Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
New World Greek Tragedy
From the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea - winner of the
National Book Award - the startling story of the Plymouth Colony:
From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first
Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become
enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as bestselling author
Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of
the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it
is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and
profound.
The Mayflowers religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a
period of crisis for Native Americans as disease spread by European
fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groups (the
Wampanoags, under the charismatic and calculating chief Massasoit, and
the Pilgrims, whose pugnacious military officer, Miles Standish, was barely
five feet tall) maintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades,
New England would erupt into King Philips War, a savagely bloody conflict
that nearly wiped out English colonists and natives alike and forever
altered the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow
from them.
With towering figures like William Bradford and the distinctly American
hero, Benjamin Church, at the center of his narrative, Philbrick has
fashioned a fresh and compelling portrait of the dawn of American history -
a history dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and
religion.
Personal Review: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
This is an easy flowing narrative that focuses on the relationship between
the English settlers and the Native American populations in 17th century
New England. Despite the book's title, the story being told merely starts
with the Pilgrims of the Mayflower; who they were, where they came from
and their efforts to reach the New World. It also covers the first decade of
the Plymouth colony in detail, and demonstrates why it was political self -
interest and not just naive altruism that motivated Massasoit to help these
interlopers.
The story then leaps ahead rather abruptly from about 1630 and the
beginnings of the Great Migration, to the onset of the conflict known as
King Philip's War in 1675. As the author points out several times, this war
not only devastated the native population, but also inflicted the highest
percentage of population loss on those of European decent as any war this
country has ever had. It is painted as a struggle for survival on both sides,
with the elimination of the English colonies as a possible, albeit unlikely,
outcome.
Contrary to some other reviewers, I did not detec t any particular bias in this
author's depictions. Both Native and English have their courageous heroes
and craven opportunists, and there are cases of duplicity and manipulation
cited across both peoples. Although the result is not a clear account of
Good Guys versus Bad Guys, it does end up being fundamentally
"human", and therefore believable.
This edition also contains numerous maps and photos of locations and
artifacts. There are also extensive postscript sections of index, notes and
acknowledgements that amount to about 40% of the total length. I would
have personally preferred more detail of the years between 1630 and
1670. The author's intent, however, is not a chronology of the development
of the English settlements, but a telling of the "Greek Tragedy" (his
expression) of the relationship between two cultures.
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