The title is a little misleading. We were finished with the first "Thanksgiving" by page 120. And then lots of detail and lots of names and the inevitable downfall of the Native Americans through lots of violence. All true though. The book is over at page 358 with 103 pages of notes and bibliography following that I did NOT read, ha.

I have to admit, I am one of those naïve Americans that has walked around in a bit of a fantasy land when it comes to the history of Plymouth and the Pilgrims. From grade school, I knew they desired freedom to worship their religion without persecution. In order to do so, they faced a difficult journey aboard the Mayflower prior to landing on the shores of New England. There’s a giant rock on which they must have set foot after disembarking from the ship. I know the Pilgrims struggled to survive and the Native Americans came to their rescue. They celebrated the First Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, a holiday which we now sit down to every November in order to indulge and give thanks. Well, that’s it in a nutshell, right? Or so I believed! Nathaniel Philbrick, however, has set me straight and enlightened me way more than I could ever have imagined!

Mayflower is extremely well researched and undeniably well-written. However, it is quite dense with very detailed information regarding much more than the voyage of the Mayflower and the original settlement of Plymouth colony. Philbrick takes us beyond those years through the next couple of generations and presents a factual account of the violent and bloody wars fought between the New Englanders and the Native Americans. The first Thanksgiving most certainly did not end in a ‘happily ever after’ situation. There were numerous conflicts, various alliances between the New Englanders and Native Americans, and treachery. I was often quite shocked to learn of the behavior exhibited by some of the Pilgrims’ descendants. It wasn’t very pretty and not something I feel proud to claim as part of my American heritage. Speaking of heritage, Philbrick tells us that "In 2002 it was estimated that there were approximately 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers in the United States, which represents roughly 10 percent of the total U.S. population." Philbrick, however, does tell us the good with the bad and we also learn of some of the more upstanding descendants. Little tidbits of facts like this were what I enjoyed most about the book. It helped me slog through some of the more textbook-like sections when I knew I might find a little nugget of information I could perhaps share with the family at our Thanksgiving gathering in a couple of weeks from now. This may change the tone at the table a bit in the wrong direction, however - "Fifty-six years after the sailing of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims’ children had not only defeated the Pokanokets in a devastating war, they had taken conscious, methodical measures to purge the land of its people." Perhaps we will have to seriously indulge a bit before smashing the myth all to bits! My favorite little chronicle was one which involved Captain Benjamin Church, principal aide to Plymouth’s governor, Josiah Winslow. During one of the final skirmishes of King Philip’s War, several Native Americans were taken as captives. When Church asked one of the older captives his name, he was answered with ‘Conscience’. Philbrick tells us that Church replied, "Conscience, then the war is over, for that was what they were searching for, it being much wanting." Indeed!

I found this to be a worthwhile read, although a bit dry throughout the middle to last sections of the book. Last year I read Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and found it to be immensely entertaining and quite effortless. It read much like fiction, and so I expected much of the same with Mayflower. However, in my opinion, this was more like the sort of non-fiction book from which I previously steered away – one which presents copious facts and dates to the extent that I feel like I am back in school. Some readers that enjoy a myriad of detail will quite enjoy this. History buffs should have no complaints since Philbrick has done his job well here. Since I did enjoy parts of this book and am grateful to be considerably more educated on the topic of the Pilgrims and King Philip’s War, I have rated Mayflower 3.5 stars.

It's good. Philbrick includes so much interesting information upon the physical world, beyond the historic events and people. Especially within ship voyages, as he does here with the Gulf Stream.

These people on the Mayflower were serious about their religion. And to have such faith in their God's protection! But it is nearly impossible to form the perceptions and conceptions of their reality to what they would find, IMHO. Because their entire worldview was so elementally different. Four of those kids on the voyage were parceled out by a unforgiving husband to people who had no blood relation. So many things were common that we would be appalled at in base cognition.

The conflicts. And the strange alliances.

He is very good at his description and explanation. But I did not enjoy this one as much as I did his Heart of the Sea. Perhaps because I knew so much more about the era previously.

I believe this is definitely a book Americans should read. We only learn a small portion of the history of the pilgrims and American Indians in school.

