JOHN YANG: Next, economics correspondent Paul
Solman looks at the people around the original
Thanksgiving dinner table, the Pilgrims.
A lot of us were taught in grade school that
religious freedom was the main reason the
Pilgrims came to America, but real economic
pressures were a key factor, too.
It's an encore presentation of our weekly
series Making Sense, which airs Thursdays
on the "NewsHour."
PAUL SOLMAN: Thanksgiving time at Plimoth
Plantation, a 17th century living history
museum in Massachusetts.
The year?
1624, when, as the story goes:
A hundred people landed on a bare and windy
shore, seeking freedom from the English church.
For this, they were ready to confront the
grim and grisly face of poverty.
MAN: In the beginning, God created the heaven
and the earth.
PAUL SOLMAN: We've long celebrated the religious
drive to build a city on a hill for strangers
in a strange land.
But it turns out that our pilgrims faced poverty
at least as grim and grisly back in Holland,
from whence they had fled 16 years earlier
to separate from the Church of England.
Patience Prence was among those who came to
Plymouth, as played by one of the plantations
reenactors.
PATIENCE PRENCE, Plymouth Colonist, Played
by Grace Bello: We live a humble life, but
we work for ourselves.
In Holland, we could put food on our tables,
but, it was a very hard labor.
PAUL SOLMAN: Meanwhile, America was literally,
to them, a new world.
GOV.
WILLIAM BRADFORD, Plymouth Colonist, Played
by Doug Blake: We will be able to turn a good
profit so that it benefits everyone.
PAUL SOLMAN: The plantation's governor and
chronicler, William Bradford.
WILLIAM BRADFORD: It might be a place where
profit and religion can jump together.
There is no shame in doing well, for one must
still exist in this world and thus be comfortable.
PAUL SOLMAN: Stephen Hopkins was a merchant
colonist.
Will you become rich, do you think?
STEPHEN HOPKINS, Colonist and investor, Plymouth,
Played by Scott Atwood: Well, imagine all
men entertain the idea of it, but -- well,
that really shall be not up to me.
It is hoped that we'll at least prosper.
PAUL SOLMAN: Most of the pilgrims had been
farmers in England, but made their living
in the cloth trade in Holland.
When the wool market crashed, these folks
were desperate to emigrate.
RICHARD PICKERING, Deputy Executive Director,
Plimouth: They were living in deep privation
and it was a way of escaping poverty.
PAUL SOLMAN: Plymouth historian Richard Pickering.
So was the main motivation really, what we
would now call economic?
RICHARD PICKERING: There is a religious motivation
in the desire to protect the church.
But those that were living in Holland were
safe, so that they could have remained and
worshiped as they wanted, but it is an economic
motivation to better the lives of their children
and grow the number of church members.
PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, the Pilgrims
were very much economic immigrants, like so
many who've come to America since.
But if so poor, how could they afford an ocean
passage, with provisions, to America?
The answer is seventy-some-odd investors,
known as "merchant adventurers".
Through the magic of video teleportation,
Pickering took us to visit one, supposedly
at his home outside London.
LONDON MERCHANT, Played by John Kemp: Do come
in sir, let me show you here, we've some fine
peltry, furs just back from New England.
PAUL SOLMAN: Full disclosure: We were still
in reconstructed Plymouth, but houses there
looked just like those in suburban England.
What's the main way in which you're hoping
to make a profit here?
LONDON MERCHANT: Well, close at hand, sir.
Here, looky well, fine beaver pelt, just brung
back.
And, our report is that they expect more and
more of such things.
PAUL SOLMAN: Why furs?
Do people wear fur coats here in London?
LONDON MERCHANT: Oh no, sir.
It's the hats, the beaver hats.
All good people now wear beaver hats.
You may remember that famous Indian princess
that come from Virginia, that some would call
Pocahontas; though in England, generally,
she was called Rebecca.
And, she had her portrait, I'm told, in a
fine beaver.
