The Glenn Beck Program - City on a Hill： The Misunderstood Legacy of Pilgrims and Puritans ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 2

00:00:00.000 The North Atlantic wasn't cooperating.

00:00:03.780 It never cooperated.

00:00:07.260 Its swirling, heaving waves sprawled to infinity in every direction.

00:00:12.780 An endless blue-gray highway tormenting the 102 men and women and children

00:00:17.900 crammed into a tiny cargo ship that wasn't designed for passengers.

00:00:23.580 Sometimes the thunderous waves battering the timber hull

00:00:27.280 would just let up long enough for the desperate or the foolish, depending on who you ask,

00:00:32.460 to scramble up to the main deck for a deep breath of fresh air. For John Howland, a British man in

00:00:39.880 his early 20s, the bracing wind and cold ocean spray against his face helped chase away the

00:00:45.560 nausea if only just for a few minutes. He had to escape the windowless, cramped belly of the ship

00:00:51.320 where the stench of vomit hung in the stale air.

00:00:55.020 He wasn't a sailor.

00:00:56.420 He was just a hired servant for one of the many dreamers on board this rickety vessel.

00:01:01.620 But the ocean doesn't care about dreams.

00:01:05.820 In a split second, John Howland is plunged into a nightmare.

00:01:10.440 A massive rogue wave smashes over the ship's railing,

00:01:14.160 sweeping John overboard into the frigid abyss.

00:01:17.720 He's gone, vanished into the deep.

00:01:21.320 and no one even notices at first. In an era when most people can't swim, and the ship can't just

00:01:28.200 throw it in reverse, this is a death sentence. John thrashes in the freezing water, his lungs

00:01:34.320 are burning with the ocean, as the ship labors on without him. Then, he glimpses a rope in the

00:01:41.200 water within reach. Instinctively, desperately, he snags it and clamps on with both fists.

00:01:48.060 The rope trailing behind the ship is one of the halyards, used to raise and lower the sail.

00:01:53.660 It's his only hope. He clings for dear life, dragging through the pounding surf like a ragdoll,

00:02:00.700 the saltwater scraping down his throat and burning his eyes, and finally, incredibly,

00:02:05.580 crew members spot him bobbing in the water.

00:02:10.460 Slowly and steadily, they manage to reel him in.

00:02:13.180 And John finally splats on the deck and rolls over on his back,

00:02:18.520 sputtering, shivering uncontrollably, gasping, head spinning, dumbfounded that he's still alive.

00:02:25.840 The hard-boiled crew mutters curses about these seasick novices

00:02:30.300 that they're hauling across the Atlantic to a forbidding wilderness. 0.98

00:02:34.360 These dreamers, they must be insane.

00:02:38.340 It's 1620, and this is the main deck.

00:02:43.180 of the Mayflower.

00:02:47.580 John Howland survives the voyage.

00:02:50.800 He marries Elizabeth Tilly.

00:02:53.100 She's a fellow passenger.

00:02:54.820 They start a family.

00:02:56.160 Ten kids, then grandkids, then great-grandkids.

00:02:59.240 Millions of descendants ripple out

00:03:01.280 from that one seemingly fluke moment.

00:03:04.320 But it's no fluke.

00:03:06.240 Because among the Howland's descendants

00:03:08.300 are U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt,

00:03:11.740 George Bush, George W. Bush,

00:03:13.880 poets Emerson and Longfellow,

00:03:16.060 Hollywood stars Humphrey Bogart,

00:03:18.000 Christopher Lloyd, Chevy Chase,

00:03:19.640 the Baldwin brothers,

00:03:21.280 and somebody else that would make an impact in America,

00:03:23.680 Joseph Smith.

00:03:25.780 One guy's near-death plunge

00:03:28.320 changes history.

00:03:31.220 It's wild how much one life

00:03:32.940 dangling by a thread or a rope

00:03:34.900 can shape a nation.

00:03:38.220 This is the American Story

00:03:40.740 The Beginnings, adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.

00:03:48.420 Episode 2, City on a Hill, The Misunderstood Legacy of Pilgrims and Puritans.

00:03:57.420 Queen Elizabeth I, the virgin queen with her fiery red hair and iron will,

00:04:04.200 she had no tolerance for dissent in her church. In 1593, she ordered the execution of John 0.92

00:04:10.280 Greenwood, a bold English reformer who had the audacity to say that no monarch could be the head

00:04:16.340 of the church. That belonged solely to Christ. Greenwood, a leader in the underground congregations,

00:04:23.000 was charged with denying Her Majesty's supremacy and attacking the established order. He was hanged.

00:04:30.300 His death a public spectacle meant to terrify others into submission.

00:04:34.160 It was all part of a broader crackdown by a queen who insisted that spiritual obedience was the state's business.

00:04:42.840 Parliament, backing the queen, passed harsh laws mandating prison time for anybody who dared deny her religious authority.

00:04:51.160 No bail, no mercy, just iron bars for those who would not bow.

00:04:58.120 Surviving this oppressive atmosphere were the separatists.

00:05:01.260 These were a group of everyday farmers and believers from central England who also refused

00:05:06.100 to play along, but they worshipped in secret, knowing full well that their gatherings were

00:05:11.040 treasonous act. Hunted like criminals, they often lost homes and livelihoods and their freedom.

00:05:17.780 These separatists, they were distinct from the larger group of Puritans in England.

