]

Native Americans of 27 BC are far less developed. The diseases are going to strike them with the same force as in 1600s. Expect lots of free land around the colony.

[stevep]

Nov 17, 2022 20:32:36 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Native Americans of 27 BC are far less developed. The diseases are going to strike them with the same force as in 1600s. Expect lots of free land around the colony.

  True and I must admit I forgot that initially but that also means a lot less people to give advice and information to the colonists.  Their likely to come through and become the giant of the region and have big impacts on the rest of the world if/when some return to Europe but their likely to splinter which might limit some what their expansion rate. 

  Likely some will seek to reach Europe to find out why there has been no contact - although attempts to reach other British colonies and finding nothing they recognise there is likely to happen 1st and give them some ideas.  Plus if any of them have a significant interest in astronomy that will give them some clues even if they can't clearly identify the date their now in.

  Thinking about it some of them might seek to reach the holy land in about 50-60 years in the hope of finding [and possibly rescuing] a certain Jewish leader.  Which would be a shock to all involved I suspect.

[miletus12]

Nov 17, 2022 21:02:07 GMT stevep said:

Nov 17, 2022 20:32:36 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Native Americans of 27 BC are far less developed. The diseases are going to strike them with the same force as in 1600s. Expect lots of free land around the colony.

  True and I must admit I forgot that initially but that also means a lot less people to give advice and information to the colonists.  Their likely to come through and become the giant of the region and have big impacts on the rest of the world if/when some return to Europe but their likely to splinter which might limit some what their expansion rate. 

  Likely some will seek to reach Europe to find out why there has been no contact - although attempts to reach other British colonies and finding nothing they recognise there is likely to happen 1st and give them some ideas.  Plus if any of them have a significant interest in astronomy that will give them some clues even if they can't clearly identify the date their now in.

  Thinking about it some of them might seek to reach the holy land in about 50-60 years in the hope of finding [and possibly rescuing] a certain Jewish leader.  Which would be a shock to all involved I suspect.

Three things.

1. Did the actual colonists have someone who would know iron, coke, sulfur and coal veins when she or he saw it? Not to mention copper, potassium, or tin? How to mine the ores, smelt, separate, and purify the slements out?  As I remember; they did not in the first wave. They had to recruit these specialists, once they spotted the Native American threat to them.  
2. Did they have an iron smith aboard to make tools and weapons? I know they had carpenters, we still have their wooden artifacts. Did they have shipwrights? Cabinet makers were / are not enough. 
3. Did they have someone who knew how to roll and bore out gun barrels and make precision SPRINGS of the leaf and coil type? See 1.. 
 

[shadow007]

There would be less contact, trade and traveling between the tribes. That and the smaller populations mean that European diseases would spread much slower

Enslavement is not an option unless they want an Inbred population. Don't they rely on Indians trading food to them?

[Otto Kretschmer]

Population in 1660 is approx. 2,000. I am sure there are plenty of blacksmiths.

[miletus12]

Nov 18, 2022 8:58:42 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Population in 1660 is approx. 2,000. I am sure there are plenty of blacksmiths.

Really?

One who could make steel. ONE.  

[Otto Kretschmer]

Are you sure that's the only one? How so?

[stevep]

Nov 18, 2022 2:35:14 GMT shadow007 said:

There would be less contact, trade and traveling between the tribes. That and the smaller populations mean that European diseases would spread much slower

Enslavement is not an option unless they want an Inbred population. Don't they rely on Indians trading food to them?

  In the early years yes.  The famous example of the Indians teaching them how to grow maize is often repeated.  By 1660 I'm not sure of the situation.  That they can assemble a fairly large militia 30 years later and that their seizing territory from the locals suggest their looking for more land for their own farmers by then so that probably isn't a big issue.  However if they have a significant reliance on some supplies from the local Indian communities - or more likely from other colonies/Britain/Europe - then the loss of those would be a problem, possibly a big one.

[stevep]

Nov 18, 2022 8:58:42 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Population in 1660 is approx. 2,000. I am sure there are plenty of blacksmiths.

  Ah that is a smaller population than I was assuming for that date.  If its only that community that is brought along - possibly there were a number of outlying settlements that aren't included in that figure - then they could struggle.  A bad winter or some disease outbreak would hit them hard and at most you might only be able to have a couple of hundred militia even if you could maintain equipment for them and spare them from their other work for some training.

[Otto Kretschmer]

Assuming that everything goes right, what prospects open up before the colony? As I mentioned before, they are religious fanatics with a very high birth rate and a huge focus on education.

[miletus12]

Nov 18, 2022 11:38:48 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Are you sure that's the only one? How so?

These are MAYFLOWER people. US royalty.  They have confirmed geneologies that go back to Plymouth Rock. 

[lordroel]

Nov 18, 2022 15:04:09 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Assuming that everything goes right, what prospects open up before the colony? As I mentioned before, they are religious fanatics with a very high birth rate and a huge focus on education.

So i would like to see evidence to this as i do not think we can describe the Plymouth colony as religious fanatics.

[miletus12]

Nov 18, 2022 17:33:25 GMT lordroel said:

Nov 18, 2022 15:04:09 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

Assuming that everything goes right, what prospects open up before the colony? As I mentioned before, they are religious fanatics with a very high birth rate and a huge focus on education.

So i would like to see evidence to this as i do not think we can describe the Plymouth colony as religious fanatics.