History is the look back at what happened. It’s easier to see cause and effect from various people’s poor actions. As humans we really do the best we can. Those who chose poorly reaped consequences and unfortunately many people fell in the wake of those poor decision. Times were different and often frightening as all new things and drastic changes are.

It was both disturbing and devastating to see how both sides exacted revenge. I knew nothing of the war with Phillip and I feel more informed after reading this excellent work.

I do not necessarily agree with all of Philbrick’s opinions, suggestions, or some conclusions. However, they do make you think. I do believe he tried to write this book in a fair way without too much slant one way or the other. I also appreciated his inclusion of religious beliefs, and miracles (even if he had his own doubts about them).

For the gentle reader: descriptions of disturbing war, slaughter, and bloodshed; reference to a youth who committed the spiritual and then unlawful sin of buggary & his court case and subsequent hanging.

Everyone has heard of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, and that first "Thanksgiving" with indigenous Americans, feasting on turkey, ears of corn, and stuffing. Wait...no, that's not really how it went. Nathaniel Philbrick expertly recounts the history of English settlers in New England in 1620.

This book goes well beyond a study of the iconic Mayflower and the English pilgrims who sailed across the ocean to settle in a land where they were free of religious persecution. In fact, the voyage itself is covered in just a couple of chapters and begins with the years prior to the sailing as a group of separatists removed themselves from the Church of England and harbored in Holland. In 1620, led by William Bradford along with commanding officer Christopher Jones, 102 pilgrims and a crew of about 30 men gathered on the Mayflower and made their way to the coast of Cape Cod in the northeastern part of North America. After finally reaching land, the surviving members scoped the coast before settling on a place to build. Before disembarking, the men signed the Mayflower Compact, the first secular political document in America and the precursor to our eventual constitution.

Once settled, the newcomers had to learn to co-exist with local indigenous people, particularly Massasoit and members of the Pokanoket (aka, Wampanoag) tribe. It was winter when the Pilgrims reached the Cape, and the Pokanokets had barely survived a deadly disease that ravaged the area prior to the arrival of the English. Of the over 102+ settlers, about half survived that first winter. The Pilgrims and Pokanokets helped each other through that first year.

Philbrick then recounts the years following the emigration to America, detailing the relations between the English and indigenous people, which were far from idyllic. For decades, local indigenous tribes warred with each other and the English. Treaties were made, land was sold and stolen, and trade commenced. Then, 55 years after the Pilgrims first made their way to the shores of Cape Cod, war broke out. King Philip's War was devasting to both the English and Natives. The total casualties stand at around 4,000 (3,000 indigenous and 1,000 English), nearly decimating the Pokanoket tribe.

Philbrick's exhaustive study attempts to speak for both Indigenous and English in very engaging prose. In his afterward, the author comments on the somewhat lack of voice for the local Native people. Much of their own history is recounted in oral tradition that is, understandably, not often shared with outsiders. This leaves a giant hole in American historiography. As part of his research, Philbrick worked with local tribes to glean as much of their perspective as possible to give a fair and balanced history.

I let myself get misled. I read the main title--Mayflower--and got excited. I wanted to know more about the Pilgrims, more about their spiritual/religious concerns, more about their women, more about their physical culture and then anything else Philbrick had to say. But this is not that book. Only my want of information misled me.

Philbrick has written a book that is
Well Researched
Cognizant
Organized
Workman-like.
Women inclusive

I have a feeling that Philbrick did not much like this topic despite all the work he put into it. I have read other of his books where I know he was interested in the subject.

I see a social problem. Philbrick uses the word "Indians" rather than "indigenous," "Native American," or "Amerindians." His book was published in 2006, a time too late to use "Indians" without being obvious and socially uncomfortable. While I understand the traditional description of "Pilgrims and Indians," I would rather that Philbrick had written a Note about Terms Used to explain his use "Indians."

I also see social inclusion. Philbrick includes mentions of several women and discussion of a few. We meet three women sachems/leaders of Amerindian groups, one Pocasset sachem Weetamoo who had on-going military relationship with Benjamin Church. Strong-charactered Elizabeth Warren Church is known by her husband's estimation of her as described in his personal writing. An abducted New Engkand woman Mary Rowlandson who survived to write her memiors. Her various memiors are available at Amazon Kindle.

