November 11, 1620 The Pilgrims signed “The Mayflower Compact” combining themselves into a “civil body politic to enact equal and just laws to serve the common good” in the cabin of the Mayflower before landing.
This Veteran’s Day let us remember what our Veterans and our ancestors lived and died for. It’s up to us to spiral these principles and ideals up to greater heights and bring Liberty, Justice and Abundance for all!
November 11, 1620 – The signing of The Mayflower Compact, an agreement, a covenant, that when combined with The Great Law of the Iroquois, became the foundation of the Constitution of the United States – a grand vision for humanity.
THE FORGOTTEN STORY: The Pilgrims and the Indians lived in Freedom, Peace & Friendship for 54 years! Revisionist History has twisted the tale! The seeds of democracy and the American Mind and Spirit were sown here.
Thank you to all who supported our Indiegogo Crowd-Funding Campaign! We can’t do it without you! We’ll be starting a new one soon! In the meantime our fundraising is ongoing see PayPal Donate button below.
Watch our 3 minute video and get the gist of what we are bringing to the table. We are revising revisionist history!! It’s time to be inspired!
THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS
Andrew Cameron Bailey and Connie Baxter Marlow, director/producer at Cameron/Baxter Films, creators ofIN SEARCH OF THE FUTURE: What do the Wise Ones Know?and THE TRUST FREQUENCY: Ten Assumptions for a New Paradigm, are making an inter-cultural documentary that will inspire every American and anyone interested in history, freedom, democracy and high drama. This film will restore the historical balance and change the way Americans think about themselves, in very positive way!
We have a new IndieGoGo crowd-funding campaign to fund Phase 2 of our project. Please check it out and contribute if you can! www.IGG.me/at/First50Years. It ends October 20, but our fund-raising is ongoing at:
INSPIRE AMERICA! DONATE NOW!
Highlights
The pivotal role of the Indians and the Pilgrims in the evolution of democracy and the American mind and spirit.
The widely-believed misinformation and misconceptions concerning the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Indians.
The resulting blame, shame, anger and guilt that has America morally paralyzed.
The inspiring, forgotten, inter-cultural friendship that sits at the founding of the United States – an exception to the human condition then and now.
The spiritual alignment of the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Indians they lived amongst.
Please Support This Important Project!
The FIRST FIFTY YEARS film will contribute significantly to the evolutionary experiment in democracy that is The United States of America. Any donations over $100 get the unique package of really interesting materials, PLUS the “2020” campaign T-shirt. It’s not available anywhere else! Check out our other rewards and incentives by clicking below:
The Situation, The Challenge, Resolution and Healing
The Past: Historical misrepresentation. The Indians have been stereotyped and marginalized for hundreds of years. Their role in the evolution of democracy has been ignored. Colonization has taken the Indians’ lands and destroyed their culture, resulting in bitterness, resentment, and anger.
The Present: Misinformation has been disseminated about the Pilgrims in a misguided effort to correct the imbalance and honor the Indian. Shame, guilt, ignorance and lack of concern on the part of the whites. Distorted history widely believed. A nation morally paralyzed.
The Future: Restoring the balance. Honor as the healing balm. Recognition and acknowledgement of the role both the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Native Americans played in the evolution of the principles and ideals that were the seeds of free government. The inspiring model of visionary leaders bridging great gulfs of difference to live in peace and friendship.
It’s Time for Change!
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is at hand. The year 2020 is rapidly approaching, the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower, and the half-century of intercultural peace and friendship that ensued. No one seems to remember this. We have all been duped by revisionist history. It’s time to clear up the confusion, and return to the beautiful, inspiring story that underlies America’s origins.
Will we, the people, ever fulfill the promise made in our founding vision, the promise of Liberty, Justice and Abundance for all? Or are we morally paralyzed because we are ashamed of our Origin Story? This timely film will set us free from the anger, blame, shame and guilt that now shroud an unprecedented time in the history of humanity – the period during which we made the radical move from monarchy to democracy, the separation of Church and State, self-determination, and consent of the governed. A true quantum leap!
Out of this evolution, informed by interaction with the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, came a new nation, a nation of the people, by the people, for the people. Partly because, 400 years ago, two inspired leaders, one English and one American Indian, kept their people in peace and friendship for over half a century.
