# Jamestown vs Plymouth, Northern Historical Revisionism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933 "2022-01-17T17:11:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/41 "2022-04-06T15:51:36Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’d say that the Pilgrims behaved far worse than the Virginians toward the Indians. Besides their persecutions, wars, slaughter of people given truces, and destruction of their hunting grounds, the leaders actively attacked and drove out settlers who worked with the natives instead of against them. That’s just not the story you’re told in high school. Pilgrims or the later (and more populous) Puritans in the Bay colony (Boston)? The Pilgrims were no saints, but my memory is that Bradford worked pretty hard to maintain good relations with the natives and kept his Plymouth Separatists away from the Boston Puritans. Once he died, the Plymouth folks joined the cretins in Boston in all sorts of nefarious deeds, but he maintained his position and control for 37 years, dying in 1657. I admit to not being an expert on the colony. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/42 "2022-04-08T02:26:07Z")
The fraught relationship the colonists had with the Wampanoags is detailed in [David J. Silverman’s This Land is Their Land](https://www.amazon.com/This-Land-Their-Wampanoag-Thanksgiving/dp/163286925X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=David+J.+Silverman%27s+This+Land+is+Their+Land.&qid=1649384397&sr=8-1). Shorter and scathing is the chapter on the Pilgrims in [John Beckman’s American Fun](https://www.amazon.com/John-Beckman-Centuries-2014-02-19-Hardcover/dp/B01GOOSE80/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2X3MTZGM6CWHK&keywords=american+fun+beckman&qid=1649384527&sprefix=american+fun+beckman%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-1), a scholarly look at the ways Americans have rebelled against the puritan [small p] ethos over the centuries.You don’t find much about Thomas Morton in standard histories of the Pilgrims and when you read Beckman you realize why. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/43 "2022-04-08T12:43:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You don’t find much about Thomas Morton in standard histories of the Pilgrims and when you read Beckman you realize why. He seemed like a lot of fun. Imagine if his philosophy had ended up determining the direction of American development! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/44 "2022-04-08T15:48:30Z")
That’s one of the premises of Beckman’s book. Unanswerable, to be sure, but a reason why so many people fought against fun-seekers, for fear that their stance would prevail. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/45 "2022-04-08T22:15:19Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The Pilgrims were no saints, but my memory is that Bradford worked pretty hard to maintain good relations with the natives and kept his Plymouth Separatists away from the Boston Puritans. That was my understanding as well and the Thanksgiving story at least stops before most of the atrocities begin. The Plymouth story is just a better one to tell which is why it is more popular. Kids hear about it in grade school. So, I don’t think there has been revisionism, such that falsehoods have been put forth, but Jamestown is simply not talked about as much as Plymouth because Plymouth had a better marketing manager. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933/46 "2022-04-09T10:44:23Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I wonder what would happen if I could prove my linage from the founding of Jamestown and presented it to one of those societies that only admit those whose ancestors came over on the _Mayflower_ . Would they tell me to pound dirt? Depends on the ancestor. If your Jamestowne ancester is James Vassal, and you’re descended from his daughter who married Resolved White (Mayflower passenger). I think that’s the only example. They would tell you to join the Jamestown Society, which has different rules for membership, as the list of qualifying ancestors includes people who were not part of the original settlement. > **[Qualifying Ancestors](https://www.jamestowne.org/qualifying-ancestors.html)** > > The following criteria are used to determine whether an early settler may be included as a qualifying ancestor for purposes of membership in the Jamestowne Society.  The individual: (1) was a... Unlike the first Jamestown settlement, the Mayflower included families, that is, women and children, from the very beginning. Jamestown didn’t have any women at first. > Although boys had been among the first settlers on the initial voyage of 1607 and the first women arrived the next year, women and children were few in number until 1620 when approximately 90 single women arrived with the clear intention of bringing a sense of permanence to the colony. Sir Edward Sandys, treasurer of the Virginia Company, stated that, “…the plantation can never flourish till families be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil.” [https://jyfmuseums.org/learn/learning-center/what-were-the-roles-of-women-and-children-at-jamestown/#:~:text=The%20first%20women%20to%20arrive,was%20the%20first%20Jamestown%20wedding](https://jyfmuseums.org/learn/learning-center/what-were-the-roles-of-women-and-children-at-jamestown/#:~:text=The%20first%20women%20to%20arrive,was%20the%20first%20Jamestown%20wedding). It does seem to be mostly PR as more of the original Mayflower settlers who survived and produced descendents and records, than the original Jamestown settlers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamestown-vs-plymouth-northern-historical-revisionism/957933.md?page=2)