
Mayflower 400: the science of sailing across the ocean in 1620 - collapse
https://theconversation.com/mayflower-400-the-science-of-sailing-across-the-ocean-in-1620-144233
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kyle_morris_
Apparently 2 million Americans can trace their lineage to a passenger on the
Mayflower who fell overboard and survived by grabbing a rope trailing behind.

They include FDR, H.W. And W Bush.[1]

[1]
[https://accesswdun.com/print/2015/11/352412](https://accesswdun.com/print/2015/11/352412)

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bserge
I've always been amazed by this ability to track your ancestors hundreds of
years back. Were the records that good back then?

I had lots of trouble getting birth records for my great-grandparents. The
system in my country was terrible, if I didn't have the exact name and date of
birth, they couldn't find anything. Nothing was digitized, maybe that changed
but I doubt it.

In fact, I did have the wrong day but fortunately the right month and year for
my great-grandfather, and it took them a month to find the information. It was
expensive, too.

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dmd
My wife has managed to track one line of her ancestry (the Swiss line) back to
985. Swiss church records (Kirchenbücher) are online and extremely good.

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bserge
Wow, that's amazing. Come to think of it, many people were simply born at home
and not registered with the state in the 1900's, but they would get baptised,
so the Church should hold the record of that.

I think the Soviet Union's laws against the Church might've player a role in
the loss of records.

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irrational
> To think, if he hadn't made it, I wouldn't even be here

Isn’t that the case for literally every one of our ancestors? Any one of them
was one accident, disease, etc. away from not having the child that became the
next link in the chain between them and me.

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MichaelZuo
“These would have been on a cramped gun-deck (where the passengers would also
live) with gun-ports”

Was that really the case? It seems far more likely for the crew to have lived
on the gun-decks since presumably they would have been trained to use the
cannons, instead of the passengers.

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sdeer
The crew (other than the captain who probably had his own cabin) probably
stayed at the lower deck because the gun deck had better ventilation for the
passengers. It took a long time after a ship first became visible for a gun
battle to occur so the crew had enough time to get ready.

~~~
pbalau
Most likely the crew used the forecastle for accommodations [0] (as they
always do). I don't think the well being of passengers was a big concern for
the crew.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecastle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecastle)

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mbroncano
I found out today that the first university (!) in the continent dates back to
the 1550s [0]. What made the Spaniards so successful that they were able not
only to defeat a full blown civilization (as opposed to the weaker natives in
the north) and were able to fully bootstrap their territories where the
English took many attempts and failures? Was it the technology? Or just the
nature of the northern territories?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colonial_universities_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colonial_universities_in_Hispanic_America)

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pvg
This is a gross oversimplification but the purpose and goals of their
expeditions were just completely different. Even the earliest Spanish
expeditions were (in part) state-approved, armed and essentially get-rich-
quick plundering schemes. The existence of advanced (but less well armed)
urban civilizations just encouraged them since it meant potential for gold.

A lot of now-famous early British colonizers were basically groups of funky
religious malcontents hoping to establish their own little theocracies. Their
state approval was more along the lines of 'good riddance'.

~~~
mbroncano
> Even the earliest Spanish expeditions were (in part) state-approved, armed
> and essentially get-rich-quick plundering schemes.

Maybe I’m not getting your point, but how does that fit with building up
universities? What were they expecting to get out of them? Student debt?

~~~
pvg
A 16th century university is primarily a religious institution and Spain had a
strongly enforced state religion. Pizarro - one of the adventuring/plundering
types - founded Lima in 1535, 20 years before the university and after taking
out the core of the Inca empire.

To go back to your original question - I don't think this had much to do with
technology but just with the different approaches the empires in question
took. To Spain, a minor bet paid off spectacularly and the state fairly
quickly moved to establish control (not without some trouble - just scrolling
through the Wikipedia pages of Pizarro or Cortés is full of stories of Spanish
leaders and officials in the New World murdering each other).

It was many decades after all of this, though, that England got around to
considering, maybe, the American North Atlantic coast as a decent dumping
ground for some irritating Jesus freaks.

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audiodude
I remember the Mayflower Compact vaguely from school, but didn't really
understand its significance until I read this article.

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jialutu
[https://www.mayflowerpub.co.uk/](https://www.mayflowerpub.co.uk/)

One of the best pubs in London if you are in the area. Never disappoints.

~~~
mbzi
Used to live around the corner. Nice owner, good food and a great beer
selection. I now [Ironically?] live in the states and miss that pub quite a
lot.

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throwaway0a5e
I've been reading a lot about the 1600-1700 period recently and it always
amazes me how quickly these people went from "our first goal is to not starve
and our second goal live as good Christians" to "let's attack anyone and
anything that doesn't share our view of what good a good Christian is"

On one hand humanity doesn't change much so it's not that surprising but 400yr
later you can still see the scars the backwards ideologies of various groups
of early settlers left on New England.

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stephenhuey
I just read a recent biography of Dr. Benjamin Rush and it’s clear that even
before the American revolution there were some strongly opposing views of how
to treat native Americans and whether or not it was morally defensible to
enslave Africans. So some who called themselves Christians would accept these
practices and many others, like Rush, loudly opposed them (just like the
disagreements that happen within groups today).

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throwaway0a5e
It's amazing how many parallels there are between the issues of 1620-1760 and
the issues of the modern day (like 2020 modern, not just the current century).
The issues have changed but humanity hasn't.

The thing that really hit home for me was the rhetoric they sued to go after
Morton, Williams and the other RI guy who had no issue with the natives (the
name escapes me). It's like a straight copypasta from today.

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KineticLensman
The eternal themes that recur throughout history:

Master or slave

Have or have not

Home or exile

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jvanderbot
I'm amazed they were only off by 63 miles, given the article claims dead
reckoning was so inaccurate. I'm even more amazed they knew where they were
relative to their destination after 66 days of dead reckoning.

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mauvehaus
Crucially, that's 63 miles North of Virginia. Latitude is relatively
straightforward to measure. It's pretty well given that if you sail west from
Northern Europe, you'll hit North America. Hitting it at your intended
latitude might depend on the winds, but one you bump into it, it should be
pretty easy for a competent navigator to tell you how far off your target you
were in latitude. Given decent maps, figuring out longitude is probably not a
tall order either if you know your latitude and you're on the coast.

~~~
jvanderbot
Ah great point! Since the east coast is mostly north-south, it was possible to
check distance relative to the destination easily. Thanks!