If I do re-read this book, I will make note of at least two specific times were Philbrick uses a paraphrase that maybe should have been a blend of paraphrase and quote. Why? Because sometimes I wondered if Philbrick were in agreement with the slight-easy-to-miss ethnic not-quite-slur. He makes questionable references to Amerindians.

I am glad I read the book and just may return to reread it. What draws me: Understanding of social change in New England. When the Pilgrims arrived, they appreciated the relationships they built with the Amerindians. But the Pilgrims' children and grandchildren got greedy for land and power which helped them forget to be grateful for the help their tired, weak, sick, hungry parents and grandparents received from Amerindian groups, particularly those guided by sachem Massasoit. Once they got financial set, the younger generations found it necessary to rid themselves of their own friends which they perceived to be enemies.

Also I appreciate the small descriptions of cultural sharing. I may return to read for social history.

“For sixty-five days, the Mayflower had blundered her way through storms and headwinds, her bottom a shaggy pelt of seaweed and barnacles, her leaky decks spewing salt water onto her passengers’ devoted heads. There were 102 of them – 104 if you counted the two dogs…Most of their provisions and equipment were beneath them in the hold, the primary storage area of the vessel. The passengers were in the between…decks – a dank, airless space about seventy-five feet long and not even high five feet high that separated the hold from the upper deck…A series of thin-walled cabins had been built, creating a crowded warren of rooms that overflowed with people and their possessions: chest of clothing, casks of food, chairs, pillows, rugs, and omnipresent chamber pots. There was even a boat – cut into pieces for later assembly – doing temporary duty as a bed.”
-tNathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower

When it comes to American history, we have a tendency towards reduction. We cherish the myth over the reality; the bombastic over the subtle; the simple over the complex. In modern media terms, we prefer the soundbite to the whole speech.

On the Fourth of July, for example, we aren't thinking about competing mercantile interests, unpaid French-and-Indian War debts, or the Townsend Acts. Not at all. Instead, as we get hot dog-drunk and light off fireworks, we're probably imagining a guy with a wig and a tricorne hat saying something about freedom.

History is more comforting that way. It's easier. It leaves more time for drinking and nurturing feelings of superiority towards France.

Our earliest history, the first European settlements, can be boiled down to one image: the Pilgrim.

Picture the Pilgrims with me: grim, black coated men with stiff white collars and funny hats with buckles. They grip their blunderbusses while their doughy, sexless wives grip their elbows. In the brush, something is skulking. It might be a sly turkey. An Indian. A witch. A lost and disoriented Cotton Mather. It doesn't matter. The Pilgrim has that blunderbuss, and it's full of justice.

Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower is the story of how it really went down. Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. It's probably not the story you heard in grade school. (Though I give you credit for recognizing that the story you heard in grade school was a lot of mashed potatoes and gravy).

Like all works of revisionism, Philbrick's book is both enlightening and a little disappointing. I love history as much as anything, which is accompanied by a secret pleasure at puncturing historical myths. But even I have to admit it's sometimes nice to be left with our illusions. In this case, the illusion being that the interlopers from the Old World and the indigenous inhabitants of the New were able to come together in mutual cooperation. Even though untrue, it's a fine notion. A retroactive ideal to strive for going forward.

Philbrick, though, is focused on the reality, which is quite a bit harsher.

***

The story starts with the voyage of the titular ship:

The Mayflower was a typical merchant vessel of her day: square-rigged and beak bowed, with high, castlelike superstructures fore and aft that protected her cargo and crew in the worst weather, but made beating against the wind a painfully inefficient endeavor. Rated at 180 tons (meaning her hold was capable of accomodating 180 casks or tuns of wine), she was approximately three times the size of the Speedwell and about one hundred feet in length.

Philbrick, who wrote the splendid whaling book, In the Heart of the Sea, once again tells a fast-paced, informative story, filled with little interesting factoids that make you go, hmm. For the most part, he does the same here.

Unfortunately, he is hampered by a dearth of sources. The famous voyage of the Mayflower – which gives the book its title – is told in only a few pages. This is due to the fact that the inveterate diarist William Bradford himself only devoted a couple paragraphs to the subject. Without primary accounts to research, Philbrick has no choice but to move on. It's an instance of source-material driving the narrative.