Thanksgiving 2014
There is a disturbing situation centered on Plymouth, especially at Thanksgiving, distorting indisputable historical facts about that half-century of harmony. The Pilgrims have been dishonored. They are accused of crimes against the Indians, crimes they did not commit. Google “the real Thanksgiving” or “the truth about Thanksgiving,” and you will see what we mean.The true nature of the friendship between the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Pokanoket Indians is now mired in misinformation, misbelief, ignorance, shame, blame, anger and guilt. Our school and college textbooks have been revised in the interests of “political correctness” and now contain unpleasant “facts” that are completely untrue.
400 years ago a synthesis occurred, creating a new mind and a new spirit – a vision of freedom, independence and self-determination. The Mayflower Pilgrims and the Pokanoket Indians lived in peace and friendship for more than half a century. The English and the Indian came together, and for a brief shining moment showed us what is possible. They set an example of how America could have been, if the “Plymouth Paradigm” had prevailed. The inter-cultural exchange at Plymouth Plantation gave birth to a promise America has yet to fulfill.
The Historical Background
November 9, 1620: An English ship called Mayflower makes landfall at present-day Cape Cod, Massachusetts, carrying the seeds of American democracy. The 102 passengers seek to establish a colony based on freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. Before setting foot on American soil, they draft the famous Mayflower Compact. a civil agreement which will govern their behavior once they establish the proposed plantation.
Signing of the Mayflower Compact, November 11, 1620
March 21, 1621: Half of the Mayflower passengers have died of illness during the brutal first winter. More than three months after coming ashore at Plymouth, the 52 surviving English fathers, mothers and children meet Samoset, Squanto, the neighboring Pokanoket Indians, and their leader Massasoit, in circumstances little short of the miraculous. The two visionary leaders craft a mutually-beneficial treaty that both parties will honor for the next 54 years.
THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS corrects a number of widely-held historical misconceptions, but more importantly, it takes the “high road” and explores the question: what was the common bond that kept these two completely different cultures in harmony for so long, while all around them was danger, competition, intrigue, war and dissension?
Far from warranting blame and shame, the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets both deserve honor for their visionary alliance and their impeccable behavior toward one another. The timeless Pilgrim/Indian story has never been told from this elevated perspective.
We are grateful to the 45 people who contributed over $10,000 to upgrade our video equipment to high-definition broadcast quality production capability!
Our fund-raising is on-going, so please feel free to donate any amount, any time, so we can get to the East Coast in the spring, finish our decade-long research, create the documentary film, and write the screenplay and the book!
INSPIRE AMERICA! DONATE NOW!
A Call For Healing
There is a deep wound in the heart of America. Every Thanksgiving there is a blast of misinformation on the Internet and elsewhere which paints a horrific, false picture of the Mayflower Pilgrims and their alleged behavior toward the Indians they lived among. Millions of people now believe these historical absurdities. It’s in our education system. Celebrities like Van Jones and Cher are spreading the blame, shame, guilt and anger. It’s a mess!
Setting The Record Straight
How can we heal this core wound in the American psyche? There’s only one way – tell the truth. The truth will set us free. The inspiring, uplifting fact is, the Pilgrims and the Indians lived in unbroken peace and friendship for over fifty years. The Pilgrims and the Pokanokets enacted a treaty the day they first met, on March 22, 1621, and they honored the agreement for the next 55 years.
THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS is a film/book /documentary project that will bring a balanced, inspiring and historically accurate perspective to America’s true origin story. It will eliminate the current mis-beliefs and bring much-deserved honor to both the Pilgrims and the Indians.
Andrew Cameron Bailey & Connie Baxter Marlow Filmmakers
Why Is This So Important?
The Pilgrims carried the first seeds of western democracy to the New World, the beginnings of the momentous move from monarchy to freedom. The result of the settler/Indian interaction was the emergence of a uniquely American mindset based upon basic, universal truths that are humanity’s birthright – freedom of conscience, freedom of the individual, freedom of religion. These ideas came from both the English settlers AND the Indians among whom they lived. The Mayflower Compact, crafted and signed in the cabin of the Mayflower on November 11, 1620 before the Pilgrims set foot on American soil, together with the Great Law of the Iroquois, inspired and ignited the vision of democracy that became the United States of America.
Please join the team – contribute as much as you can, share this blog post, Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook – we’ll keep you informed and updated as this important project unfolds.
We welcome all historically-accurate contributions to the information and ideas presented here. Please post in the comment field below.
Mary J. AshkiiLgaii Wheeler, Navajo elder, smudges (clears the energy field) of the new cameras with sage before the first shoot. A traditional Native American practice.We are grateful to the friends and supporters who donated over $12,000 through (and beyond) our Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. Your generosity allowed us to upgrade our video equipment to broadcast-quality production capabilities. (Canon XF300, JVC PX100, Sony RX10 joins our Panasonic GH2.)
