The Wordy Shipmates

“Anyway, England, 1630. Question: Why is the aforementioned John Cotton standing in front of the aforementioned John Winthrop and his shipmates, watering the seeds of American exceptionalism that will, in the twenty-first century, blossom into preemptive was in the name of spreading democracy in the Middle East that temporarily unites even some factions of the aforementioned Sunni and Shia Muslims, who hate each other’s gut but agree they hate the bully America more? Answer: Because Henry VIII had a crush on a woman who was not his wife.”

Vowell’s writing style and purpose regularly unites episodes of the 17th century to episodes of the 20th and 21st centuries—in this case, the religious fallout of the Protestant Reformation in England and the Iraq War. She simplifies history to highlight blunt truths while delivering sharp criticisms: For example, “American exceptionalism” becomes a destructive ideology that fuels wars. Vowell returns to this point regularly throughout the narrative and, in this excerpt, locates part of its origins in a seemingly trivial historical event involving the private romantic life of one English King.

“The most important reason I am concentrating on Winthrop and his shipmates in the 1630s is that the country I live in is haunted by the Puritans’ vision of themselves as God’s chosen people, as a beacon of righteousness that all others are to admire.” 

Vowell sets the tone for her interpretation of history. While American popular culture typically invokes its imagined Puritan roots in a positive light, referencing religious freedom and trailblazing, Vowell says that the modern US is “haunted” by Puritan self-aggrandizement. The drive to set an example succeeded, but the example they set was not one of communal harmony: It was one of conquest and control in the form of patriarchal, paternalistic colonialism with religious, political, and social dimensions.