Issues → November 2006 → Feature Stories →

Why the Pilgrims Still Matter

COMMENT

SINGLE PAGE

EMAIL

PRINT

SHARE:

(page 2 of 2)

The book changed how I view my home. You drive Route 128 or 495 [in Massachusetts] and there's Medfield, site of one of the bloodiest battles. Or you have Taunton. I had been there but ne ver saw it as anything but a town that was not in its best years. But the whole Taunton River -- that was a revelation, to see how the rivers provided a real highway through the country.

These kinds of books are not easy to write because you have to go into somebody else's voice, figure out what happened, and then recast it for a modern audience. It's easy to quote from something and just dump it in there and say that's what happened. The harder thing is to try and internalize that and yet be truthful. Some of the language of that time is wonderfully evocative and needs to be part of the story, but it's finding that line between keeping the voice of the book while keeping an authentic resonance with the voices of the past.

I relate to the past through the people. I don't think anyone can truly begin to understand the past unless there's an emotional connection to what happened and the people who lived through it. One reason we love survival tales is because we all say, "What would I have done?" I know I was asking, What would I have done that first winter? And I don't know. I do know that when I'm hit with a cold, it really nails me, so I probably wouldn't have made it past January.

A Pilgrim Primer

English Separatists, a wing of the new Puritan movement, had fled oppression at home and found refuge in the Netherlands around 1607. In 1620, part of the congregation decided to build a new life in the New World. Their pastor, John Robinson, stayed behind and did not live to join his flock in America.

The Mayflower carried 102 passengers, 20 to 30 crew members, and two dogs. Approximately half of the passengers were Separatists (Pilgrims, or "Saints"), and half were "Strangers" (non-Separatist settlers recruited by the voyage's backers).

Two babies were born before the Mayflower reached Plymouth: Oceanus Hopkins (at sea) and Peregrine White (at anchor in Provincetown Harbor).

The Mayflower's destination was the mouth of the Hudson River, but poor weather and unfavorable winds made a Cape Cod landing more expedient.

The Mayflower was 65 days at sea before the crew sighted land.

Between November 1620 and March 1621, 52 passengers perished of disease, starvation, and exhaustion.

America's Bloodiest War

In 1600, southern New England was home to approximately 90,000 Indians. Approximately 12,000 were Pokanokets, a tribe living at the head of Narragansett Bay.

From 1616 to 1619, bubonic plague, introduced by European fishermen in Maine, killed up to 90 percent of the Indians in some areas along the New England coastline.

Massasoit, sachem (leader) of the Pokanokets, was succeeded by two of his sons: Wamsutta, who changed his name to Alexander, and Metacom, whose English name was Philip. Thirteen years after becoming sachem, Philip initiated a regionwide attack by several tribes on English settlements in southern New England and coastal Maine. Called King Philip's War, it lasted 14 months, from June 1675 through August 1676.

Before King Philip's War, the overall population of southern New England was approximately 70,000: 50,000 English settlers and 20,000 Indians. By the end of the war, 5,000 to 6,000 people were dead.

Some 800 English men, women, and children perished in King Philip's War; Plymouth Colony alone lost 8 percent of its adult male population in 14 months. (By comparison, adult male casualties were 4 to 5 percent during the four years of the Civil War.)

Among the Indians, 2,000 died of battle wounds, 3,000 died of disease or starvation, 1,000 were sold into slavery (500 from Plymouth alone), and 2,000 fled west or north.

By the end of the war, one-third of New England's approximately 100 English towns had been burned and abandoned.

Source: Mayflower (Viking, $29.95), by Nathaniel Philbrick