William Bradford writes about the Plymouth Plantation, a community of people whose high hopes and faith in God began to falter as life got harder and harder in their new home. Fall turned into winter. Food surplus turned into food shortage. Life became fragile and everyone had to adjust to this new home with the primary motivator being survival, not community.
Starting out, this society wanted to be equal. The Governor "...assigned to every family member a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number" (Bradford 132). This makes sense because then everyone gets the same amount of land, no matter what position of power they have.
Then equality for all started to do more harm than good. Bradford explains that strong men "...had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice" (133). Women were also subject to this kind of injustice. They would "...be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes., they deemed it a kind of slavery" (Bradford 134). Equality became defined not as everyone getting or giving the same amount of something, but everyone getting what they need and giving what they were able.
It became every man and woman for themselves, trying to survive. Although community was still an important part of life, basic needs and faith in God were more prevalent.
Karin,
ReplyDeleteThe interaction of equality and freedom (or other goods) is built into our culture. you might fidn the quotation in this post (http://deanesamericanconversation.blogspot.com/2010/08/words-or-music-of-revolution.html) useful for the line of thought you are pursuing here.
LDL