00:05:23.740 While Puritans aimed to purify or fix the Church of England from within, staying loyal despite

00:05:29.900 their gripes, the separatists wanted a clean break. No more tainted rituals, no more state

00:05:35.660 control. They dreamed of an independent faith community accountable only to the scripture

00:05:41.000 and to each other. The separatists were not actually called pilgrims in their time. That

00:05:47.440 term didn't become common until the 1820s when a pilgrim society was formed to celebrate the 200th

00:05:53.200 anniversary of the colony's founding. But since they're so much better known today as pilgrims,

00:05:58.360 that's the name we're going to go with.

00:06:04.980 By 1608, the pressure became unbearable.

00:06:09.220 A group of 125 pilgrims made the risky decision to flee for Holland.

00:06:14.560 Now, this was a land known for its religious tolerance.

00:06:17.540 Among them was William Bradford, an 18-year-old orphan,

00:06:21.140 already earning respect for his steady demeanor and deep convictions.

00:06:25.180 In the Dutch town of Leiden, they found relief, no persecution for what they believed.

00:06:32.480 But life as refugees is no paradise.

00:06:35.920 As foreigners, they were barred from the Dutch craft guilds, forcing them into low-paying, back-breaking jobs in the textile industry, weaving, spinning, and dyeing cloth for meager wages.

00:06:47.120 Their standard of living plummeted, and their community struggled to grow.

00:06:52.080 Newcomers from England were rare, 0.99

00:06:54.140 after all who wanted to join the life of endless toil and poverty.

00:06:59.200 William Bradford captured the frustration in his writings, quote,

00:07:02.280 Some preferred and chose the prisons in England

00:07:06.100 rather than this liberty in Holland with these afflictions.

00:07:11.300 It wasn't just economic hardship that gnawed at them.

00:07:15.280 The pilgrims worried about their children.

00:07:17.740 Dutch society, with its bustling ports and cosmopolitan vibe, 1.00

00:07:21.400 expose their youth to what the Pilgrims called licentiousness, loose morals or wild behavior, 1.00

00:07:28.140 and influences that pulled their kids away from their Christian upbringing. 0.95

00:07:32.260 If they stayed, would the next generation forget the boundaries of their faith? 0.99

00:07:37.660 Their Pilgrim identity might dissolve with this foreign nation, 0.99

00:07:41.620 with kids becoming more Dutch than English, more worldly than godly. 1.00

00:07:45.860 Where on earth could such a small church truly be itself? 0.95

00:07:50.180 They needed a place where they could isolate, build, and preserve their way of life without these temptations.

00:07:58.580 This is when opportunity knocked, courtesy of the Virginia Company, 0.90

00:08:03.200 yes, the same enterprise behind the sloppy, chaotic, gold-obsessed Jamestown venture that we visited in Episode 1. 0.95

00:08:10.980 Desperate for colonists to develop their vast land claims,

00:08:14.300 the company granted the Pilgrims attractive land near the mouth of the Hudson River.

00:08:18.400 in present-day New York City.

00:08:20.760 It was on the northern edge of the Virginia Territory,

00:08:24.120 a spot mapped by explorers like Captain John Smith,

00:08:27.440 who had named the region New England

00:08:30.000 after his voyage in 1614.

00:08:33.100 The Pilgrims saw potential.

00:08:34.740 It was a fresh start in the wilderness,

00:08:36.580 far from the European corruptions.

00:08:39.120 Now, to finance the venture,

00:08:40.240 they formed a joint stock company

00:08:42.080 with 70 London businessmen,

00:08:44.480 known as the Merchant Adventurers.

00:08:47.800 These investors covered the cost of the ships and the crew

00:08:50.680 and the year's worth of supplies in hopes of future returns.

00:08:54.740 It was an enormous gamble.

00:08:58.980 The group left Holland for England to rendezvous with their two ships,

00:09:03.300 the Speedwell and the Mayflower.

00:09:05.840 William Bradford, by then 30 years old, recounted their heart-wrenching farewell.

00:09:10.540 So they left that goodly and pleasant city,

00:09:12.980 which had been their resting place near 12 years.

00:09:15.380 but they knew they were pilgrims

00:09:17.980 and looked not much on those things

00:09:20.660 but lift up their eyes to the heavens

00:09:22.440 their dearest country

00:09:24.100 and quieted their spirits.

00:09:27.000 Their journey hit a major snag

00:09:29.000 before it really began.

00:09:30.920 The speed well was a lemon.

00:09:32.800 It leaked. 0.99

00:09:33.860 They set out from England

00:09:34.940 returned to port

00:09:35.960 patched the leaks

00:09:36.960 and tried again

00:09:37.680 only to find more leaks

00:09:39.420 to force them back.

00:09:41.240 Frustrated they abandoned the speed well

00:09:43.420 squeezing everybody into the Mayflower. Finally, on September 6th, 1620, they departed with 102

00:09:52.580 passengers and 37 crew members. 41 of the passengers were pilgrims. The other 61 were

00:10:00.580 hired workers, merchants, and non-believers lured by adventure, pay, or both. There weren't any

00:10:07.260 plush accommodations here. The Mayflower was mainly a cargo vessel, not built for that many passengers.

00:10:13.420 The voyage was grueling.

00:10:17.740 The ship was 100 feet long, 24 feet wide, with four masts.

