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Show rn Point Real ims Starting ie Pilgr o By ARTURO and GLORIA GONZALEZ LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS The British Tourist Association, just across the Eng- lish Channel from this Dutch community of 100,000, is proudly celebrating "Mayflower 1970 Year," the 350th anniversary of the Mayflower's heroic 1620 voyage to the New World. With festivals, parades,and all manner of al- historic recreations, England's city of Plymouth has attempted to assume paternity for the Pilgrims. leged All of which strikes the Dutch com- munity of Leiden rather odd. To Hollanders, Plymouth, England, claiming credit for the Pilgrims is a little like, say, a Florida hotel, calling itself the birthplace of the moon landing just because a few astronauts stayed overnight there before heading to Cape Kennedy. If any single town was the launch pad for the Pilgrims' epic journey to the New World, it's Leiden, a 10th-centu- ry Dutch city, 20 miles southwest of Amsterdam. In Leiden the Pilgrims lived and worshipped for 1 1 long y years before deciding to make Lheir crossing of the Atlantic. From a tiny, cobbled quay debarking point, still visible on the de Vliet canal here, they bade, on July 21, 1620, tearful farewell to those staying behind. 67-da- 5o many English refugees were crowding into Amsterdam that ghettos began to flourish. There is still a deadend alley running in from Paarden-straand ending near Amsterdam's Rembrandtsplein called or English Pilgrim Lane. Another tiny Amsterdam street, translates as Brownists Alley, keeping alive the memory of these religious refugees. After seven months the Pilgrims found life in Amsterdam hard and decided to move tc the quiet university town of Leiden. A "fair and bewtiful citie of a sweete situation," Bradford described it. at Engelse-Pel-grimstee- ing the hub of the Pilgrims dom of Great Britain, to the number of some 100 people or therabouts, men as well as women, that you may know that they should like shortly to come and settle in this town, that is by May next, and to get the freedom of the town to earn their living with various of their trades, without being a burden to anyone. Therefore the petitioners apply to your Honours, earnestly praying that your Honours would grant them free and liberal consent to betake if they persisted in their faith under the harsh rule of James VI of Scotland, then on England's throne. In 1608 they found an escape route to Holland, uprooted themselves from their native Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire, and fled. themselves as afore-said- ." The Pilgrims were as peaceful and as as they promised they would be. After a decade, a Leiden magistrate wrote of the British, "These English people have now lived amongst us these 10 years and never any complaint or accusation has been brought law-abidi- g, ng against any of them." With John Robinson as their pastor, they quickly set up their own church. William Brewster became an English teacher at Leiden University. Then a new college, founded in 1574 to commemorate the heroic Dutch lifting of a long Spanish seige of the town, Leiden University was already the most important Protestant campus in Europe. Wealthy Danes and Germans flocked to its classrooms, and with the money that Brewster earned teaching them English, he purchased the Groenepoort (Green Gate), a large house opposite Saint Peter's Church, surrounded by 21 smaller cottages, the complex becom The Pilgrims formally petitioned the Leiden city fathers to become citizens. Visitors can still read their handwritten and on display in Leiden: "Request by 100 persons, bora in England, to be allowed to take up plea, reproduced, residence in this town. With due respect and submissiveness, Jan Rabarth-se- n (John Robinson), Minister of God's Holy Word, together with some of the congregation of the Christian reformed religion, bora in the King religion in Leiden. Not knowing that some day all this would become a tourist shrine, the Dutch permitted the buildings to be destroyed in the late 1600's. The present structures, constructed on the same site in 1683, almost duplicate the Pilk grims' abodes. The small, buildings, encompassing a delightful couityard, housing old folks today, are very similar to the Dutch homes in which the Pilgrims lived for over a decade. The lives of the Pilgrims during this period are chronicled in Leiden's municipal archives. Betrothal books reveal their daily work and social position as well as who was marrying whom. Becoming weavers, masons, blacksmiths, they printers, tailors, and left their native farming for a variety of Dutch crafts. red-bric- g, Bruin-istengan- life and wool-comber- s, S everal, however, began to play a dangerous game. With printing presses, Brevster and two other Pilgrims set themselves up as publishers on Stinck-steeor Stink Alley. To give his business more tone, Brewster wisely adopted the address of his side door, located on Choir Alley. His printing operation produced tracts which found their way to England in the false bottoms of French wine barrels. English authorities were riled by the offensive propaganda, and Brewster went underground. For good reason. Cap- g, anti-chur- ch From this tiny cobbled quay on the de Vliet canal in Holland, Pilgrims debarked on long journey. Sailing a few miles down the canal, they clambered aboard their ship for a brief stopover in the British Isles. Only after two false starts from England did they put into the nearest port, Plymouth, very briefly, to reassemble themselves, 102 strong, on the 180-to- n Mayflower. They cast off finally from the Barbican Pier there on Sept. 9, 1620, atto resume the tempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean. America, then, has Leiden, not Plymouth, to thank for turkey and cranberry sauce on the fourth Thursday of every November. To the townspeople of Leiden, America's Thanksgiving is really a Dutch treat. The Pilgrims were Brownists, rebels against the established Church of England, led by a trio of elders John Robinson, William Bradford and William Brewster. They faced torture and possible death by burning at the stake several-times-abort- 4 to c -- 43 .11 Z. . 1 v- - o ed Family Weekly, November 22, 1970 .Ji fs c ( ( ( J 1 : ' . H; "." i iii |