“Have cameras, will travel…”
We’re now available for hire, and the additional income will help us to realize THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS project.
“Have cameras, will travel…” The Cameron/Baxter Films business card.
The vision and mission of THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS project is to inspire America and Americans by bringing America’s origin story into balance and honoring the Mayflower Pilgrims and the Native Americans for their role in the evolution of democracy and the American mind and spirit. The project will also correct a number of misconceptions about the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Indians during the first fifty years of Plymouth Colony.
The official launch: A multi-generational, multi-cultural talking circle in Carbondale, CO. January 14, 2014
We launched the project with a talking circle at the Third Street Center in Carbondale, Colorado, just down the valley from Aspen. Two Native Americans joined the circle. They expressed two very different but highly relevant perspectives on the challenging situation we are addressing. The following week we filmed our first interview using the new equipment, with Navajo elder Mary AshkiiLgaii Wheeler (center of talking circle photo) speaking of love, unity and understanding the Oneness of all things as a pathway to healing.
Our fund-raising is ongoing. We need funds to get to New England in the spring and spend six months shooting our documentary, finishing the research and writing the screenplay.INSPIRE AMERICA! DONATE NOW!
This project it the outgrowth of a life-time of experiences and explorations for both of us who have authored the book “THE TRUST FREQUENCY: Ten Assumptions for a New Paradigm” and produced the film “IN SEARCH OF THE FUTURE: What do the Wise Ones Know?” Through books, films, photography exhibits and other events we have been bringing indigenous cosmology into Western thinking for over 30 years. Our underlying premise is that the prevailing paradigm is missing important information, which has led to a world out-of-balance.
THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS is America’s origin story! It is therefore important. It is inspiring. It is impeccable. Inspiration can lift us to to new levels. We can each contribute to bringing the world into balance by shifting our perspective, examining our beliefs and realizing the vision the founders of America – both European and Native American – had/have for humanity!
Here are the highlights of the perspective we are bringing:
1. The spiritual alignment of the Pilgrims and the Indians
2. The role of the Indian and Pilgrim in the evolution of democracy and the American mind and spirit
3. Correcting the misinformation and misconceptions concerning the Pilgrims and the Indians and America’s origin story.
4. The inspiring story that sits at the founding of this nation – an exception to the human condition then and now.
Inspire America! Exciting news about The Baxter Legacy and THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS
My great, great grandfather James Phinney Baxter had a grand vision, and acted upon it daily in his personal and political lives. His Maine legacy is well known as a philanthropist and six-time mayor of Portland, and he remains a highly respected historian of the early settlement of New England.
James Phinney Baxter and I share a vision for America realizing its promise to the world.
James Phinney Baxter will impact thousands in the next few years, as the Boston Public Library uses The James P. Baxter & Percival P. Baxter Fund for programming that will inspire Americans during the celebration of 250th anniversary of The Stamp Act in 2015 and the 400th anniversary of the Landing of the Mayflower in 2020. The City of Boston allocated the Baxter Fund to the library in June of 2013.
We have a project called THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS which is very much in alignment with his vision. This project brings balance to America’s origin story that is currently shrouded in misinformation and misconception. It brings honor to the Pilgrims and the Indians in the evolution of democracy and the American mind and spirit. We are seeking funding to complete our research, create a documentary film, a screenplay and a book.
Please take a look at our Indiegogo “crowd-funding” campaign THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS: Freedom and Friendship at Plymouth Plantation and consider supporting this important project. The campaign has raised over $10,000 so far. It ended on January 19th, but direct contributions will be welcome indefinitely. Write us at the e-mail below.
James Phinney Baxter’s Bequest
James Phinney Baxter bequeathed a significant sum to the City of Boston in 1921. The specific intent of this bequest, as articulated in his will and in the 1920 monograph A NEW ENGLAND PANTHEON was: To build a New England Pantheon, a Temple of Honor commemorating the lives and deeds of the founders of New England, and to educate future generations in the principles and achievements of the pioneers whose ideals were the seed of free government.
My daughter Alison, my partner Andrew Bailey and I are acting as consultants to the Boston Public Library to ensure that JPB’s bequest is fulfilled within the context of the library’s programming goals. The library is now considering a James Phinney Baxter Room and a James Phinney Baxter Lecture Series among other plans.
