Paperback Jukebox : The Wordy Shipmates

Crystal Smith

In preparation for another season of tofurky and family, I decided it would be fun to read up on my Puritan history. After all, you never know when interesting Pilgrim-and-Indian facts can help you start small talk with your great uncle or a distant cousin. And after hearing Sarah Vowell’s commentary on Thanksgiving-themed sitcoms on This American Life, I knew I could count on her to deliver a fun and fascinating history lesson in The Wordy Shipmates.

I expected the book to be an entertaining commentary on the life of these colonists, detailing the gross things they ate and funny words they used. After all, the New York Times calls Vowell’s writing neither high brow nor low brow, but “pierced-brow history, with TV and pop music references” scattered throughout. But as I read, Vowell did more than convey her wittiness. She brought the colonists to life, and I realized that there was so much more to the Puritans’ story than what I’d learned in school.

First of all, Vowell focuses on the “Puritans who fell between the cracks of 1620 Plymouth and 1692 Salem.” I was surprised to learn that I’d so easily overlooked these seventy years of American history my entire life. But my own experience was much like Vowell’s, who explains it so well saying, “I read the Crucible in eleventh grade and participated in elementary school Thanksgiving pageants in which children wearing construction-paper Pilgrim hats linked arms with others wearing Indian costumes and sang ‘God Bless America’ and ‘This land was made for you and me.’”

So, after years of misinformation, Vowell did her research. She traveled to Boston in wintertime to hunt for plaques buried underneath the snow, she vacationed in Plymouth, and she poured over the sermons, correspondence, and journals of men like John Winthrop, the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Roger Williams, the co-founder of Rhode Island.
One may ask why Sarah Vowell, an atheist, would chose to study the sermons and journals of Puritans. She explains, “…in the weeks after two planes crashed into two skyscrapers here on the worst day of our lives, I found comfort in the words of Winthrop. When we were mourning together, when we were suffering together, I often thought of what he said and finally understood what he meant.”

The words to which Vowell refers were pulled from a document that has influenced American culture for hundreds of years.  John Winthrop wrote and delivered “A Model of Christian Charity” as a sermon to his people on their journey to America; and in it, he encourages the Puritans to mourn, suffer, labor, and rejoice together. He also quotes the Bible, admonishing them to be “a city on a hill” when they arrive. Little did he know that the ‘city on a hill’ bite would build the foundation on which the American Dream stands.

 

Case and point: I recently watched a montage of news reporters declare that America is the best nation in the world (with a glimmer in their eyes) on The Daily Show. And throughout history, numerous presidents have referenced Winthrop’s ‘city on a hill’ speech. Reagan added the adjective ‘shining,’ while Kennedy elaborated with, “Today the eyes of all people are upon us.” Vowell quips that “he does not mention that the whole world is staring in America’s direction because we have a lot of giant scary bombs, but I am guessing that is partly what he meant.”
Yes, just as we have our bombs and American pride today, Winthrop had his shortcomings, too. He may have had the best of intentions while making his inspirational plea to the Puritans; but those darn Indians and religious fanatics kept getting in the way.  And when they did, Winthrop’s Christian charity took a back seat to the pride he felt for his city on a hill. He wiped out an entire tribe during the Pequot War, cut off an unruly Puritan’s ears, and banished two other religious fanatics from his colony.

But Vowell does emphasize that not all Puritans were staunch and prideful. Some read further into their Bibles to find that, in the same breath where Jesus coined the phrase ‘city on a hill,’ he also uttered the words, ”Love your enemies.” And so Roger Williams, one of those banished fanatics who believed in religious freedom and radical love, founded Rhode Island as a haven for Baptists, Jews, and the rest of us.

Vowell continues to paint a fascinating tale in the remainder of Shipmates. And even though many of her discoveries about our American heritage were disillusive, some gave me hope. Her balance of history, insight, and wit challenged me to take a closer look at the past, whenever possible. So, while I may keep the details of Winthrop’s ear-cutting punishment to myself during this Thanksgiving, I now see my freedoms from this city on a hill in a new light.

 

 
Crystal Smith lives in Monroeville where her latest pilgrimage was in search of salted caramel hot chocolate. She has published articles in Maniac Magazine and Pop Damage, and is currently participating in National Novel Writing Month.