Mayflower Questions: 6

6. The children of the Pilgrims were regarded in their own time as "the degenerate plant of a strange vine," unworthy of the legacy and sacrifices of their mothers and fathers (p. 198). Why did they acquire (and largely accept) this reputation? Was it deserved? Were the denunciations of the second generation a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy?

The children of the Pilgrims were told they were "the degenerate plant of a strange vine" because their parents clung to unorthodox religious beliefs, but the second generation did not hold those beliefs so dear, which was all that made the Pilgrims noble in the eyes of some. They accepted this reputation because they knew it was deserved: they had fallen away from their parents' religious beliefs, and not only that, but they also began to basically cheat the Indians out of their land. They had become degenerate, in a sense, and their degenerate nature caused this comparison to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The second generation of Pilgrims did not become "the degenerate plant of a strange vine" because they were told they were so; they already were. The minister who spoke this line was not saying it to insult the children of the Pilgrims, but to point out something that was true.