Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
December 2022
Model Ship “Mayflower”, 1963/65
Historical Context
It is December 1620, and winter is raging with all its might over sea and land along the coast of New England, in the northeast of present-day USA. In Plymouth Bay, in what will later become the state of Massachusetts, there lies a solitary ship with 102 passengers and 30 sailors on board, who have left their home in England in hopes of a new life. The ship is named Mayflower, and the passengers aboard will go down in the annals of US history as Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers.
The core group of settlers, led by William Bradford, belongs to the Puritan faith. The Puritans are a departure from the Anglican Church, seeking to break away further from what they perceive as the decadent and un-Christian norms and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church to practice a form of early Christianity. In the early 17th century, King James I adopts a more liberal attitude toward religious minorities than his predecessor Elizabeth I, but the Puritans’ strict rejection of state and secular authority leads them to face persecution and discrimination. The decision to leave England is firm, and many hundreds of Puritans seek asylum in the Netherlands.
The group of later Mayflower passengers initially flees to Amsterdam in 1608, before settling in Leiden shortly thereafter. The group continues to grow, but some members fear that they will lose their Puritan identity in the Netherlands. Some decide to undertake the arduous Atlantic crossing to establish a colony in North America, where they can practice their religious values. By this time, the East Coast of North America has already been mapped, and individual colonies such as the Jamestown founded in 1607 exist.
After several complications, the Mayflower departs from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620. On board are 102 passengers who divide into groups of Saints, the community of Puritans, and Strangers, merchants and craftsmen from England and the Netherlands. The crossing lasts 66 days, with bad weather, inadequate supplies, and illness making the journey a torment for all involved. Five passengers do not survive the Atlantic crossing on the Mayflower. In November 1620, they reach North America but miss Virginia and initially anchor off Cape Cod. Since the newly minted settlers do not have a patent for claiming land in the area, 41 passengers sign the Mayflower Compact on November 21, 1620; with this unofficial document, the group seeks to secure their legal position and strengthen their unity.
After the exploration of the Hudson River, in the area of present-day New York, is thwarted by winter storms, a decision is made to go ashore at present-day Plymouth/Massachusetts. There, the exhausted settlers find abandoned villages where they can stock up their supplies. The Native Americans of the Patuxet, a group of the Wampanoag, have been residing in the area long before the Europeans arrived. However, their numbers were drastically reduced due to the Great Dying. Tens of thousands of Native Americans died from previously unknown diseases brought by the settlers, such as leptospirosis, yellow fever, smallpox, and the plague. Some of the Puritan passengers of the Mayflower interpret this tragedy as divine intervention, as there is available infrastructure to utilize, and they are not faced with organized opposition.
Forty-five of the new settlers do not survive the first winter in the Plymouth Colony. A Native American of the Patuxet-Wampanoag named Tisquantum (William Bradford referred to him as Squanto) makes contact with the colony and shares his knowledge of fishing, hunting, and farming with them.
Tisquantum acts as a mediator between the colonists and the Patuxet-Wampanoag. He learned English after he and 26 other men were kidnapped by the English merchant Thomas Hunt in 1614 and taken to Europe. Through England, Spain, and Newfoundland, Tisquantum eventually returns to North America, where he finds that the Wampanoag are weakened by disease and threatened by rival indigenous groups. A partnership with the new settlers therefore seems fruitful, as it grants access to military support.
In the autumn of 1621, the settlers celebrate their first survived year and the first harvest. The custom of Thanksgiving has made its way from the Netherlands across the Atlantic. 90 Native Americans from the Wampanoag tribe, along with their leader Massasoit, also attend the celebration. The myth of the first Thanksgiving between settlers and Native Americans is born.
However, the peace between the parties is fragile; over the years, the colony continues to grow, and new ships with settlers reach the land. More and more lands are claimed, and the indigenous population of Native Americans is gradually displaced.
With the outbreak of King Philip’s War in June 1675, the unequal alliance ends and leads to a bloody conflict between the descendants of the Mayflower passengers and several groups of Native Americans.
Short biography
Heike Schwarzwälder, wife of Bremen city and local researcher Harry Schwarzwälder (1929-2019), has entrusted this detailed replica of the Mayflower to the German Emigration Center. Harry Schwarzwälder and his brother Herbert Schwarzwälder have contributed significantly to the history of Bremen and its surroundings. Harry Schwarzwälder worked in the Office for Road and Bridge Construction and also dedicated his time as a historian and ‘Chronicler of Bremen’s History’ to Bremen’s infrastructure. He received the Bremen Prize for local research several times and in 2014 the award for his lifetime achievement from the Scientific Society of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. He published various articles on regional history in the Bremen Yearbook.
Harry Schwarzwälder not only demonstrates his talent for model building with a scale model of the Jan-Reiners railway, but also with this impressive model of the Mayflower, which is entirely crafted by hand. Heike Schwarzwälder recalls how her then-fiancé hand-stitched and embroidered the sails for the already completed ship’s hull while they sat together by the Weser River. The entire model was created piece by piece between 1963 and 1965.
Significance of the object
Models of historical buildings, vehicles, or locations give us an impression of what life might have looked like in the past. With the help of blueprints, drawings, photographs, and textual descriptions, detailed replicas of the past can be brought into the present. This makes it possible not only for museums but also for enthusiastic model builders to make a piece of history tangible.
The models represent an interpretation of the original and contain various stories and messages. The fascination with the model has very individual roots. The history of the Mayflower was rediscovered in England, for example, only in the Victorian 19th century and marketed as an adventure and love story. In American historiography, the Mayflower and the myth of the Pilgrim Fathers are considered cornerstones of the entire nation, as the ancestors of all Americans are depicted as facing numerous dangers. However, even the reference to the Mayflower myth is a relatively recent phenomenon. For instance, the 34th President of the USA, Dwight D. Eisenhower, explicitly thanked the Pilgrim Fathers in his Thanksgiving Day speech in 1956 as founders of the nation. He made this statement at a time when the USA had to come together as a society after World War II, and the story of the Mayflower includes narratives of unity, overcoming difficult times, and faith in democracy. In today’s context, the Mayflower also represents a Eurocentric history of colonialism, where the perspective of Native Americans is largely ignored. Both interpretations are understandable from their respective viewpoints and contexts. A look into the past allows for many different readings and is always influenced by the socio-cultural and political situation. What remains is the model as a canvas for an active, fluid historiography.
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de