Beyond Turkeys, Cranberry Sauce, Tall Hats, and Buckled Shoes
t
Nathaniel Philbrick's remarkable "Mayflower" is everything you'd hope a history book to be: illuminating, lively, and authoritative. This was simply a terrific read, a fascinating glimpse into the events and people serving as the first bricks in our nation's foundation.

Beyond the fairytale images of "The First Thanksgiving", most basic American history skips from the Mayflower's 1620 landing in Plymouth the American Revolution, glossing over the rich and brawling century-and-a-half spanning these two events. Philbrick zeroes in on the first half-century, stripping away the myth and homily typically associated with the Pilgrims and laying bare a fascinating tale of courage and deceit, of trusts forged and broken, of politics, religion, brutality, and war. All the familiar figures are there - William Bradford, Miles Standish, Pokanoket Indian chief Massoit, Squanto, and Edward Winslow, but Philbrick focuses on less celebrated figures like Benjamin Church and Massoit's son Phillip, who while hardy household names today leave behind legacies that helped shape what would become a century later the United States of America.

This is a story ripe with opportunity for politically correct revisionism, but the author walks a balanced line, alternately praising and condemning the deeds and players of both the English and the Native Americans. We learn, for example, that near-starvation in the first two years had as much to do with the Pilgrim's failed experiment in socialism as it did with harsh winters and poor soil. This led Bradford to adopt a policy allowing each family to grow and hunt not for the "commonwealth", but for themselves. Thanks to Bradford's newly discovered spirit of capitalism, the colony is soon producing a surplus of food. There may be a perverse humor in the irony of contemporary images of God-fearing Pilgrims in tall hats and buckled shoes when matched with the reality of a people who would draw and quarter their enemies and display their heads on pikes. But this is no less naive than euphemistic views of New England's "peaceful and noble Indians", who in fact warred with rival tribes for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, and showed no lack of talent or imagination for treachery, torture, and manipulation.

In short, "Mayflower" is that rare historical chronicle that reads with the all intrigue and energy of well-written novel, and important expose of an overlooked period of our history with lessons as relevant today as they were three centuries ago. Well done, Mr. Philbrick.

Unabridged audio book.

I read ("listened to" in this case) this over Thanksgiving a while back. It's a pretty good attempt at an even handed treatment of the subject. I find that while earlier versions of the story tend to view the Pilgrims universally as heroic (not a bad thing for young students in my view) the more recent attempts have gone the other way. There seems to be a need to see them almost as villains. They were of course, human, a mixture of good and bad. Many of the things they did that have been painted as evil were simply the product of misunderstanding between cultures. There is at least an attempt to recognize that here.

The story follows the Europeans (Pilgrims) and the Indians (Native Americans) through meeting, working out a peace and the length of that peace until it's failure.

I believe that anytime two cultures meet there doesn't need to be "imperial intentions". the more advanced society tends to "swallow up" the not so advanced society (the Picts of Scotland might bear that out.) So it was with the native American Cultures. There was never any chance that they would be "walled off" and kept around as a sort of continent wide museum. The people who came here saw land not being used and didn't understand the Native American way of looking at it. I could go on, but you get the point. Constant self flagellation at this point is counter productive.

Also, there is a lesson here we might want to keep in mind if any life form ever does show up in an interplanetary ship or steps out of an interstellar gate.

Just a thought. :)

The story of the first fifty years of the Plymouth colony, starting with where the pilgrims started, and ending with King Philip's War, something I had never heard of. I think Philbrick did a great job of showing both sides of the two communities combing together: the Native peoples and the Pilgrims. Lots of misunderstandings, some friendships, betrayals, all very human and much more believable than the straightforward: the Pilgrims came, and the Indians said, "Welcome friends, take our land!" The description of the actual first Thanksgiving feast made me want to maybe try to recreate that sometime . . . serve succotash and wild boar or something . . . Just a thought.

I feel like once we got into the conflict with King Philip, it became a very dry recital of Then this happened, then this happened, then they died, then he died, and it kind of lost me a little. But the Epilogue was an excellent look at how changing attitudes and nostalgia have played such a huge part in altering the narrative, especially since there are primary sources (which he used and cited frequently) have always been available. I definitely recommend for those who want a good look at early American history.

