Plymouth Plantation / Mayflower Compact Term Paper

" Hence, the history of the rock has been distorted, Bush continues; the rock has been used to raise the public consciousness about great American ideas, "social movements, and political and religious trends; Plymouth Rock has been made to serve them all." Plymouth Rock seems "less a monument to the Pilgrims' First Landing than to America's relentless pursuit of a usable past..." Bush quotes again from Sahlins. Then the author adds, "We all want a piece of the Rock."

No matter that Plymouth Rock has perhaps been used at various times as a symbol of America's past; what is important is not the rock (or the fact that it has been chipped away), but rather what is vitally important is Bradford's remarkable historical journal, and the Mayflower Compact itself.America, the symbol known throughout the world for freedom of expression and religious choice, is indeed embodied permanently in those documents.

Works Cited

Bradford, William. "From of Plymouth Plantation." The Norton Anthology of American

Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 156-197.

Bush, Sargent. "America's Origin Myth: Remembering Plymouth Rock." American

Literary History 12.4 (2000): 745-756.

Pilgrim Hall Museum. "Of Plymouth Plantation: The Journal of William Bradford."

Retrieved 11 February 2007 at http://www.pilgrimhall.org/bradjour.htm.

Raible, Chris. "Mayflower compact & family compact." Beaver. 76.1 (1996): 22-27.

Sargent, Mark L.….....