00:10:22.100 It had an upper deck for the crew, a middle deck for the passengers, and a lower cargo hold for supplies.

00:10:28.300 The middle deck didn't have any windows.

00:10:30.900 The ceiling was barely five feet high.

00:10:33.840 And if that wasn't bad enough, they shared the same space with a shallop.

00:10:38.640 That's a 30-foot sailboat that would be used for exploring the coast once they reached the New World.

00:10:44.400 The total living space for the passengers was 58 by 24 feet.

00:10:51.080 So, the conditions were hellish.

00:10:53.940 Constant rocking induced seasickness, the air reeked of vomit and sweat and human waste.

00:10:59.860 The cold and the damp seeped in.

00:11:02.400 No privacy to speak of.

00:11:03.820 Meals were mostly hardtack biscuits, salted pork or fish, and beer, which was safer to drink than water, and even given to the kids.

00:11:13.600 Malnutrition quickly set in, dehydration worsened, scurvy afflicted them with its bleeding gums and painful joints.

00:11:21.240 But incredibly, a pilgrim named Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth amid the squalor, a boy they named Oceanus.

00:11:29.200 Clever.

00:11:29.520 A month into their journey, a ferocious North Atlantic storm battered the Mayflower.

00:11:36.220 During one especially violent storm, the main beam cracked.

00:11:39.880 That was the ship's structural backbone.

00:11:42.800 The Pilgrims and crewmen had a meeting debating whether to turn back,

00:11:45.980 but then there was a miraculous solution.

00:11:49.360 The Pilgrims had brought along William Bradford's printing press.

00:11:53.220 He was a printer.

00:11:54.680 But this printing press had broken just before the journey,

00:11:57.740 and he was going to leave it behind.

00:12:00.320 He said in prayer, he felt the Lord wanted him to take the printing press.

00:12:05.240 There was no use for it.

00:12:06.620 They all discussed, why?

00:12:08.800 How could you possibly use it?

00:12:10.220 It can't be fixed.

00:12:11.640 He said the Lord told him to put it on the ship.

00:12:14.980 Now he knew why.

00:12:16.920 It contained a large jack screw that was now the exact tool they needed.

00:12:21.900 The crew used that jack screw to raise the beam back into place where it could be secured.

00:12:27.740 So they were able to limp on, averaging less than two miles an hour over the 3,000-mile trip.

00:12:35.760 After 66 days of their excruciating ocean crawl, finally, land.

00:12:43.780 But not the land they were aiming for.

00:12:46.220 Storms had driven them 250 miles north of their target,

00:12:49.840 toward a hook of land that curled up like a beckoning finger.

00:12:54.000 We now know this as Cape Cod.

00:12:57.740 relief mixed with uncertainty they were out of bounds way outside of their legal

00:13:02.060 charter which meant no one technically had the authority to tell anyone else

00:13:05.800 what to do mutters of rebellion stirred among the non-pilgrim on board once

00:13:12.240 they landed they'd fend for themselves answer to nobody do whatever they

00:13:15.800 wanted real lord of the flies kind of stuff which forced an urgent question

00:13:20.520 who governs when there is no official authority they were in the wrong place

00:13:26.680 face, facing an unknown wilderness, and anarchy was brewing. As they anchored, the true test of

00:13:35.160 survival was just beginning, with winter's icy grip waiting to claim its toll. See if this sounds

00:13:42.940 familiar to you. You're going about your day, doing all the things you normally do, and then

00:13:47.180 out of nowhere it hits you, pain. You can actually remember the time when it wasn't there, when you

00:13:51.880 didn't have to think about it, you didn't have to work around it, you didn't have to stop what you

00:13:55.140 were doing all the time because something in your body was deciding, yeah, I'm done for the day.

00:13:59.040 But somewhere along the line, it just showed up and then it just stayed. I lived through that.

00:14:02.920 I got my life back with my hands were in so much pain that I couldn't break it. Relief factor has

00:14:09.140 broken the back of that. I don't have pain in my hands anymore. I didn't think I could paint. I

00:14:13.220 didn't think I could write. And I started taking it because my wife forced me to take it because

00:14:16.860 I didn't think it would work, but it did. Three weeks. She said, just try it for three weeks.

00:14:20.680 like they say. Three weeks. I wasn't doing commercials for Relief Factor because I didn't

00:14:25.020 know the product or whatever. She said, I heard it and you should take it and try it. And I did.

00:14:29.760 Three weeks later, I was feeling better. And I'm like, well, but it's not that. And I stopped

00:14:33.620 taking it and all that pain came rushing back. And I'm like, oh, it is that. ReliefFactor.com,

00:14:37.920 800-4-RELIEF. Try it for three weeks. Listen to my wife. ReliefFactor.com.

00:14:42.160 Since the Pilgrims had landed far from their intended Virginia territory,

00:14:53.260 the settlers faced a crisis of authority.

00:14:55.660 To head off anarchy, on November 21, 1620,

00:14:59.100 41 men gathered in the Mayflower's main deck cabin

00:15:02.480 and drafted the Mayflower Compact.

00:15:06.000 It was a bare-bones agreement affirming loyalty to King James,

00:15:10.080 but forming a civil body politic for self-governance,

00:15:14.040 to pass just and equal laws by majority consent.