Of course, the lack of primary sources is not Philbrick's fault. He has not – to my knowledge – ever started a fire that burned a library full of Pilgrim diaries. But nonetheless, it hampers any telling of this story. By necessity, he must rely on Bradford a great deal, which gives a one-sided view of what happened. Famous events such as the signing of the Mayflower Compact are told through his eyes, without the benefit of corroboration. We are left to hope that Bradford wasn't totally full of stuffing.

***

Once the Mayflower has dropped anchor and the Pilgrims gone to shore, the story picks up steam, helped by a widening circle of characters. For instance, we get to meet Benjamin Church, who later became a famous chronicler of King Philip's War. We are also introduced to the irascible Myles Standish, one of the livelier actors of this drama:

Myles Standish was officially designated their captain. A small man with a broad, powerful physique and reddish hair, Standish also had something of a chip on his shoulder. He seems to have been born on the Isle of Man off the west coast of England, and even though he was descended from "the house of Standish of Standish," his rightful claim to ancestral lands had been, according to his own account, "surreptitiously detained from me," forcing him to seek his fortune as a mercenary in Holland. Well educated and well read (he owned a copy of Homer's The Iliad and Caesar's Commentaries), he appears to have conducted himself with a haughty impulsiveness that did not endear him to some of the settlers, one of whom later claimed that the Plymouth captain "looks like a silly boy, as is in utter contempt."

Eventually, we reach “the first Thanksgiving,” which is where most ideas about the Pilgrims begins and ends.

***

Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was a creation of Abraham Lincoln, building on a proclamation by George Washington, who sought a bright side during the Civil War. Today, Thanksgiving is a time of football, overeating, and letting your extended family know how much they have let you down. The original seedling for Thanksgiving was a celebration of the Pilgrims being rescued from the brink with the help of the Wampanoag Indians Massasoit and Squanto.

Countless Victorian-era engravings notwithstanding, the Pilgrims did not spend the day sitting around a long table draped with a white linen cloth, clasping each other's hands in prayer as a few curious Indians looked on. Instead of an English affair, the First Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration...Most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires, where the deer and birds turned on wooden spits and where pottages - stews into which varieties of meats and vegetables were thrown - simmered invitingly.

This thanksgiving was the culmination of a great deal of sacrifice, risk, luck, and shrewdness. We often view Massasoit as having saved the Pilgrims from starvation; what we don't often dwell upon is the fact that the Pilgrims chose Massasoit as an ally, and in doing so, became a power player in the region.

The First Thanksgiving occurs just over a hundred pages into Mayflower. There are well over two hundred pages left. After the turkeys are eaten, the wine is drunk, and the drunk uncles are pushed out of the crudely-built log cabins, Philbrick takes the burnished image of interracial cooperation/gluttony and tears it to pieces.

***

What follows is treachery and war. Anyone buying this book to read in preparation of the holiday should know that Philbrick is not interested in holidays. (On the other hand, if you - like me – enjoy horrifying your relatives with cruel historical fact, then get your wallets ready). The Mayflower/Pilgrims/Thanksgiving angle is quickly left behind. The final two thirds of the book are devoted to Pilgrim/Indian politics and King Philip's War.

This is certainly interesting stuff. King Philip's War was an incredibly brutal, under-acknowledged affair. Proportionally, it remains one of the bloodiest conflicts on American soil (1 out of 65 English and 1 out of 20 Indians were slain). Four of Massasoit's children died in the war (Massasoit himself was already dead). In the end, King Philip was shot, drawn-and-quartered, and beheaded. His head was displayed in Plymouth for 20 years.

Happy Thanksgiving! Pass the drumsticks.

***

Philbrick is an extremely talented historian and storyteller. He has become one of those guys whose books I always read, but – for whatever reason – have never entirely loved. Here, as hard as he tries to breathe life into this story, there's a coldness and distance to it.

This is a function of the material, more so than the author. So much of the Pilgrim tale is supposition: what might have happened. With a lack of primary accounts, a historian is left with the skeleton of an event. Moreover, even where they exist, contemporary accounts are often of limited value. They are not visceral and immediate; they don't allow us to feel the history. Rather, they often had a dual purpose, with informativeness a secondary concern.