I found this book to be very informative. The beginning of the book, which described the Puritans struggle to come to America, was interesting. I also thought that the descriptions of the initial days of their lives in the foreign land, largely surviving only on the provisions they brought with them and coping with much colder weather than they were used to, was fascinating.

The middle portion of the book, which described life for the Plymouth Rock colony after other other groups from England had immigrated to more desirable regions of Massachusetts, was interesting, but not as riveting. But the ending chapters of the book, recounting the year or so of King Philip's War, helped the book end on a highly dramatic note, particularly with the descriptions of the kidnapping and holding of Mary Rowlandson (who later became America's first best-selling author with her book about her ordeal). The book also enabled many of the figures of that time, such as Miles Standish and William Bradford, to come alive as real people, complete with their good points and blemishes, and not remain the historical figures we learned about in school.

I also liked the way the book ended, with a description of Plymouth Rock today and the efforts of the local Historical Society to save what is left of the rock and instill continued interest in learning about our forefathers.

When this book first came out I shied away from it, even though I love to read American history, thinking it would be dry and not very interesting, just the way I found it as an elementary school student many years ago. But I am glad I read it, because the book was much more interesting than I initially thought it would be.

Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower" is a wonderful rendering of the founding of the Plymouth Colony and its first half century.

The book traces the founding event in 1620 to disaffection by a set of English Puritans. They moved to the Netherlands and sought to assure passage to the New World. The ship that they used for this adventure was, of course, the Mayflower.

The book traces the difficult voyage of 102 passengers over two months. Living conditions were nasty. We meet some of the central characters early in this book: Miles Standish, the soldier; William Bradford; Edward Winslow, among others.

Finally, the Mayflower gets to the New World and the ship looked for a proper landing area. After a number of adventures, they settled on what we now call Plymouth. The landing took place later in the year, so that conditions were challenging. Early on, the colonists benefited from a delicate relationship with the Native Americans led by Massasoit, who figured that his weakened tribe (depleted by illness) might gain by allying with the English to protect themselves from other Native American nations. Too, we meet Squanto, another Native American who worked with the colonists.

The first part of the book spends much time describing how the colony stabilized and began to grow. The volume also discusses the relationship of Plymouth with the other colonies being developed in New England.

The book also discusses in detail the tragic King Philip's War. After Massasoit's death, one of his sons, Philip, began war against the colonists in New England (not just Plymouth). It was a violent war, with much death and destruction among colonists and Native Americans' alike. The author notes that Plymouth Colony lost about 8% of its males in the war. This compares to about 4-5% death rate in the Civil War and about 1% in World War II. The death rate from war among Native Americans was 10%. The end result (page 345): "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."

All in all, this book brings to life the challenges facing those who came over on the Mayflower. And it tells the ongoing story of the colonists for a half century after the landing at Plymouth. A very good read and a well recommended work.

Profoundly readable history of the Mayflower and the Pilgrim's Plymouth Colony settlement in the early 17th century. Much of what I was taught about this was either wrong or grossly misleading. It is astounding what the early settlers had thrown at them and managed to barely survive. Brutal weather, horrible leadership, devastating diseases, native American attacks and betrayals, and massive food shortages plagued the settlers right from the start and never let up. It's a story of perseverance and courage against the relentless, unforgiving backdrop of early colonial America.

Philbrick's writing, as usual, is razor sharp, engaging, and extraordinarily readable. I'd highly recommend this book not only for people interested in early American history but also those looking for a surprisingly riveting, fast paced non-fiction read. Truly spectacular accomplishment.

This is a book that I had my eye on for some time but could never pull the trigger on buying. I saw it at the library recently and decided to check it out. I think a better title would have been: Plymouth, The Pokanokets and King Philip’s War. The vast majority of the book is about the Pilgrims relations with the Indians of the region and the war that eventually broke out. I didn’t mind, really, as I have never really read anything at all about the early colonial days in New England. The book is well written and engaging. I found it to be an easy book to read. I will definitely be reading more of Philbrick’s works in the future.