00:15:18.700 It was practical and revolutionary,

00:15:22.200 a voluntary agreement among equals rooted in their Christian conviction,

00:15:27.340 setting a precedent for American democracy.

00:15:30.900 No grand constitution, but a pact that bound everybody under mutual rules.

00:15:37.140 Now, the ink would mean nothing if the shore killed them first.

00:15:41.520 They still had to find a place to live.

00:15:43.560 They still had to survive the first winter in a world that didn't know them and didn't know them anything.

00:15:49.660 William Bradford captured the electric moment when they finally stepped ashore at Cape Cod.

00:15:55.180 Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land,

00:15:58.940 they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean

00:16:04.280 and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof,

00:16:08.540 again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.

00:16:14.980 Bradford and the scouting party launched the shallop to explore,

00:16:18.360 searching for a settlement site.

00:16:20.400 They chose a harbor on the mainland, later named Plymouth.

00:16:24.400 It had clearly been the site of some sort of settlement.

00:16:27.360 They even found stashes of dried corn, but it was completely deserted.

00:16:32.640 The story behind the emptiness was chilling.

00:16:36.420 The area had once been home to the Patuxent tribe.

00:16:40.300 They were fierce, fierce warriors, but they were wiped out by a devastating plague,

00:16:44.460 likely smallpox, introduced by the British or French fishermen a few years before the Pilgrims arrived.

00:16:50.940 Well, the epidemic killed up to 95% of the local peoples,

00:16:55.160 leaving villages abandoned and survivors too terrified to return because they feared a supernatural curse.

00:17:01.720 Bradford reflected on how if the Patuxic had survived the settlers might have

00:17:07.960 met a gruesome end. About three years before a French ship was wrecked at Cape

00:17:13.680 Cod but the men got ashore and saved their lives and a large part of their

00:17:18.220 provisions. When the Indians heard of it they surrounded them and never left 0.98

00:17:22.820 watching and dogging them till they got the advantage and killed them. All but 1.00

00:17:27.320 three or four, whom they kept, and sent from one sachem to another, making sport with them and

00:17:33.120 using them worse than slaves. While Bradford was away with the scouting party, his wife Dorothy

00:17:39.980 accidentally fell from the Mayflower and drowned in the freezing water of Provincetown Harbor.

00:17:45.600 She was 23. Was it truly an accident in the icy winds, or was she overcome with despair in this

00:17:52.840 harsh, harsh new world. There has been speculation about suicide through the years, but there's no

00:17:59.020 historic evidence to support that theory. Bradford was silent about the tragedy in his writings, but

00:18:05.540 the loss undoubtedly shattered him. He was now a widower in an unforgiving land.

00:18:13.280 It was the first heartbreak in a flood of tragedy yet to come.

00:18:17.040 as a winter descended the pilgrims disembarked and scrambled to build shelters simple huts with

00:18:27.260 thatched roofs but the harsh new england cold combined with their weakened states unleashed

00:18:33.200 a wave of illness scurvy from vitamin deficiency pneumonia from exposure death came quickly

00:18:41.220 Bradford's account paints a harrowing picture.

00:18:43.740 That which was most sad and lamentable was

00:18:46.460 that in two or three months' time, half of their company died,

00:18:50.780 especially in January and February,

00:18:52.840 being the depth of winter and wanting houses and other comforts,

00:18:56.500 being infected with scurvy and other diseases.

00:18:59.460 There died sometimes two or three of a day.

00:19:03.620 That of one hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained.

00:19:07.840 And of these, in the time of most distress,

00:19:10.800 there was but six or seven persons, who, to their great commendations be it spoken,

00:19:15.940 spared no pain, night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health,

00:19:22.040 fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome

00:19:28.100 clothes, clothed and unclothed them, in a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them,

00:19:35.000 which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named. And all this willingly and cheerfully,

00:19:42.320 without any grudging in the least, showing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren,

00:19:48.300 a rare example and worthy to be remembered. Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster,

00:19:54.440 their revered elder, and Miles Standish, their captain and military commander,

00:19:59.640 unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.

00:20:08.020 Forty-seven of the 102 Mayflower passengers died. Forty-seven, including thirteen of the

00:20:15.760 eighteen pilgrim women. Only three families remained intact. In March 1621, with grief

00:20:23.840 permeating the camp, a glimmer of hope arrived in the form of an unexpected visitor.

00:20:29.640 An Indian strode confidently into their settlement and blew their minds with his greeting in English,

00:20:35.380 saying, Welcome, Englishmen.

00:20:38.220 But about the 16th of March, a certain Indian came boldly amongst them 0.99

00:20:42.320 and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand, but marveled at it.

00:20:48.160 At length they understood by discourse with him that he was not of these parts,

00:20:52.060 but belonged to the eastern parts, where some English ships came to fish,

00:20:55.840 with whom he was acquainted and could name sundry of them by their names amongst whom he had got his

00:21:01.840 language. This was Samoset a native of Maine who had picked up bits of English over the years from

00:21:08.080 British cod fishermen. He explained the devastation of the Patuxic community and how their tribes were 1.00

00:21:14.240 afraid to come near the place where the pilgrims had set up their base camp. He told them also of

00:21:19.000 another Indian whose name was Squanto a native of this place who had been in England and could speak

00:21:24.780 better English than himself. A few days later, Samoset returned with Squanto. The Pilgrims were

00:21:31.720 awestruck by his fluent English, and even more so by his story. In 1614, Captain John Smith,

00:21:39.500 the same John Smith from the Jamestown colony, explored New England's coast and left one of

00:21:45.000 his associates, Thomas Hunt. He was to establish a trading relationship with the Indians in Cape

00:21:51.000 cod. Instead, Hunt eventually kidnapped a group of 24 Indians and sailed for Spain, where he hoped

00:21:57.740 to turn a quick profit by selling them into slavery. Among this group of Indians was a Patuxic 1.00

00:22:03.740 tribe member named Squanto. In Spain, a group of Spanish monks rescued the Indians, treated their

00:22:11.820 wounds, and then tried to teach them Christianity. Somehow, the monks helped Squanto get into England, 0.98

00:22:17.320 where he hoped to hitch a ride back to North America.

