PROVINCETOWN——
Its Town Seal Reads,
“Birthplace of American Liberty”
Millions of Americans do not know the complete story of the founding of our nation. Many history books and most orators fail to begin at the beginning when the pioneering of the Pilgrim Fathers is related. Plymouth Rock is the accepted symbol and the starting point. The important, earlier events on Cape Cod are passed up, particularly the contribution the Pilgrim Fathers made to our form of free government during their Cape Cod stay, before sailing across the bay to establish their settlement at Plymouth.
If you began at the beginning of the Pilgrims’ story on this continent, you would find that the Mayflower did not sail direct to Plymouth, as is the common impression. She first put in at the outer end of Cape Cod on Nov. 11, 1620, (O. S.), after a violent, 63-day voyage from Holland, and it was on the sands of what is now Provincetown that her weary passengers first set foot on American soil. Here they found haven for a full month, here they signed the historic Mayflower Compact, establishing their system of self-government. They began their reconnoitering, found their first drinking water, their first corn and had their first encounter with the Indians on Cape Cod.
HOW OUR FREEDOM BEGAN
But, all this is not to deny Plymouth her fame, even though the town seal of Provincetown does bear the words, “Birthplace of American Liberty.” That claim has been a bone of contention for a long time. And, when a Massachusetts State official was asked some years ago why the Provincetown phase in the story of the founding of the nation had received so little attention, he could only suggest, “Perhaps it happened that way because Plymouth was 300 years ahead of Provincetown in her advertising.”
Actually, however, the signing of the Mayflower Compact was not the first step taken to establish free Government in the New World. Our democratic government was first introduced at Jamestown Colony the year previous to the Pilgrims’ arrival on Cape Cod. There, on June 30, 1619, America’s first legislative body convened.
John Quincy Adams said of the Mayflower Compact: “This is perhaps the only instance in human history, of that positive, original social concept, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government.”
In Mourt’s Relation there is Governor Bradford’s simple, though picturesque description of Provincetown Harbor and ancient Cape Cod as the Pilgrims discovered the scene:
WHAT THE PILGRIMS FOUND
“It is a good harbor and pleasant bay, circled round, except in the entrance, which is about four miles from land to land, compassed to the very sea, with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ship may safely ride. There we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people while our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation; there was the greatest store of fowl that we ever saw. And every day we saw whales playing hard by us, of which, in that place, if we had instruments, and means to take them we might have made a very rich return, which to our great grief, we wanted. Our master and his mate, and others experienced in fishing, professed that we might have made three or four thousand pounds worth of oil; they preferred it before Greenland whale fishing and purposed the next Winter to fish for whale here.”
The first of the exploring Pilgrims “were forced to wade a bow-shoot or two in going aland, which caused many to get colds and coughs, for it was many times freezing cold weather.” Much sickness developed in the first harsh Winter and some deaths occurred later in Plymouth.
WILL ROGERS ON THE PILGRIMS
Some years ago Plymouth and Provincetown engaged in a harmless tiff over the rightful ownership of the title, “Birthplace of American Liberty.” The late Will Rogers, cowboy humorist, who was of Indian descent, was drawn into the controversy via the radio. Said Will:
“What makes my Cherokee blood boil is that the Pilgrims were allowed to land anywhere. As a race the Pilgrims could never be compared with the Indians. I’m sure that it was only through the extreme generosity of my ancestors that the Pilgrims were allowed to land at all.
“Anyhow, Provincetown says the Pilgrims found some corn buried there, and that this saved them from starving to death. Then they shot the Indians. That was because they had not stored any more corn.
“Next they prayed. You know one thing the Pilgrims always did was to pray, but you never saw a picture of a Pilgrim who didn’t have a gun beside him. That was to see that he got what he was praying for!”