Discovering Cape Cod’s New Pilgrims within the Rivian R1S
12 min read
Right here lyes the physique of M. Samuel Brown
Dec’d Could ye 3d 1739 within the 43d Yr of his age
Poor Sam Brown. His slate tombstone has grown moss-covered in simply the six years since I noticed him final, and extra of his neighbors’ memorials have cracked and crumbled. The final decade has taken extra of a toll than the prior 300 and fifty-odd years.
Now he has to take a seat in stony silence on the Cove Burying Ground in Eastham, on Cape Cod, whereas I step on the blades of grass that sprout from his grave, making an attempt to piece collectively relationships, one great-grandfather by one great-grandmother at a time, over two acres of grass jeweled with morning dew.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
It’s true: By the household tree, I’m a Pilgrim, or at the very least from them. However I’m a nasty Puritan. I’ve violated just about each rule the Puritans needed enforced. I’ve not gone forth and procreated. An 18-year-old cat is accountable for my non secular existence. I’ve sinned, although in probably the most unremarkable methods.
To some, I’m a nasty American—a Deep Southerner who’s wandered off the political reservation whereas I’ve bodily moved nearer to its beating pink coronary heart, a spot the place ersatz Puritans are as soon as once more those steering the ship.
We might have taken to soil first in Plymouth, however I do know my folks come from some place else. I head for that protected harbor, and hope nonetheless feels as welcoming because it did earlier than our nationwide divisions hardened into ominous divides.
I had began this morning in Plymouth, the place I knew a few of my ancestors had stood, 4 hundred years in the past, on the lookout for freedom of their selecting. My wants have been easier: a McMuffin, espresso, and DC fast-charging for the Rivian R1S that can transport me towards a deeper understanding of my tribe.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
First encounters
I wave a “‘until subsequent time” to Sam, then observe the highway north from Eastham, in tandem with the a part of the Cape Cod Pilgrim Touchdown Path that leads all the best way to the tip of the Cape, to see the dunes as they might have been seen by cautious eyes that watched the Pilgrims method tons of of years in the past.
I flip north on Race Level Street, the place kayakers glide silently throughout a Wyeth-perfect panorama, and wend towards the north face of the Cape, the place I uncover you possibly can take your SUV off-road—should you’re correctly outfitted. The R1S has the flexibility to cruise on right here with its off-road drive modes, its proficient traction techniques, its excessive floor clearance, and its bluff ends. Oversand beach driving on the Cape Cod Nationwide Seashore requires a allow and a few fundamental deal with, together with all- or four-wheel drive, which the Quad-Motor R1S has, and a tow strap and shovel, which I don’t.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
I don’t miss out on a lot. Don’t get me flawed, the Rivian is succesful, nevertheless it’s extra necessary on this journey as a messenger: We are able to have our Made in America satisfaction and romantic imagery of our previous, whereas we query what lies beneath and do higher. No fossils right here, simply gas for our future.
I accept a stroll to the highest of the dunes and look over the ocean and see what the Nauset tribe of the Wampanoag folks might have seen, earlier than what we name the “First Encounter.” Like most tales of colonists and the colonized, it’s much less pleased than what we have been taught simply 50 years in the past. About 4 thousand native People lived on the Cape earlier than the Pilgrims arrived. These Nauset folks had, by the point of the 1620 crossing, already seen a few of their folks kidnapped and brought to Europe to be dehumanized and exploited, whereas the remainder have been decimated by plague that had killed as many as 100,000 folks within the earlier three years. That they had purpose to concern the folks on the ship they might have seen in early November, circling across the shore.
Map of the Day: After casting anchor in Provincetown, the Pilgrims set out within the Mayflower’s shallop (a small boat) to comb Cape Cod Bay for a extra hospitable place. This hand-drawn map from June 1953 traces the shallop’s path to Plymouth, “a spot match for scenario.” #MapOTD pic.twitter.com/vTMWjVCe0I
— NatGeoMaps (@NatGeoMaps) November 20, 2018
Pilgrims and progress
The Mayflower swept previous the sandy seashore, below grey skies and the fixed menace of sleet and snow—lastly, in the end, to land. Hustled to sea very late, on September 6, 1620, headed for the Virginia colony, it had been on the open sea for 9 weeks when the Cape got here into view. Passengers had died or change into gravely ailing, and the boat reeked of human filth, however nonetheless, inside, these passengers noticed a brand new world and new lives—whereas these on shore noticed extra hassle on the horizon.