The Baxter Project Team: Daughter Alison Baxter Marlow, Andrew Cameron Bailey, James Phinney Baxter and I at the Portland Public Library
We are as passionate about THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS as James Phinney Baxter was about building The New England Pantheon – and we feel he would be proud that his descendants are contributing to “the commemoration of the lives and deeds of the founders of New England that were the seeds of free government,” and in this way inspiring America to realize its promise.
History of the James Phinney Baxter Fund
Please read on for a bit of history regarding JPB’s bequest and our involvement over the years.
The James Phinney Baxter Trust was broken in 1997 and the New England Pantheon was never created. The Maine Supreme Court decreed that a portion of the funds be disbursed to the City of Portland, Maine and the remainder of the money to the City of Boston. Boston used the fund to establish the Mayor’s Office for New Bostonians, and the remainder, as the “James P. Baxter & Percival P. Baxter Fund,” sat, until June of 2013, in the coffers of the City of Boston, to be used at the discretion of the Mayor to, in the words of the settlement, “promote the commemoration and public understanding of the history of the settlement of and immigration to New England.” Please note that the original intent was broadened and obscured by the Maine Supreme Court in its decision.
In 2006 Alison, Andrew and I applied for a grant from the City of Boston to create programs that would fulfill JPB’s bequest. The grant was approved, but the City put such obstacles in our path that we let it drop. We created The Baxter Project, Inc. a Massachusetts not-for-profit corporation at that time with the website http://www.TheBaxterProject.org which outlined his bequest and our plans for bringing it to fruition.
The Baxter Project grant proposal was supported by enthusiastic letters from the Baxter family including the Trustees of James Phinney Baxter’s will; Maine Governor John Baldacci; Maine Representative Herb Adams; James Baker, Curator of the Alden House Historic Site and 26-year VP and Research Director of Plimoth Plantation; and Harry Mars, a Native Narragansett Elder.
I have taught a Middle School history course in Sedona, Arizona that used the model of the Mayflower Pilgrim/Wampanoag relationship to inspire the students to change their inter-racial relations. The Sedona students spoke at the Massachusetts Historical Society and to the Plymouth Board of Selectmen, sharing their inspirations and issuing a challenge to us all. Here is a link to a report on this program: SedonaSchool/Plymouth/FirstFiftyYears Program.
Why Now?
James Phinney Baxter’s vision is even more relevant today than it was when he was fervently campaigning for the New England Pantheon almost a hundred years ago. There is, for example, confusion, guilt and blame concerning America’s origin story, that stems from misinformation concerning Plymouth Colony and the founding of New England, that has led to exactly the challenges that James Phinney Baxter foresaw:
The ideals of the early pioneers to New England have given to the nation many of its noblest characteristics, which must be cherished and preserved if it is to lead as the exemplar of Liberty, Justice and Brotherhood among the nations of the world. We have reached a period when without…cooperation, our high hopes for the future welfare of this Country may fail of fruition. James Phinney Baxter. A New England Pantheon, 1917
There is a vital and uplifting story waiting to be told, and The Baxter Project team is in a position to tell it. It is a story of commonalities and vision that is America’s origin story, seen from a perspective that can inspire all who hear it.
Contribute to and follow the unfolding saga of THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS!
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Sincerely,
Connie Baxter Marlow
Great great granddaughter of James Phinney Baxter
GGGGGGGGGG Granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden, Mayflower Pilgrims via Constance French, (grandmother who married John L. Baxter my grandfather) and Asa Palmer French, great grandfather.
James Phinney Baxter at The Portland Public Library. He gave Portland its first library to house books on early Maine and New England history. When he discovered there were none, he set out to become New England’s preeminent historian.
The Pilgrims drafted “The Mayflower Compact” combining themselves into a “civil body politic to enact equal and just laws to serve the common good” in the cabin of the Mayflower before landing – a giant step forward from monarchy to democracy – American-style.
Freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, separation of church and state – these are principles that drove the Mayflower Pilgrims. These are principles that lie at the foundation of indigenous cosmology. These are guiding principles of the yet-to-be realized American dream that came through the Pilgrims and the Indians they lived amongst.
George F. Willison states in his classic book “Saints and Strangers:”
“The Pilgrims played a vital part – and consciously so – in that great conflict of spiritual and material forces which so decisively shaped the world, as we know it today. That conflict centered on the fiercely contested right to freedom of conscience, merely one aspect of the still larger right to freedom of thought and speech. Stripped of theological trimmings, the issue as posed in the Pilgrims’ day was this:
Was it right for the State to demand uniformity of belief? Or were men entitled to independence of judgment in religious matters? Should all their beliefs be prescribed, or could they read the Bible for themselves and come to their own conclusions about its teachings?
