DOYLC

“In the name of God Amen.” So it began, the Mayflower Compact, the first contract to which the Saints and Strangers came together and agreed upon. The year was 1620 and the Mayflower had arrived in the new world. They could not have known it then, but those few settlers who survived the treacherous storms as they sailed across the mighty Atlantic in their frail little ship were founding the greatest and mightiest nation the world would ever see. Its sheer size would one day rival and indeed surpass the greatest empires of history, and much of its acquisitions, although certainly not all, would be peaceful. At that first “Thanksgiving,” there were three types of people: The Saints, or the Pilgrims, as we know them, who had fled England and its religious oppression. There were the Strangers, the sailors, the adventurers and other, rough and tumble types of folks that had joined the party, some of them more upright and steady than others of their number. And of course there were the “Sa