PallasRiot on Nostr: The Puritan colonists that arrived to establish the colony of Massachusetts Bay were ...
The Puritan colonists that arrived to establish the colony of Massachusetts Bay were many things. Religious fanatics, castaways from political losses in England, aspiring merchants, even some mercenaries were among them, and more. But among those Puritan fanatics dwelt perhaps the last sparks of radical Digger egalitarianism. The Diggers and Levelers were movements that sought to establish suffrage for non-landowning men and political rights for the poor in England, they challenged the authority of nobility and aristocracy and took an at-that-time radical approach, including occupying land belonging to the nobility and holding public meetings in which all people had a say regardless of social status. The New Model Army that successfully overthrew the English monarchy was heavily influenced by the radical Puritans and fought to expand the powers of Parliament. Ultimately the monarchy returned, and those who were seen to align with the rebellion were marginalized.
So these Puritan colonists ultimately decided to venture to the shores of the New World and arrived on the Dawnland, where several nations of Algonquian people dwelt along the area that would become New England. With the last flame of Digger radicalism, these early Puritans established systems of town meetings where class didn't determine one's right to participate, they established town councils with a great degree of political autonomy from governing authorities, and they made compact with the non-Puritans that had arrived with them to establish systems of laws and cooperation that promoted the general welfare. New England's open town meetings and strong town councils remain a feature of regional politics to this day, and the bones of radical Puritan egalitarianism can still be glimpsed in the United States Constitution.
This Puritan radicalism was woefully insufficient however. It excluded women, it promoted slavery and genocide, it inevitably led to religious conflicts, and ultimately it was unable to stymie the inequities of the birth of young capitalism. The Puritan radicals were replaced by merchant-princes who sent the poor and undesirable to die in genocidal wars against the Wampanoag nation, and more nations beside over time. The egalitarianism of the meeting house of the independent town councils wasn't able to stop rich men from making sure their sons didn't go to war, it couldn't stop the insanity of the witch trials and other spasms of religious violence, it couldn't prevent the rapacious greed of the slave trade as New English people first enslaved their indigenous victims and then eventually joining the African slave trade.
None the less, these early colonists who are mythologized as the forebears of the United States were not simply Christian extremists, they were not rugged individualist capitalists, they were not arch-conservative models of that American mythology. They were in many ways radical revolutionaries, who failed in many ways because they failed to extend the franchise of their radicalism universally. If there are lessons we might learn from these people, it might be that Democracy can't survive unless it is radically pluralistic, that egalitarianism is bound to falter if it does not extend to the horizon, and that the contradictions of your society can eat away at your highest ideals. And yet also that what works you do can far outlast you, so that maybe hundreds of years after you there are still people holding radical Puritan open town meetings.
So these Puritan colonists ultimately decided to venture to the shores of the New World and arrived on the Dawnland, where several nations of Algonquian people dwelt along the area that would become New England. With the last flame of Digger radicalism, these early Puritans established systems of town meetings where class didn't determine one's right to participate, they established town councils with a great degree of political autonomy from governing authorities, and they made compact with the non-Puritans that had arrived with them to establish systems of laws and cooperation that promoted the general welfare. New England's open town meetings and strong town councils remain a feature of regional politics to this day, and the bones of radical Puritan egalitarianism can still be glimpsed in the United States Constitution.
This Puritan radicalism was woefully insufficient however. It excluded women, it promoted slavery and genocide, it inevitably led to religious conflicts, and ultimately it was unable to stymie the inequities of the birth of young capitalism. The Puritan radicals were replaced by merchant-princes who sent the poor and undesirable to die in genocidal wars against the Wampanoag nation, and more nations beside over time. The egalitarianism of the meeting house of the independent town councils wasn't able to stop rich men from making sure their sons didn't go to war, it couldn't stop the insanity of the witch trials and other spasms of religious violence, it couldn't prevent the rapacious greed of the slave trade as New English people first enslaved their indigenous victims and then eventually joining the African slave trade.
None the less, these early colonists who are mythologized as the forebears of the United States were not simply Christian extremists, they were not rugged individualist capitalists, they were not arch-conservative models of that American mythology. They were in many ways radical revolutionaries, who failed in many ways because they failed to extend the franchise of their radicalism universally. If there are lessons we might learn from these people, it might be that Democracy can't survive unless it is radically pluralistic, that egalitarianism is bound to falter if it does not extend to the horizon, and that the contradictions of your society can eat away at your highest ideals. And yet also that what works you do can far outlast you, so that maybe hundreds of years after you there are still people holding radical Puritan open town meetings.