Far from being humble and soft-spoken, they were quick in their own defense, fond of controversy, and sharp of tongue, engaging in many a high-pitched quarrel with friends and foes alike, even among themselves.”
Read on for more!
Excerpts from Saints and Strangers George F. Willison
Reynal & Hitchcock, New York 1945 pp. 7-9
“The Pilgrims were not nineteenth century pietists, or quietists. They were not pale plaster saints, hollow and bloodless. They were men – and women, too – of courage and conviction, strong and positive in their attitudes, prepared to sacrifice much for their principles, even their very lives. Far from being Victorians, they were children of another and a greater age, the Elizabethan, and in their lives reflected many of the qualities of that amazing age – its restlessness and impatience with old ways, its passionate enthusiasms, its eager curiosity and daring speculation in all fields, its boldness in action, its abounding and apparently inexhaustible energies.
Never did the Pilgrims quietly resign themselves to defeat, no matter what the odds against them. They launched themselves upon the most hazardous of ventures not once but many times, and no obstacle or untoward circumstance could stay them or divert them from their course. Far from being humble and soft-spoken, they were quick in their own defense, fond of controversy, and sharp of tongue, engaging in many a high-pitched quarrel with friends and foes alike, even among themselves. Given to speaking their minds plainly, they expressed themselves in the language of Marlowe and Shakespeare, in the torrential and often rafter-shaking rhetoric of Elizabethan England, with no slightest regard for the proprieties and polite circumlocutions of a later day. In denouncing the “whore at Rome” they meant just that.
Pilgrims were Elizabethan, too, in their acceptance of the simpler joys of life. The practiced no macerations of the flesh, no tortures of self-denial. They appreciated the pleasures of the table and of the bottle, liked both “strong waters” and beer, especially the latter, never complaining more loudly of their hardships than when necessity reduced them to drinking water, which they always regarded with suspicion as a prolific source of human ills. They were not monks or nuns in their intimate relations as their usually numerous families and more than occasional irregularities attest. Fond of the comforts of connubial bed and board, they married early and often and late, sometimes within a few weeks of losing a mate. Only on the Sabbath did they go about in funereal blacks and grays. Ordinarily they wore the russet browns and Lincoln green common among the English lower classes from which they sprang.
The Pilgrims played a vital part – and consciously so – in that great conflict of spiritual and material forces which so decisively shaped the world as we know it today. That conflict centered on the fiercely-contested right to freedom of conscience, merely one aspect of the still larger right to freedom of thought and speech. Stripped of theological trimmings, the issue as posed in the Pilgrims’ day was this:
Was it right for the State to demand uniformity of belief? Or were men entitled to independence of judgment in religious matters? Should all their beliefs be prescribed, or could they read the Bible for themselves and come to their own conclusions about its teachings?
In short, was the “true” church a democratic or an autocratic institution?
Men did not go unflinching to the stake or gallows – the Pilgrims did not willfully choose exile and years of almost incredible hardship – Cromwell and his Independents did not lightly court death as rebels-merely for words. They were valiantly engaged, all of them, in a desperate struggle for a better order of things, for a more generous measure of freedom for all men, for a higher and nobler conception of life based upon recognition of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual. To understand the Pilgrims and the heroic part they played in that epic struggle, it is necessary to go back with Bradford – and even beyond him – to ‘begine at ye very roote & rise of the same.’ “
Hello friends!
Last call! Our Indiegogo fund-raising campaign has just one week to go. It ends January 19th! To all those who have so generously contributed, THANK YOU!
The First Fifty Years Facebook cover picture.
We are still a long way from our $15,000 goal, so if you have been sitting on the fence, wanting to support this important social-healing project, but waiting to see if it would succeed, please jump in now! We will be going ahead with the project, no matter how much or how little money comes in.
We have received a couple of generous donations outside of Indiegogo, enough to buy a new HD video camera, so we are really happy with the support our project has attracted, BUT we still need funding to get us to the East Coast in the spring, get the research done, and film the interviews for the documentary.
“THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS: Freedom and Friendship at Plymouth Plantation.” A Cameron/Baxter Films project. There’s still time to contribute to our Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for our challenging new documentary film/book venture. Funding ends on January 19. Please follow this blog for information that will give you a new perspective on an old story that has been out of balance since we first started telling it. See our other links below for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
and produced the film 
The First Fifty Years: 