Courtney Tyson

Letter to My Love

My deareat Feifa,

            I hope that this letter finds you in good spirits. I miss you more than you could ever imagine. Life here in the newly formed populations found in what they call “the New World” on Earth is pretty darn depressing and very different from what I am used to. The hardships have left me in a state that craves your arms around me to remind me of the equality we share in Ishido. Let me describe a bit of what I have witnessed during my stay so you can see how good you have it there at home.

            The area that I have been sent to observe and document is an area that has been recently taken over by a population that previously occupied territory across a vast sea for hundreds of years before moving here. The main reason that I can find for the migration was that a part of the population held different ideas, mainly regarding their choices surrounding how to worship their creator, than those who held the power in the old land. This portion of the population desired freedom to practice their devotions however they chose so they sought out new territory where they could escape the persecution they had been facing. One person who described this in their writings was William Bradford who was born and raised across the sea in a land called England. William Bradford was drawn to the idea that the Church of England (the organization that controlled the methods of creator worship) required reformation before he was even twenty years old.  In the early 17^th century, this was a very dangerous movement in the eyes of the ruler of England, James I. Because of their reformative and separatist views, churches like the one that Bradford belonged to were subjected to many forms of persecution. In History of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford describes the treatment his church members suffered from; “For some were taken and clapt up in prison, others had their houses beset and watcht night and day, and hardly escaped their hands; and ye most were faine to flie and leave their howses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood” (9).

            Back home on Ishido it may seem to be an easy conclusion that since these lifeforms travelled to a new land to escape persecution due to their differences that the new society that they would form would be free from the same type of persecution. However, these “humans” as they fancy themselves, seem to think completely opposite to us. The new communities they formed copied some of the same methods of intolerance with a different set of beliefs held by those in charge. One of the main differences between groups of these people was the difference between who was called a “Pilgrim” versus who was called a “Puritan”. The difference between the two is described by one historian Richard Howland Maxwell; “the Pilgrims at Plymouth were Seperatists; the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay were not” (Maxwell). Basically, the Pilgrims no longer desired to be under the control of the Church of England and wanted to be completely separate from them where the Puritans thought they could remain part of the official Church as long as they were allowed to reform some aspects of worship. This divide caused many problems between the two largest communities. There were also many others who couldn’t freely express their ideas because they didn’t subscribe to Puritan nor Pilgrim beliefs. Even though the men in charge of these two main factions were largely intolerant of any idea that wasn’t their own, there were men who spoke out against such persecution. One of these men was Roger Williams. In his book, The Bloudy Tenant of Persecution he spoke out against using the power of the government to force individuals into accepting Christian beliefs; “God requireth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war (Wiliams). For awhile Williams’ outspoken criticism was somewhat tolerated, however it eventually led him to be banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

            The restriction of acceptable ideas was not limited to only religious ideas. The same foundation of intolerance was cast upon the female sex and regulated them to specific subservient roles. The poet Anne Bradstreet expressed the limitations that were placed upon women during the time in her poem “The Prologue”. “Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are/ Men have precedency and still excel, . . . Men can do best, and women know it well./ Preeminence in all and each is yours; / Ye grant some small acknowledgement of ours” (7, 37-42).  Mrs. Bradstreet had a clever way of getting her point across without seeming as obvious to catch the attention of the males she was criticizing. When she writes of the achievements of men and how women can barely hope to live up to them, it seems she has almost a mocking tone. Fellow scholar, Daniel Schwab also comments on Bradstreet; “They cannot see the sweet consort of her poetry because they already have an idea in their minds of what she can and cannot do. No matter what she writes, she cannot change their idea of her. Lastly, she shows that men see women as having a defect” (Schwab).

            Feifa, I know that what I have presented to you makes this place seem, awfully unjust. However, I have travelled into the future and reviewed some historians’ reviews of this time. One that stuck out for me and gave me hope that these people could create a society based on their original ideals was written by Mark Brewer and James Warhola; “although the religious and civil leadership of seventeenth-century New England was incredibly intolerant of faiths other than its own and were quick to use to coercive power of the state in the cause of this intolerance, these same leaders exhibited certain progressive strains of thought that would eventually prove crucial to the formation of a free society, with strong protections of individual civil liberties, religious liberties foremost among them” (Brewer 689).

            I hope to return home to Ishido soon and welcome your warm embrace. As soon as I’m there I will give you all the praise and flattery for your intelligent accomplishments that you deserve. I don’t suggest that we make a family vacation to New England during this time but it seems that it could be a nice place to visit in a couple of hundred years if they can get their act together.

Forever Yours,

Guyute