00:22:20.260 He lived with a merchant's family for a few years where he learned English.

00:22:24.120 He finally found passage back across the Atlantic,

00:22:26.760 landing six months before the pilgrims arrived.

00:22:30.060 When he reached his home, the village was completely abandoned.

00:22:36.340 Eventually, he learned from all the other local Indians

00:22:38.980 about the devastating illness that wiped out his entire tribe.

00:22:42.980 Squanto became invaluable, serving as a translator and a go-between for the Wampanoag chief

00:22:51.760 Massasoit. The Pilgrims negotiated a treaty with Massasoit, mutual aid against enemies,

00:22:58.500 no harm to one another. The agreement lasted 54 years. It's the only treaty between English

00:23:06.760 colonists and Native Americans to be honored throughout the lives of everyone who signed it.

00:23:12.760 In Squanto, he became a fixture of the Pilgrims' lives.

00:23:16.200 He showed them where to hunt deer, how to catch fish, and identify edible plants.

00:23:20.960 He taught them how to plant corn, using fish for fertilizer.

00:23:25.100 He helped them set up fur trading relationships with various tribes.

00:23:29.040 He was a miraculous godsend for the Pilgrims. 0.97

00:23:32.200 Imagine a guy just shows up who happens to speak fluent English,

00:23:36.560 understands their Christian faith and their British culture,

00:23:39.580 and is able to help them keep peace with the local tribes

00:23:42.920 and teach them essential wilderness survival skills.

00:23:46.840 It's incredible.

00:23:48.320 Bradford wrote,

00:23:49.600 Squanto continued with them and was their interpreter

00:23:52.880 and was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.

00:23:59.080 He directed them how to set their corn,

00:24:01.340 where to take fish and to procure other commodities

00:24:03.960 and was also their pilot to bring them to unknown places for their profit

00:24:08.380 and never left them till he died.

00:24:17.060 A month after the Pilgrims met Squanto,

00:24:20.020 the Mayflower's captain determined it was finally time to set sail for England.

00:24:25.020 The Pilgrims faced a gut-wrenching choice.

00:24:27.900 Return to the safety and comforts of civilization 0.99

00:24:30.520 or stay in this wild unknown

00:24:33.700 where so many of their friends and family members had already died.

00:24:37.200 Remarkably, not a single pilgrim boarded the ship.

00:24:42.980 They were all in on their new home. 0.97

00:24:45.980 By November, a modest harvest inspired a day of Thanksgiving.

00:24:50.760 Bradford invited Massasoit, who showed up with 90 Indians and 5 deer.

00:24:56.440 The feast lasted three days. 0.99

00:24:59.320 Venison, fowl, corn, and games.

00:25:01.820 Not exactly the turkey and pie affair we imagined in elementary school,

00:25:05.360 but it was a major celebration of survival and God's provision.

00:25:11.180 Still, the following year brought more tragedy.

00:25:14.860 During a trade mission with Bradford and other pilgrim men,

00:25:17.840 Squanto suddenly got sick.

00:25:19.840 Here, Squanto fell ill of Indian fever,

00:25:23.220 bleeding much at the nose,

00:25:24.940 which the Indians take for a symptom of death,

00:25:27.800 and within a few days, he died.

00:25:30.960 He begged the governor to pray for him,

00:25:32.860 that he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven.

00:25:35.360 and bequeathed several of his things to some of his English friends as remembrances.

00:25:41.160 His death was a great loss.

00:25:43.620 Despite the blow, the loss of their indispensable guide,

00:25:47.320 the pilgrims slowly learned to stand on their own.

00:25:50.620 In 1623, the widower, William Bradford, married Alice Southworth,

00:25:55.780 herself a young widow with two sons from the pilgrim community in Holland.

00:26:00.460 Bradford's son from his first marriage, John,

00:26:03.080 eventually joined the new family in Plymouth.

00:26:05.360 William and Alice had three more children.

00:26:09.000 And very slowly, very slowly, against all odds, the colony began to grow roots.

00:26:15.520 In 1630, the now Governor Bradford started writing the vital history volume he called of Plymouth Plantation.

00:26:24.600 It was never a perfect colony.

00:26:26.900 There is no such thing.

00:26:27.900 But the Corps held because its substance was their Christian faith and devotion to Scripture.

00:26:35.360 Meanwhile, as the tiny little outposts stabilized, forces beyond their control were brewing back in England.

00:26:43.960 There was a new king, new pressures, and it threatened the spiritual cousins that the pilgrims had left behind.

00:26:51.760 Ships were now being outfitted for Exodus.