They were not.

The Separatists and the Puritans

Mon, 08 Jan 2018 | Religious Freedom

By the early seventeenth century, England, under James I, had developed into a land of acute religious intolerance. The church governing body became increasingly concerned over two "fanatical" movements, the Separatists and the Puritans. The Puritans were the much larger group, but were perceived as a lesser threat to church authority because they merely wanted to purify the church from within. The Separatists were a smaller group that began as a congregation under Pastor James Robinson in Scrooby, England. This church, established in 1602, was not originally seeking to break away from the Church of England or to formally rebel against it. Robinson and his members considered themselves good Anglicans and believed that the church was separating itself from them by abandoning Biblical principles, not the other way around. "It is not we which refuse them, but they us," said Robinson.

When intolerance intensified into persecution-non-Anglican Christian ministers were routinely silenced, jailed, or banished under the licentious James I-Robinson's congregation left for the Netherlands in search of religious freedom, settling in Leyden, Holland, and forming the English Separatist Church. While the Separatists did acquire significantly greater freedom there, they still lacked the degree of religious autonomy they sought. In addition, they were concerned that they were being absorbed into the Dutch culture. They decided to set out for the New World to establish a biblically based society as Englishmen.

The English Virginia Company financially underwrote the venture, authorizing the Separatists (today known as the Pilgrims) to settle just north of Jamestown, Virginia. The Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, in September 1620 aboard the Mayflower and reached America over two months later. Due to strong winds that blew their ship off course, they landed much farther north than they had anticipated. As they realized they were outside the Virginia Company's jurisdiction and thus free of any sovereign authority, the Pilgrims resolved to enter into an agreement providing for their self-governance, which came to be known as the Mayflower Compact. They executed the document on November 11, 1620, aboard the ship in Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts, but eventually settled the next month in Plymouth.

This was the first time in recorded history that a free community of equal men created a new civil government by means of a social contract. (Not true, the Icelanders hold that distinction. M. ). Thus the colonists, united in this contract, formed a government whose authority was derived from the consent of the governed and which established the principle that all men were entitled to equal treatment under the law. These principles were later incorporated into the United States Constitution, giving lie to the widely held belief that the Constitution's idea of social contract was a secular construct borrowed from John Locke, as espoused in his Second Treatise of Civil Government in 1690. As author M. Stanton Evans notes, "The Compact was executed on November 11, 1620-predating Locke's. (Often not noted is that this compact of "Articles" was modeled on the contracts (ship's articles, or rules of behavior and authority) that privateer companies and land-based "free-booters" (pirates and brigand mercenaries' companies) respectively drew up to govern themselves. M.)  

Second Treatise by seven decades." "In the American context-one might say, especially in the American context-all the ideas and institutions of free government, including contract theory, far predated Locke, and did so in the most explicit terms imaginable."

The Mayflower Compact acknowledged the Pilgrims' purpose in the voyage -"for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith"-and it expressly purported to be a covenant between them and their sovereign God. As historian Paul Johnson wrote, "What was remarkable about this particular contract was that it was not between a servant and a master, or a people and a king, but between a group of like-minded individuals and each other, with God as a witness and symbolic co-signatory."8

The Puritans were quite different from the Separatists, as they believed the church should be reformed from within. But the more they tried to initiate reform, the greater resistance they encountered under Charles I. They eventually concluded that the only way to reform the church was to leave England and establish a purer version of the church in America, which would provide an example for the homeland church to follow. By thus removing themselves from the corruptive influences of the church, they could live in humble obedience to God. They truly believed, according to author Peter Marshall, "that the Kingdom of God really could be built on earth, in their lifetimes They knew that they were sinners. But like the Pilgrims, they were dedicated to actually living together in obedience to God's laws, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ."9

The Puritans left for America in droves in the 1630s, convinced God had chosen them specifically to carry His light to America. They believed that their faith could germinate and prosper in a new land, free from the oppression of the crown and the Church of England. The New England historian, clergyman, and author Cotton Mather said, "Thus was the settlement of New England brought about ... to express and pursue the Protestant Reformation." John Winthrop, captain of the Puritan ship Arbella, wrote "A Model of Christian Charity," which was an eloquent statement of the Puritans' Christian mission and a declaration of their obedience to God. He expressed their intention of glorifying God: "that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us."

Beyond the Pilgrims and the Puritans in New England, all early American settlements, from Massachusetts to Georgia, were comprised of Christians of all denominations, and indeed, all of the early American colonies were established on Christian principles. But it was the Puritans, with their biblically based governments modeled on their church covenants, who laid the primary foundation for our constitutional government. For the Puritans, the concept of self-government was a distinctly Christian ideal, as historian Perry Miller makes clear. "The Puritans," wrote Miller, "maintained that government originated in the consent of the people ... because they did not believe that any society, civil or ecclesiastical, into which men did not enter of themselves was worthy of the name. Consequently, the social theory of Puritanism, based upon the law of God, was posited also upon the voluntary submission of the citizens."

The Separatists were seen again in the form of various "communities" (Mormons and the Black Muslim Movement), so it is easy for the general public to call them "radicals", but as a general rule, these movements were simplifiers or reformers who rejected hierarchial totalitarianisms for a more free and loose intepretation of conventional social norms. They were not bomb-throwers and witch burners. That would be the Puritans.  Those intolerant people were the fanatics, not the Separatists.