PAUL SOLMAN: The tradable goods of America
were the three F's -- fur, fish and forests
-- which provided wood like pine for an increasingly
clear-cut England.
LONDON MERCHANT: In England, there's hardly
a pine till you get up to Scotland!
PAUL SOLMAN: But to get the goods, you had
to get to America.
And survive.
So, investors in London bankrolled the venture,
by purchasing shares in a stock company, as
with similar ventures in Virginia, Bermuda
and elsewhere.
Ten pounds for a single share, roughly six
months' worth of an ordinary worker's wages,
$15,000 to $20,000 today, maybe.
One merchant may have invested as much as
several hundred thousand in current dollars.
Each colonist over age 16 got one share just
for emigrating, working the territory, and
making a profit for the investors.
STEPHEN HOPKINS: Initially, it was agreed
that for seven years' time, we would ship
raw materials back to them to be sold.
PAUL SOLMAN: Merchant colonist Stephen Hopkins.
STEPHEN HOPKINS: They would send trade goods
onto us annually and with a promise, or hope,
that there would be a dividend at the end
of the seventh year.
The dividend, the profit that comes in silver
and gold shall go to the founders, the financers.
PAUL SOLMAN: Once those "financers" were paid
back, the colonists would get the deed to
the land, initially given by the king to the
investors, and all future profits would be
theirs.
So, this is a capitalist enterprise from the
get-go?
STEPHEN PICKERING: It was capitalism from
the very beginning.
The intent was to prosper here in any way
that they could, whether it was the fur trade,
timber trade or fishing.
PAUL SOLMAN: But the early efforts to pay
off their investors failed.
The first winter was brutal; nearly half of
the colonists died.
WILLIAM BRADFORD: First ship it was that we
sent back empty for reasons of barely being
able to survive.
And sadly, the second ship I sent back, laden
with goods, was taken by French pirates right
before it reached England.
PAUL SOLMAN: And Turkish pirates took another;
then as now, hawks stalked their chickens;
competing colonists set up shop along the
New England coast and inland, closer to the
suppliers.
That meant that when trading with the natives,
the price of beaver kept getting bid up -- setbacks
galore.
But not surprisingly, the investors back home
were getting impatient.
STEPHEN HOPKINS: Some of them imagine they
might cast seeds on the ground and press the
cider the same year, but it is not so in business.
PAUL SOLMAN: What was so in business: distrust,
partly because of investors who bilked the
inexperienced colonists, and demanded quick
profits.
WILLIAM BRADFORD: Many a time it is that we
are treated little better than a slave or
a servant.
But whilst my share is equal to someone in
England, he might have a hundred more of those
equal shares.
Thus, the minority has the majority of the
shareholding.
PAUL SOLMAN: Despite the ownership disparity,
however, colonists who survived tended to
prosper, even the indentured servants, who
got no shares and had to work seven years
for their freedom.
Edward Doty served Stephen Hopkins.
Do you think you could ever be a rich man
in America?
Do you have what you might call an American
dream?
EDWARD DOTY, Indentured Servant, Plymouth
Colony: Rich in land, rich in woods, which
you make quite a lot of money with.
But no matter what, if you get land here,
people will respect you and if those will
become a time like I expect it to be and a
true settlement, there is a profit to be had.
PAUL SOLMAN: And that was very different from
the old country.
PATIENCE PRENCE: So in England, owning land
is for gentry and noblemen.
But, people of our sort would usually only
rent it.
PAUL SOLMAN: We had one last question for
the plantation's historian.
What's the relevance if any, of economics
being the main driver of the Plimoth Plantation?
RICHARD PICKERING: So often, we think of the
pilgrims symbolically.
We don't look at their everyday business lives
and realize that their success enabled later
settlement and contributed to the creation
of an immigrant country.
PAUL SOLMAN: This is economics correspondent
Paul Solman, reporting for the PBS NewsHour,
from the 17th century -- sort of.