00:26:54.920 Plymouth was about to get some new neighbors.

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00:28:49.980 In the 1620s, England's political and religious landscape grew increasingly hostile towards the Puritans.

00:29:00.540 Remember, these were not the full separatists that the Pilgrims were,

00:29:04.500 who had entirely cut ties with the Church of England.

00:29:06.880 The Puritans were the reformers determined to cleanse the Church while staying within the fold.

00:29:13.100 But the tensions escalated after Charles I took the throne in 1625.

00:29:17.160 His policies enforced Anglican ceremonies that pilgrims saw as idolatrous.

00:29:23.100 Ministers were suspended. They were jailed for non-compliance.

00:29:26.580 Congregations faced fines or even worse.

00:29:29.720 Many decided to truly worship freely.

00:29:32.920 Leaving England was their only option.

00:29:35.600 In 1629, a savvy group of Puritans and merchants persuaded King Charles,

00:29:40.940 ironically the very man persecuting them,

00:29:43.520 to grant a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company.

00:29:47.160 claiming land north of Plymouth.

00:29:50.640 Initially viewed as a commercial venture for fur trading and fishing,

00:29:54.620 it transformed under its Puritan directors.

00:29:58.200 They were led by John Winthrop.

00:30:00.460 He was a respected lawyer driven by his deep, deep faith.

00:30:03.720 Winthrop and his allies envisioned the colony as a sanctuary for persecuted Puritans

00:30:08.660 and a model wilderness Zion, a society that would embody godly principles.

00:30:14.160 Their charter had one key loophole.

00:30:19.160 Unlike the Virginia Company, theirs did not require the company's headquarters to be in London.

00:30:24.460 This allowed Puritans to relocate governance to America.

00:30:28.820 Stockholders who were not on board with this plan resigned.

00:30:32.460 Puritans took control and elected John Winthrop as the future colony's governor.

00:30:37.720 At 40 years old, Winthrop became the Moses of this Puritan exodus.

00:30:44.160 In 1630, he led 700 colonists aboard 11 ships, launching the Great Migration, a 16-year wave that brought over 20,000 Puritans to New England.

00:30:57.360 They weren't poor refugees, but often middle-class families with skills and resources who could fund churches, schools, and farms.

00:31:07.460 On the flagship Arabella, Winthrop composed a sermon he titled, A Model for Christian Charity.

00:31:14.160 It outlined their covenant, communal support, humility, and a divine purpose.

00:31:20.960 He famously declared,

00:31:22.320 For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.

00:31:27.760 The eyes of all people are upon us.

00:31:30.920 If we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken,

00:31:35.440 and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us,

00:31:39.000 we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.

00:31:44.160 Crossing the Atlantic was the Puritans' declaration of independence from the Church of England.

00:31:52.000 They planned to create a model society for proper worship, 0.77

00:31:55.920 stripping away Catholic and Anglican rituals,

00:31:58.840 fostering communal faith,

00:32:00.360 and basing laws and government on biblical precepts.

00:32:04.020 In popular culture, Puritans always get a bad rap.

00:32:07.280 They're portrayed as stern, scowling, killjoys, witch hunters, obsessed with sin.

00:32:11.860 And a lot of that is due to the works of somebody like Nathaniel Hawthorne.

00:32:16.620 He wrote a novel in 1850 called The Scarlet Letter, or Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible.

00:32:23.840 These stories amplify Puritan flaws for dramatic effect,

00:32:27.860 and the fictionalized versions that created the stereotype that just stuck.

00:32:32.500 But the reality was much more human.

00:32:35.780 An honest look reveals that Puritans were complex, devout, yes,

00:32:40.280 but not humorless prudes. They drank beer as a staple, they wore colorful clothing, not just

00:32:46.260 black, and they celebrated sex within marriage as a gift from God. They were highly literate,

00:32:52.340 they insisted on education for all, so individuals could read the Bible themselves. In 1636 they

00:32:59.340 founded Harvard University to train ministers, ensuring an educated clergy. Their society drew

00:33:05.580 from the whole Bible to emphasize family, community, and moral discipline. They built a

00:33:12.300 government that, in hindsight, looks like a practice run for the later American institutions.

00:33:18.200 As the English population grew in Massachusetts Bay Colony, power evolved from the original tight

00:33:23.180 circle led by John Winthrop to a broader representative system. Official members of

00:33:28.320 the Puritan churches, called freemen, were allowed to vote. Freemen elected two or three deputies

00:33:34.180 from each town who had to serve as a representative. By 1644, they had a two-house legislature and

00:33:40.780 scripture was always consulted as their standard in making laws. The Puritan experiment largely

00:33:47.880 worked and New England's colonies thrived compared to those in the south. Fewer indentured servants

00:33:54.640 meant less transient labor. There was no planter elite class system, so there was more equality in

00:34:00.420 Puritan society. More women, more intact families fostered stability and population growth.

00:34:07.240 The cooler and healthier climate reduced diseases like malaria that plagued Virginia.

00:34:12.560 The towns were compact, centered around a meeting house, and promoted communal oversight and support.

00:34:23.740 It's really a modern-day cliché that these New England settlers simply landed and started

00:34:28.800 stealing land from the American natives. Reality was much, much different. Yes, conflicts arose,

00:34:35.160 tons of misunderstandings, violence, and atrocities committed by both sides in the fog of

00:34:39.920 culture clashes. Yet the Pilgrims and Puritans frequently negotiated land deals with tribes,

00:34:47.120 agreeing on payments in material goods that the Indians valued. Both parties signed treaties

00:34:53.160 voluntarily, though the concepts of ownership differed and often led to further conflict.

