A shared national story is crucial for societal unity. However, America’s traditional narrative, centered on the arrival of English Protestants to an uninhabited land destined for their control, is facing growing criticism. Critics point out that this story excludes the experiences of Native Americans and downplays the brutality of colonization.

In reality, the Mayflower settlers were neither saints nor demons but ordinary people. Some of them were Puritan Protestants seeking religious freedom; others were adventurers seeking their fortune in a new land.

The Puritans established a tradition of self-rule

Prior to landing at the coast of Massachusetts in 1620, the passengers of the Mayflower established a system of governance to ensure order. The resulting Mayflower Compact sought to control the more unruly elements by bringing them into a framework of orderly, yet democratic, rule. It established a foundation for creating laws and electing leaders from among the community. The compact became a cornerstone of American political thought and was a forerunner to the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. It sought to bring about law and order while also encapsulating a tradition of questioning authority and valuing individual rights.

Former CIA officer and frequent Fair Observer contributor Glenn Carle is a descendant of the Mayflower settlers. His ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, was one of the “adventurers” whom the Puritans viewed with suspicion. He had a history of challenging authority: After a previous voyage shipwrecked on then-uninhabited Bermuda, Hopkins attempted to foment a mutiny. (According to some theories, this incident may have influenced William Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.) Hopkins’ presence was probably one of the main motivations behind the formation of the compact to control the settlers.

America’s violent history stretches back to the Puritans

As progressive and individualistic a document as the compact may have been at the time, however, it was still highly exclusive. It valued the essential equality of a king and a peasant, but only a white, Christian peasant. Native Americans were considered savages, beyond the pale of civilization and not members of the community that democracy was meant to embrace.

At times, the Puritans carried out wars of extermination against the Native Americans. In one example, the Puritans felt their position precarious and threatened by the neighboring Pequot tribe, so they slaughtered the Pequots nearly to a man.

This mixture of Christian idealism and egalitarianism with a capacity for racial exclusion and extreme violence would come to shape the American political way for centuries to come. Even today, Americans who trace their descent to southern and eastern Europe, Asia and Africa are inheritors of this tradition, whether or not they share the Protestant religion or count the Puritans as their ancestors.

The Puritans’ story, with its complexities and contradictions, continues to resonate in the American consciousness. It shapes the nation’s identity and values, its commitment to individual liberty and the ongoing need to confront the darker chapters of its past.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]