On the Mayflower they have been indentured servants, infants, wives, sailors, cooks. Most have been spiritual self-exiles, from the Church of England and England itself. That they had drifted to Holland, till they noticed their kids changing into too Dutch. They boarded the ship as soon as extra, late that summer time. All have been Pilgrims—however solely most have been Puritans. On the ship, some “strangers” who had nothing to do with Puritanism had boarded, solely in search of financial and political freedom.
I drive to the west facet of city, following the final route of the Mayflower because it sought out a protected harbor. The boat had sailed the size of Cape Cod from the primary sight of land on November 5, 1620, till it hit shallows and turned north, curving westward with the solar round Race Level. It rounded the cape and anchored close to a spot off the hooked finish on November 11, 1620, the place a celebration set foot, signed the Mayflower Compact, and agreed to band collectively.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
Some name it the muse of American democracy—however that too requires extra research. Not a lot was democratic of their mission. The Puritans have been strict moralists; solely their imaginative and prescient of God was the proper one. They have been reformers and separatists who needed to obliterate the previous methods of worship and create a brand new utopia below spiritual authority—no democracy in any respect.
However this spot, that will sooner or later be Provincetown, wouldn’t suffice. They wanted a greater place to shelter and to develop meals than the sandy, hilly terrain of the Cape. Whereas most on board gathered firewood, washed filthy garments, and fumigated the ship with branches of juniper, a crew constructed a small boat and explored the shore for weeks, looking for a greater place to winter. They put foot on shore close to modern-day Eastham, and made first contact with the Nauset, close to what sooner or later would change into the Cove Burying Floor.
The “First Encounter” proved transient: A celebration of Pilgrims set foot on the sand, explored the woods, and ran from it screaming as arrows sang by them—the warning photographs fired by Nauset who had purpose to concern the foreigners. On December 16, 1620, after a number of conflicts with the Nauset, the Mayflower steered out into Cape Cod Bay and pushed westward, on to the Pilgrims’ subsequent vacation spot, the following place the place they could be nearer to utopia—a spot the place they have been in unquestioned command.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
From Provincetown to “P-City”
The scent of P-City hits like smelling salts. Musty ocean breezes mingle with freshly minimize grass. Dank weed points from the hashish outlets on the Industrial Road strip, and entangles itself with the tacky curlicues of Spiritus’ bowling-alley pizza and the sugary whiff of Portuguese malasadas.
It’s all soundtracked by the babble of curler luggage on cobblestones and the babble of individuals as they migrate towards the quick ferry again to Boston. There, one factor’s nonetheless because it was tons of of years in the past: the shouts of the city crier. Provincetown nonetheless has one, after all, solely now the crier’s a Broadway queen.
A few of the Pilgrims might need had a stroke, one observer informed NPR, in the event that they noticed what Provincetown, after the Pilgrims, had change into: most likely the queerest place on earth, per capita, per diem, per nevertheless you wish to calculate it.
Samuel Brown couldn’t have recognized that, one way or the other, tons of of years later, one in all his descendants could be scripting this to you from a desk at one of many gayest locations in Provincetown. He wouldn’t have even understood what “homosexual” was, since queerness as id wasn’t actually a factor till the latter half of the nineteenth century, simply because the native whaling business crashed. It turned a haven for “creative” folks, within the coded body of the day. Locations flip queer once they can’t afford to show queers away.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
Provincetown has been enshrined as a queer place because the early 1900s, and now it’s a capital of queerness. It has change into synonymous with the archipelago of locations that my tribe arrange around the globe the place we may congregate, pilgrims of one other variety with one other mission: Key West, Bondi, the Castro, Boystown, Decatur. To some, Provincetown was and stays a sin vacation spot, a helltown. To the individuals who make pilgrimages right here every summer time, it turns into a neighborhood. A spot to be.
For a decade, we made an annual pilgrimage to Provincetown every July—and as expensive because it’s change into, it’s nonetheless good to be again, after six lengthy years. Little has modified. Drag exhibits take up most each marquee: reality-TV champions elbow apart the endearing oddness of Dina Martina and the muscular camp of Varla Jean Merman. Cabaret exhibits, a Wayland Flowers and Madame homage.
As a result of it’s basically an “different,” too—a powertrain perversion of SUV custom when you scratch at its paint—the Rivian suits proper in. After I drive down Industrial Road trying to find a parking spot, I discover who notices the SUV. It’s nonetheless new and unheralded sufficient to be a standing image in a spot the place shirtless younger Romanian guys pedal-cab folks for suggestions down the primary drag. The R1S will get the approving nod of the “flip-flop, tank prime, don’t cease” crowd lining up for tea dance on the Boatslip, and from the proprietor of a ‘76 Eldorado parked discreetly in a storage—as discreetly as any ‘76 Eldo could be.