00:34:58.800 Still, many of the transactions were fair by contemporary standards, not outright theft.

00:35:05.600 In the Puritans' relationship with the Indians, it was important for them to share their Christian faith.

00:35:12.440 No one was dedicated more to this outreach than John Elliot.

00:35:15.760 He was a missionary who arrived in 1631, known as the Apostles to the Indians.

00:35:22.260 Eliot immersed himself in the Algonquin culture,

00:35:25.840 learning the language and creating a written form, since none existed.

00:35:30.680 For over a decade, he translated the Bible,

00:35:33.140 publishing the first Indian language edition in 1663.

00:35:37.640 It was the first Bible printed in America.

00:35:42.200 With his missionary partner, Daniel Gookin,

00:35:44.620 he evangelized the Massachusetts Algonquin tribe for over 40 years,

00:35:48.860 and Eliot traveled tirelessly to villages preaching and teaching. By 1674, the so-called

00:35:55.900 praying Indian communities, which were Christian native villages, numbered 3,600 converts. The

00:36:02.860 villages offered education, agriculture, and self-governance, which were often viewed as

00:36:08.100 threats to traditional Indian society. Because their new Christian faith led them to reject

00:36:14.900 certain native customs like ritual torture, polygamy, and shaman practices, the praying

00:36:20.940 Indians sowed seeds of resentment in their original tribes. Tensions started to simmer.

00:36:27.300 John Elliott's work, meant for harmony, unwittingly fueled divisions that would explode into catastrophe.

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00:37:26.940 On the 10th of February, 1676,

00:37:31.740 came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster.

00:37:36.980 Their first coming was about sun rising.

00:37:40.680 Hearing the noise of some guns, we looked out.

00:37:44.320 Several houses were burning, and the smoke ascending to heaven.

00:37:49.220 There were five persons taken in one house.

00:37:53.040 The father and the mother and a suckling child, which the Indians knocked on the head.

00:37:59.080 The other two they took and carried away alive.

00:38:03.340 There were two others who were set upon.

00:38:05.980 One was knocked on the head, the other escaped.

00:38:10.100 Another there was who, running along, was shot and wounded and fell down.

00:38:15.300 He begged of them his life, promising them money.

00:38:19.280 But they would not hearken to him, but knocked him in the head 0.98

00:38:22.800 and stripped him naked and split open his bowels. 0.84

00:38:27.160 At length they came and beset our own house. 0.77

00:38:30.780 They shot against the house so that the bullets seemed to fly like hail

00:38:34.600 and quickly they wounded one man among us, then another.

00:38:39.320 and then a third. Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing

00:38:45.280 in their blood. The house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock

00:38:52.560 us on the head if we stirred out. Then I took my children, and one of my sisters hers, to

00:38:59.740 go forth and leave the house. My brother-in-law being before wounded in defending the house,

00:39:06.600 in or near the throat, fell down dead, whereat the Indians scornfully shouted and hallooed

00:39:14.540 and were presently upon him, stripping off his clothes. The bullets flying thick, one went

00:39:21.580 through my side, and the same as would seem through the bowels and hand of my dear child

00:39:27.720 in my arms. Thus were we butchered by those merciless heathen, standing amazed, with the

00:39:35.780 blood running down to our heels. That is from the written account of Mary Rowlandson, the wife of

00:39:44.320 Puritan minister who lived in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Mary and her three children were

00:39:49.520 taken hostage and held for three months until colonists scraped together enough money to pay

00:39:54.460 the ransom of 20 pounds. Her six-year-old daughter, Sarah, died from a gunshot wound a week into

00:40:01.420 captivity. She was just one of hundreds of victims on both sides of a vicious, bloody conflict known

00:40:08.040 as King Philip's War. In 1621, a treaty between the Pilgrims-led William Bradford and the Wampanoag

00:40:15.160 tribe, led by Massasoit, lasted an amazing 54 years. No other historic treaty with Native 0.52

00:40:21.800 Americans lasted longer than that one. But this piece, like a rope in the saltwater, eventually 0.68

00:40:27.120 frayed, and when it fell apart, it did so in a tragic fashion. Chief Massasoit died in 1661.

00:40:36.360 His firstborn and successor died the following year, so leadership then passed to Massasoit's

00:40:41.240 second son, Medicom, whom the English called King Philip. Medicom looked at the growing villages of

00:40:48.040 Christian Indians, the land deals, and constantly arriving ships, and saw a future that he did not 1.00

00:40:54.300 want. Then, the spark. A praying Indian named John Sassamon, educated bilingual, reported to the 1.00

00:41:03.200 Plymouth colonists that Medicom had planned war. A few days later, Sassamon's body was discovered

00:41:09.200 under the ice of a pond. Plymouth tried and hanged three Wampanoags for the murder.

00:41:15.900 To many natives, the trial felt like English law crossing into their sovereignty.

00:41:20.920 To many colonists, it felt like justice.

00:41:23.580 To Chief Medicon, it was a call to arms. 0.84

00:41:28.480 His alliance of tribes launched attacks designed to erase English towns entirely.

