The Wordy Shipmates

A congregation of English Puritan soon-to-be emigrants listens to the famous Reverend John Cotton deliver a “farewell sermon” in 1630 before they set sail on the Arbella and trailing vessels for New England. This moment is the first in a long line of expansionist ideology that starts with these British colonists and persists through American history. These early 17th century historical actors were “watering the seeds of American exceptionalism” that equated certain groups of people occupying the North American continent with God’s chosen people (6).

Vowell explains the immediate context for the Puritan voyage. In the early 1500s, the Protestant Reformation fractured once-Catholic Europe. However, in England, the early reformation was not thorough: Henry VIII “rebelled and established himself as the head of the Church of England in 1534” (6), but aside from a split with the Catholic Pope, the Church of England mirrored the Catholic Church quite closely. This continuity led to dissent within England from people wishing to fundamentally reform the Church. The debates about “how Protestant to become or how Catholic to remain” continued for nearly a century before emigrants left to start colonies across the Atlantic.