It’s reassuring to gauge the reactions, whilst pedestrians wish to stroll straight into the R1S’s path. I get it. I too am within the thrall of its 4 electrical motors, its easy and instantaneous acceleration, and—to make sure—the raffish profile it cuts. The Rivian belongs right here. So does everybody, anybody. What Provincetown as soon as was, it has change into once more: a refuge.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
Monuments to the previous
No parking spots seem anyplace close to the place I wish to dock the R1S for the weekend. The one technique to go is up. I wind across the block down Bradford Road towards the excessive level of the tour of Cape Cod—the tallest granite constructing within the nation, the place parking is a measly $20.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
The Provincetown Museum at Pilgrim Monument provides a latter-day monument to those that we honor as conquerors. Like later generations of Civil Conflict monuments, this one was christened within the eyes of people that needed to enshrine Puritans as a shining ethical pressure. It’s complicated in context, a granite Italianate exclamation level that tacks down the city as if it have been in peril of blowing away.
On an excellent day you possibly can see Plymouth from the highest of the 252-foot-tall Pilgrim Monument, when you climb its 166 steps and 60 ramps on what occurs to be the most well liked day of the summer time. On the best way up, I contact the marble plaques that mark the founding of Massachusetts cities. I notice that Foxborough got here into existence in 1681 and so they solely have 5 Tremendous Bowl rings to point out for it. Do higher, Foxborough.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
I attain the highest, drenched in sweat, and look over the tennis courts the place I’ve foot-faulted, the attic residences the place I’ve slept off a hangover, then turned to the opening pierced into the stone, the one going through south—the place the Mayflower would have dropped anchor. And simply as shortly, I beat the trail again down into the accompanying museum.
Air con lets me soak within the panels of historical past that mark not solely the Monument’s development in the course of the top of the period of monuments—the early 1900s, when necessary males felt the necessity to commemorate imposed glory whereas it already was exhibiting indicators of its inherent weak point—but additionally the story of Provincetown’s queer heritage and most significantly, the story of the Wampanoag nation and the Nauset folks. In the end—cultural change takes time even in a really progressive spot on the map—the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum has made the Wampanoag story a part of its everlasting expertise. It’s an acknowledged a part of the story.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
Discovering your tribe
I can hint my household again to America as early as 1625 via Cookes and Doanes and Hardings and Rings—ur-American names, all—however the oldest grave I’ve but seen is that of Samuel Brown.
How did he get right here? Effectively, after his forebears landed in Plymouth, and determined it wasn’t Puritanical sufficient, they struck out for a spot of their very own on the Cape. I cruise by him once more just a few days later, on the journey again house, the place he lies within the Cove cemetery alongside along with his father, William, and mom, Mary Murdoch.
Cove is the one Cape Cod cemetery with Mayflower passengers, it seems, many in unmarked graves. Different burials have been marked by a gravestone and a footstone, to suggest the particular person lies in mattress in everlasting sleep. Nonetheless others, like Samuel Brown’s marker, have elaborate carving on them, with wings and crossed bones superimposed by a cranium. If it sounds creepy, it’s really fairly lovely. When moist, the slate goes ink black once more, the image of gravitas, with all of the splotches of inexperienced that colonize it.
Rivian R1S touring Cape Cod
It appears unusual to cease and say a prayer or to stake a small American flag in his honor, since I wouldn’t know something in regards to the former and he by no means knew the starred-and-striped latter. He will get toasted with a Dunkin’ giant iced latte as a substitute.
What would he take into consideration that—or about me? Perhaps the identical issues that the Puritans assume again house, the place it’s not at all times snug to speak about present occasions with well-meaning folks. The place, while you attempt to clarify how lives are being made unlawful once more, you’re answered with a shrug. The place the very thought of protected harbors—protected areas—is met with scorn.
It is very important be in these locations, to face for tolerance and acceptance, even when awkward disagreement is the perfect I can handle. It’s because the Provincetown museum mildly passes off the historical past of the First Encounter: “sophisticated.”
It’s much more necessary to know the place we belong. Provincetown, as distant as it could be many of the 12 months, is the place all my tribes come collectively. Perhaps subsequent time, it gained’t have been six years between visits. I can’t wait too lengthy, I do know. One other six years and Samuel Brown’s slate tombstone might have crumbled into unreadable fragments.
Till then, after I consider the place I’m discovered, I’ll consider this place—of the highway to Race Level because it races towards sundown, the place Cape mild flatters the panorama with unheralded amber, the place the ocean grass bends and waves good day because it welcomes me again.