00:41:34.340 Every English settler in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut was to be killed.

00:41:38.820 No exceptions. 0.91

00:41:40.120 The plan was total war.

00:41:43.100 Starting in June 1675 and continuing for a year, raids torched the interior of Massachusetts.

00:41:49.340 entire settlements were destroyed. Many Christian Indians fought with the colonists

00:41:54.300 against Medicon. Others were suspected by both sides, confined or killed. The war was not a

00:42:01.620 simple race line. It was, at its awful core, a collision over Christianity, sovereignty and 0.55

00:42:07.360 survival. Atrocities mounted on both sides, scalps taken, heads on spike, villages burned to the

00:42:14.400 ground. One of the most modern allegations is that King Philip's war was the result of Indians

00:42:21.460 pushing back against the greedy, land-grabbing colonists that Indians were simply trying to

00:42:26.720 regain, territory that was actually rightfully theirs. But Governor Josiah Winslow disagreed.

00:42:33.380 I think I can clearly say that before these present troubles broke out,

00:42:39.160 Many today reject this statement, accusing the colonists of taking an unfair advantage of the Indians,

00:42:57.200 that they gave natives much less than what the land was worth.

00:43:01.040 But this claim is misleading. It's a negotiated deal.

00:43:05.240 Whenever the colonists and Indians negotiated a deal, each side voluntarily agreed to the terms.

00:43:11.720 If they had not, then they wouldn't have signed it. 0.77

00:43:14.760 Values and worldviews certainly clashed.

00:43:18.000 But agreements were mutual.

00:43:23.620 For Medicom's forces, supplies dwindled, disease ravaged the ranks.

00:43:28.760 In August 1676, Medicom was tracked down by the English and Indian allies.

00:43:35.240 A Christian Indian who went by the name of John Alderman, shot him dead.

00:43:41.680 The captain of the militia ordered that because

00:43:44.160 Medicom had left so many European bodies to rot above ground.

00:43:48.360 Quote,

00:43:48.820 Not one of his bones should be buried. 0.88

00:43:53.400 They quartered Medicom's body and sent it to pieces to towns all across New England.

00:43:57.500 His head was posted on a stake and displayed in Plymouth for decades.

00:44:04.060 King Philip's War ravaged New England.

00:44:06.880 The devastation set back English colonization by 30 years.

00:44:10.880 And of the 90 towns in Massachusetts, 12 were completely destroyed, with 40 more badly damaged.

00:44:18.160 8% of adult white males died.

00:44:21.500 Perhaps as many as 3,000 natives were killed.

00:44:24.040 The praying Indian population was cut in half.

00:44:27.080 the war resulted in the highest casualty rate by percentage of total population of any war in American history.

00:44:36.760 William Bradford governed Plymouth until 1656, dying the following year at 68.

00:44:43.640 His descendants include Noah Webster, the dictionary guy, the founder of Kodak, George Eastman,

00:44:49.480 Julia Child, Norman Rockwell, presidents like John Adams, Zachary Taylor, and James Garfield.

00:44:55.140 There are 10 million living Americans

00:44:57.160 descended from these original passengers on the Mayflower.

00:45:01.460 By 1691, Plymouth was absorbed into the much larger Massachusetts Bay Colony.

00:45:07.920 The separatists were no longer separate,

00:45:10.040 but their deep commitment to God, community, self-government,

00:45:13.080 and the rule of law took deep root

00:45:15.180 and blossomed all over the next century in America.

00:45:18.840 It wasn't perfect. It wasn't utopia.

00:45:22.160 But much that is still good and right in the DNA of the United States of America 0.98

00:45:26.480 today can be found and traced right back to that band of religious rebels

00:45:31.100 crammed shoulder to shoulder together in the Mayflower.

00:45:35.340 William Bradford, looking back, wrote the line that feels like a benediction.

00:45:39.960 Thus, out of small beginnings, greater things have been produced by his hand,

00:45:45.080 that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are.

00:45:49.160 And, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation.

00:45:59.560 Let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.

00:46:04.200 In 1835, descendants erected an obelisk to mark Bradford's gravesite and burial hill in Plymouth.

00:46:12.140 Chiseled into the stone is a wise warning written in Latin, which translates, quote,

00:46:17.080 What our fathers with so much difficulty attained do not basely relinquish.

00:46:24.920 More dark times lay ahead for those colonies, but so did, by God's grace, revival.

00:46:35.380 Coming up on the American story, The Beginnings.

00:46:39.880 Then something goes wrong.

00:46:43.280 Horribly, horribly wrong.

00:46:45.080 The girls begin barking like dogs.

00:46:48.400 They shriek without warning, speaking strange, unintelligible words.

00:46:53.020 They clutch their heads in agony, convulsing, writhing on the floor,

00:46:56.840 and curl themselves under the furniture as though trying to escape invisible claws.

00:47:02.720 The town doctor, William Griggs, is quickly summoned.

00:47:06.360 He examines them, his face growing more and more pale.

00:47:09.840 He can't detect the obvious physical cause, and so he provides the only diagnosis a Puritan village would accept in New England in the late 1600s.

00:47:20.140 The girls have been bewitched.

00:47:30.080 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.

00:47:39.840 We'll be right back.

The Glenn Beck Program - April 18, 2026

City on a Hill： The Misunderstood Legacy of Pilgrims and Puritans ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 2

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