Planting the seeds of the AMerican Dream

In attempting to define the American Dream, considered more of an individual definition today, one would need to take into consideration the cultural background and location of the individual. In April of 1630, traveling across the Atlantic on board the sailing vessel Arbella, the original American Dream was a community sense of hope and prosperity among English Puritans seeking a new beginning in New England.
Before setting sail, from Southampton on that chilly April day in 1630, Reverend John Cotton provided the company with a farewell sermon entitled “God’s Promise to His Planation.” Starting the sermon with a reading from the second book of Samuel, Chapter 7, verse 10: “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more.” Cotton is confirming what many had already decided upon, that they were God’s chosen people and it was their right and duty to God to venture forth to America and carry out his works. Sarah Vowell, author of the book The Wordy Shipmates, describes that sermon as thus,
By the time Cotton, says amen, he has fought Mexico for Texas, bought Alaska from the Russians, and dropped napalm on Vietnam. Then he lays a wreath on Custer’s grave and revs past Wounded Knee. Then he claps when the Marquis de Lafayette tells Congress that “someday America will save the world.” Then he smiles when Abraham Lincoln call the United States “the last best hope of earth.” Then he frees Cuba, which would be news to Cuba. Then he signs the lease on Guantanamo Bay.
John Winthrop, an English Puritan solicitor played a major role, joining the Massachusetts Bay Company after its establishment, was chosen to head this first daunting flood of immigrants known a...

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...ment that gave rise to our continued belief today that America is God’s country and American’s seeing themselves metaphysically as a “Shining City on the Hill,” an early example of American exceptionalism.
Their charter and ideology of being an ideal community were not the only contributions Puritans made to the American Dream. Their courage and religious convictions made them into symbols the country still connects with freedom in American society and government today. Even with dissenting religious and government, foundation views, the Puritan’s “Great Migration” truly did plant the seeds of the American Dream.

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 1: John Winthrop." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/winthrop.html (provide page date or date of your login).