Mayflower Book Report

American history is so much more interesting now than it was when I was growing up! I have just finished reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. First of all, I was surprised to see a book on this summers New York Times Best Seller List about a subject so long ago. I would have thought the story about the Pilgrims had been told enough times no one would bother writing another book. Philbrick has written an enlightening account of the 17th century events that shaped our country. It was a story that is well written and enjoyable to read.
I was immediately hooked in the book. In the first paragraph, excluding the preface, Philbrick writes "There were 102 of them – 104 if you counted the two dogs: a spaniel
and a giant, slobbery mastiff." I love dogs! And two of my "granddogs" are "giant, slobbery mastiffs". I can understand writing a book of fiction and basing it on historical facts, but this is supposed to be non-fiction. How in the world does this man know that two dogs were on the Mayflower? Throughout the book I continued to ask myself the same question, "How does this man know this stuff, did he just make it up?" What I didn't realize, until I was quite a ways through the book, there are pages and pages of notes in the back of the book. These notes take you chapter by chapter and tell you where Philbrick found the information he writes about in that particular chapter. He lists previous books, manuscripts, journals and personal writings that have survived all of these years. Besides the notes, his bibliography is twenty-three pages long! The man did his research, and I am glad he did.
Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the Pilgrims, beginning with them breaking away from the Church of England, emigrating to Holland, and eventually to America on the Mayflower. He talks about the relationship they had with the "Strangers" or nonbelievers that accompanied them on their adventure. He tells stories about disease, death, deception, and depression. I had never thought about it, but you know some of those people had to be suffering from depression. He tells of joys but mostly of hardships and as he describes some of the first meetings with the Native Americans. His description of the first Thanksgiving is not the same as the pictures I have seen all of my life. To make it more authentic, maybe this next Thanksgiving we should all eat with our fingers and knives instead of silver. That is where my previous knowledge of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower ended. It was very interesting, and disheartening to read about the next fifty-five years.
I read names I have heard all of my life, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Miles Standish, and Massasoit to name a few, but I just knew the basics of the pilgrims.
I viewed the Pilgrims as a community living and working together. I believed they became friends with the Native Americans and all learned to live peacefully with each other. As it turns out, "Living Happily Ever After" only happens in fairy tales. What I didn't know was the second generation must not have learned from their parents. There was a paragraph in the book that really illustrates the differences in generations. On page 203 Philbrick writes, "In 1623, Edward Winslow had earned Massasoit's undying love by doing everything in his power - even scraping the sachem's furred mouth - to save his life. Thirty-nine years later, Winslow's son (Josiah) had burst into Alexander's (Massasoit's oldest son) wigwam, brandishing a pistol. Within a week, the Pokanoket leader was
dead."
The Pilgrims and the Native Americans gave up on trying living peacefully with each other and ended up fighting in a fourteen month war. The Colonists eventually won, but the cost was great. According to Philbrick, before the war, there were approximately seventy thousand people living in New England. By the end of King Philip's war there were close to five thousand dead and three quarters of those were Native Americans. Besides the dead, there were hundreds of Native Americans that were shipped off and sold as slaves. Again, according to Philbrick, by percentages of population, that makes King Philip's War more than twice as bloody and the American Civil War and at least seven times more lethal than the American Revolution.
As I have grown older, I have discovered that I have lived my life in a dream world.
I have naively chosen not to actually digest the amount of killing and undeserved death that has shaped our history, both world history and American history. For years I have viewed history with a romanticist eye. I have come to realize that life is not pretty and some of these people, "heroes", that I have heard about or read about all of my life were not really the kind of people I had first thought. It is not just this book that has brought about my enlightenment. Among other things, I recently watched "The Mission", a 1986 movie starring Robert DeNiro; I didn't want to believe it was basically historically correct. It has broken my heart to realize the number of innocent people who have lost their lives throughout
history.
I was never particularly interested in Plymouth Plantation or that area of our country but after reading this book, I think a trip up to New England needs to be in our plans this fall.