I was enthralled with this popular history of the first 60 years of Plymouth Colony starting with the Mayflower landing in 1620. With a focus on the actions and decisions of a limited set of key individuals, Philbrick’s account brings to life the initial desperate events of the colony (half of the initial 102 died the first year) and the early years of dependence on the support of the Pokenoket tribe. I was enlightened to learn how decimation of Indian villages by disease and the competitive balance between tribes contributed to the ability of the Pilgrims to gain a foothold. In many ways, the sachem (chief) Massasoit was calling the shots in using the alliance with the Pilgrims to enhance his position with respect to rival tribes, and in turn Squanto’s support of the colony as mediator/translator was motivated by his own Machiavellian schemes. Due to past cases of treacherous attacks and kidnapping for slavery on the part of English and French visitors, other tribes to the north and south would not tolerate colonists. Thus, the Indians were not just passive dupes to exploitation and domination by European invades.

Though the Pilgrims goal of religious freedom was not very tolerant of other belief systems (as the Quakers learned and individuals executed for bestiality and other personal crimes), they were not empire builders and there was quite a lot of respect for the Indians at first. Philbrick does well to dwell on the factors that contributed to the surprisingly peaceful subsequent period of colonial growth and expansion for nearly 50 years and then to spend half the book on the causes and details of its breach in King Philip’s war of 1675, which decimated the Europeans and nearly extinguished several of the tribes in southern New England. Philbrick’s coverage of compassionate voices for peace and arrogant stupidity on both sides begs the question of whether the war was inevitable. He points out how a sense of a Greek tragedy pervades the progression from a local conflict to an expanded war between several tribes and colonies throughout New England.

As evident in two other books of his I enjoyed (his survival saga of the whaling ship Essex and his history of the Battle of the Little Bighorn), Philbrick is a master of balancing the use of primary sources and interpretive reflection in a compelling narrative that rivals that of skilled fiction writers. Philbrick clearly did a lot of research to write this book, but I have no way of telling how much of his synthesis is innovative vs. derivative. What I can say is that the book provided me a good foundation to negotiate the myths and divergent interpretations of European colonialism in the New World and to understand patterns that played out disastrously throughout the westward expansion over the subsequent 200 years.

Fascinating narrative of the Pilgrim's and the Native Americans in the New England area beginning with the journey from England and Holland in 1620. Some information was new, some I had forgotten and some I had been misinformed from early school days. I so enjoy reading Philbrick's writing style!

Rec. by: A Mayflower descendant
Rec. for: The grateful

I don't often read histories like Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower, but this one came recommended by a friend who is an actual descendant of one of the Mayflower's families... and this November turned out to be a most appropriate time to read Philbrick's lively and nuanced rendition of the Pilgrims' emigration from Europe to the land they'd eventually call New England. Philbrick does not parrot the traditional mythology of Puritan hardship and the First Thanksgiving, but rather gives us a vivid and exhaustively-researched portrait of the people and their time, while also explicitly acknowledging—and trying to mitigate—the biases introduced by the Europeans themselves being almost the only written sources for the events he describes.

For Philbrick, the Native Americans (herein called "Indians") are sophisticated antagonists and sometimes even allies, not just savages—and the Pilgrims themselves aren't just stiff invading zealots in black-and-white clothing, either.

In short, Mayflower is a tale filled with people... and that makes it fascinating. This is apparent from the very first page, when Philbrick notes that perhaps, by looking at the past,

we can start to make sense of the convoluted mess we are in today.
—Preface, p.xi

That timeless perspective continues through to the end of Philbrick's narrative, and even past the end—this quote is tucked away in one of his end Notes:

"The Pilgrims were never slow in finding little defects in a man's character and would pounce very quickly on minor sins, but were continually being foxed by major rogues. Perhaps they suffered from moral myopia caused by staring too hard at the Whore of Babylon."
—p.369, from Francis Dillon's The Pilgrims: Their Journeys and Their World

And occasionally Philbrick is able to indulge in some dry humor of his own (although a Note on p.372 acknowledges that both Philbrick and David Cressy failed to resist this particular pun)—upon the Pilgrims being reduced from two ships to one (the Speedwell having failed to be seaworthy), he says

But now, like it or not, they were all in the same boat.
—p.30

*

Plymouth colony was established on eerily empty land, whose original population had been devastated by a pandemic before the Pilgrims even arrived. I hadn't realized just how close the timing was, though; the years 1616-1619 saw the the deaths of most of the Natives in New England. It was an apocalypse, far more than mere decimation:

It was here, on the bone-whitened hills of Plymouth, that the Pilgrims hoped to begin a new life.
—p.80

However, the land was not completely empty, and although the Pilgrims initially relied on the Native Americans they found for survival, their gratitude did not last forever.