***

For all its qualities, Mayflower is a bummer. Illusions are a necessary part of life, and Thanksgiving is a nice one. I like to imagine together to help each other, to see cultural divides bridged with food and drink and merriment. The reality is that the mythological Thanksgiving proved a brief interlude in a grim tale of death and dismemberment. Thus, when your family starts tearing itself apart over politics this Thanksgiving, you can find a quiet corner, drink a bottle of wine, and rest assured that it is closer to historical reality than is comfortable.

4.5 Stars

Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower" is a thoroughly enjoyable book about the history of early America from the founding of Plymouth to King Philip's War. The title of the book "Mayflower" is deceptive since the bulk of the book focuses on the early American settlers in New England rather than the actual Mayflower itself. But this was still and very interesting and engaging book. Philbrick focuses on the relationships between the Plymouth settlers and the Native America tribes, showing how early America was at it's best when it worked in harmony with the Native Americas, and at it's worst when it gave way to bigotry and oppressed the Native Americas. Included in this story is a wide cast of characters such as William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Massasoit, Squanto, King Philip and Benjamin Church. Along the way Philbrick dispels many of the "founding myths" of these early American figures and helps us to see the faults and heroics of each of them.

Overall this was a great book and really encouragement me to ponder America's founding and how often cultural misunderstandings, bigotry and hatred can snowball into war and destruction. The Plymouth settlers sought to be friends with the Native America tribes but there descendants slowly began to see the Native Americans and impediment to their flourishing, rather than the other way around. It's a stark reminder of the brokenness of our world and a need for Savior to transcend cultural borders and overcome our prejudice and hate. This is a great read!

Thoughts soon.

Another solid effort by Philbrick. In this book, he traces the evolution of the Pilgrims and the beginning of the Plymouth colony. Philbrick describes the almost insurmountable difficulties that the Pilgrims had to overcome when they first arrived in North America - and even before that on the their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the Mayflower.

Philbrick is especially good at describing the complexities of the English/Indian relations, and how the original Pilgrims were able to (mostly) coexist peacefully with the Pokanoket Tribe headed by Massasoit. They would not have survived the first winter without help from the Indians. Eventually, as the decades went by, mistrust began to accumulate on both sides as greediness, and paranoia took hold of both sides - especially on the English side. The atrocities that each side inflicted on each other are appalling to read about, and were a pre-cursor to the many other brutal conflicts that have plagued the United States since then.

I didn't intentionally read this because it was "Thanksgiving" season, but I did find it a fascinating account of the Pilgrims and the early history of the Plymouth colony. I enjoyed Philbrick's other book on Bunker Hill, largely because it conveyed the humanity of its protagonists, quirks, warts and all, and made for a compelling narrative. This book does the same. In my opinion, Philbrick does a reasonably good job balancing between the perspectives of the Indigenous peoples and the English colonists, letting us see the complicated, messy clash between cultures, the horrifying effects of the European arrival on the native cultures, but also the very human interactions between individuals trying to understand each other, learn from each other, use each other, manipulate each other, and eventually eliminate each other. The arrival of the Pilgrims put a new piece of the political chessboard of the region, which had already been ravaged by diseases brought by earlier European contact, and the Native peoples were quick to realize the danger, but also the destabilizing opportunities the Pilgrims presented. My take away was that, for better but usually for worse, humans are gonna human. They are driven by fear, greed, and prejudice to seek short-term gain. They are tribal by nature, hard-wired to divide the world into "us" and "them." They have very short memories when it comes to honoring their debts and obligations. The section on King Philip's War was especially sad reading. I knew the broad strokes of the conflict, but Philbrick brought it to life through vignettes of the many characters involved. A poignant account of a critical phase in history, drawing heavily from the firsthand accounts of those involved, the book offers a readable, multi-faceted glimpse into the formation of what would come to be called "New England."

Probably a better title would be: “King Phillips War”.

There are obvious lessons to be learned though I fear mankind perhaps has not, even 400 years removed. In the face of immigration and cultural change, the only saving action can be to love our neighbors as ourselves. Falling short of that, what is innate to us will only bring about death and destruction. Thank Christ (like actually) that it is not the role of modern people, or people of the future to stand in final judgement of the souls that lived so long ago…