Mayflower

I was listening to this this summer, and I also have a hard copy. I appreciate how it shows me how much the Puritans were constantly negotiating with, interacting with, and vulnerable to their indigenous neighbors. I did not realize until I started that he began by looking at Metacom‘s war. He realized that he needed to go back to see what went wrong. I stopped listening on the verge of the war, but feel that I have enough to improve my lectures.

If you are like me, and you like to annoy your family members with random historical facts, then this is an excellent book to read this time of year. We tend to have a very simple view of Thanksgiving, assuming we remember it at all when it comes to the giant holiday after it, Christmas. The humble Pilgrims, with buckled hats for the men and white caps for the women, working with the Indians to come together in peace and harmony, tends to create a great narrative for grade school children, but the truth is a bit more complicated than that. Philbrick attempts to correct our idealized narrative in his book, and he does an excellent job.

To cut a long story short, one should merely keep in mind that, in many ways, this was the Native's world, and the English were just living in it. Yes, they did want to have religious freedom, and the ability to have their own community, but it is abundantly clear (through both the original sources, and Philbrick's writing) that the English were just being used by the natives as long as it suited them. Both the English and the Natives, for a time had a good relationship, as they each traded for things they needed or wanted. The English had small metal goods, and guns while the natives had a surplus of food and other natural resources. Eventually, things began to deteriorate, as this created an imbalance of power in the region, and warfare soon erupted, leaving thousands dead overall.

While I won't spoil anything, since you should read it for yourself, lets me just say that Philbrick does an excellent job explaining the politics and motivations behind both parties, as neither were wrong in their treatment of the other, given the cultural misunderstandings of the era. While it is easy for us to judge the English for being too insensitive to the Native American way of life, this book made me think about how we would encounter another culture or even life form outside of our own today. This is not an easy thing to do, and that is why I give this book a four out of five. After you finish stuffing yourself with stuffing, pick up this book, it might just surprise you.