The Pilgrims were men of God, but this did not mean they were loath to use force.
—p.114

Despite the inclusion of fascinating trivia—such as how prone Miles Standish apparently was to short man syndrome (p.164)—Philbrick's catalogue of battles and skirmishes became much less interesting (to me, at least), once relations between the remaining Natives and the immigrants to New England devolved into open warfare. As Increase Mather wrote,

"the churches were all upon their knees before the Lord, the God of Armies, entreating his favor and gracious success in the undertaking."
—p.266

In the end, the fort provided eloquent proof of who were the true aggressors in this conflict.
—p.272

*

Some of the terminology used in Mayflower did seem a little questionable to me, even if it might be common among historians. I'd never seen "powwow" used to represent an individual before, for example, although The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition lists that as its third definition. The European invaders from the east are frequently called "Western," and Philbrick uses the term "Indians" throughout as well, only pivoting to "Native" very near the end, on p.355, in the chapter entitled "Conscience," with the establishment of the National Day of Mourning in 1970.

Philbrick's account ends just three pages later, but more than 100 pages of auxiliary matter follow—end notes, bibliography, index—to complete this remarkable work of scholarship.

For those with any interest in the true origin stories of the United States, Mayflower seems like essential reading.

4.5 rating

Like many Americans, I knew the basic story surrounding the story of the Pilgrims and their settlement at Plymouth. I was fascinated though, in reading this book, to find so much more in the details of the realities of what happened behind the mythic nature of many of those stories. It makes sense why the Pilgrims were at times mythologized, such as what really happened with the first Thanksgiving, especially much later during the outbreak of the Civil War, when there was a “public need for a restorative myth of national origins”. I really enjoyed this telling of what really happened.

It is interesting also that most people know about the Pilgrims, but it seems in the popular imagination, for many Americans, America began with them and then nothing of note happened for 150 years until the Revolution began. This book breaks that idea as we initially learn all about the first generation of Pilgrims who arrived here and all that they faced, but it is the subsequent generation that the latter half of the book is focused on as the conflict known as King Philip's War rears its head.

While the book does get off to a bit of a slow start, I loved hearing though about the initial encounters between the Pilgrims and Natives and all the little details like sharing food and the Natives hating mustard, or that the Natives would create these “memory holes” in places where something really important happened, they would dig a hole and it was everyone’s responsibility to keep the various holes cleaned so that stories could be passed down that way like historical markers.

During the initial major conflict between the two groups, I was shocked to learn of some of the brutality from the Pilgrims, or other things you wouldn’t expect like how they weren’t tolerant of other religions, or that the Pilgrims worshiped God with guns at their sides, or that later during King Philip’s War, they sold an estimated 1,000 Native Americans into slavery. It's a complex history but it's written so well as to show real human beings living under extraordinary circumstances and the lengths they'd go, although without excusing it unnecessarily, and the author doesn't shy away from at times criticizing their behavior like when they stole food from the Natives or dug up Native graves, etc.

King Philip’s War was the most fascinating section to learn about. I followed along with every detail on a map and loved it. Speaking of maps, the author provides some great maps throughout whenever we get to a new area. The writing was dramatic and intense, and there were so many stories that were just so cinematic in nature I can’t believe it hasn’t been made into a movie yet. The author has a great way of just putting you in the person’s shoes we’re talking about and bringing the time and place to life.

It is crazy to think about the reality of this small group of people going to a wild land, many of them dying in the first year, and then they managed to not only survive but also it is estimated that approximately 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers survive to this day, or about 10% of the total United States population. It is also crazy to think about the Native population who was living there prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims and how much their lives were uprooted and changed.

This history, although complicated, tragic, and complex, is great to learn for people who love American history for many ways, but also in the fact that one sees a direct link between it and the figures who later rose in this region like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, in a similar way that reading about Jamestown creates a link between it and figures that came later in Virginia like Washington, Jefferson and Madison. It’s a great read and I’d recommend it!

Hollywood could make a great movie out of this story. Especially Benjamin Church who, during King Philip's War, became the first quintessential American frontiersman. Miles Standish was a bully and a bore. The whole venture would have been a death sentence without the intervention of the native people (who didn't just help out of the goodness of their hearts.) Highly enlightening.