|
When we think of the Pilgrims, it's Thanksgiving that comes to mind --- placid people with big buckles on their shoes, dining once a year with two or three Indians. Nathaniel Philbrick's new book shows the Pilgrims to have been anything but placid. He tells us what the Mayflower passengers experienced, and then shows how the next generation coped with the world they had created. This easily could have been two books; but taken together, the two generations show how quickly our national character developed.
The Pilgrims were religious fanatics, fleeing the persecution of the Anglicans, squashed into a boat with non-believers and forced to get along. Their single-mindedness worked against them as they made their preparations. For instance, they were so sure of God's goodwill that they didn't even bother to bring a map. They had no idea that winter in New England is much, much colder than in Europe, and saw no danger in arriving in November with no food. Cape Cod, where Plymouth Rock is located, is one of the most fertile fishing grounds in the world, yet none of the Pilgrims knew how to fish and starvation was a real concern. Half of the Pilgrims died the first year and the rest depended on the local tribes, in particular the Pokanokets under the sachem Massasoit, who showed them how to live.
Unfortunately, the Pilgrims' gratitude was short-lived and the next generation was unable to maintain cordial relations with the tribes, who had problems of their own. They were far from a unified group; the Pilgrims arrived in a land already in the throes of dissent. Worse yet, small pox had decimated the tribes; it was not unusual for the Pilgrims to stumble over settlements where everyone had died.
The tribes had to find a way to live with drastically reduced numbers, and the Pilgrims had to find a way to make money in order to satisfy the impatient investors who had financed their voyage. They resorted to any means necessary, including enslavement, to get the tribes' land and their greed resulted in King Philip's War, named for a son of Massasoit, the sachem who welcomed the Mayflower's passengers. King Philip's War lasted only 14 months, but by the end, a third of the Europeans' early towns had been burned to the ground and 5,000 people had been killed. There were only 70,000 people in all of New England, Europeans and Native Americans combined, making King Philip's War twice as deadly as the American Civil War.
A visit to Cape Cod today reveals very little hint of the gory battles that transpired. MAYFLOWER reminds Americans of our rocky early history and how easily the national development we take for granted could have gone another way.
--- Reviewed by Colleen Quinn (CQuinn9368@yahoo.com)
 Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Click here to get the audiobook from Audible.com.
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
