Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War is a historical nonfiction narrative by New York Times bestseller Nathaniel Philbrick (Valiant Ambition). The book outlines the reasons for the Mayflower’s historic voyage and offers a realistic account of the Pilgrims' first 55 years in the New World. Perhaps most important, in Philbrick’s assessment, is the tenuous relationship between the Pilgrims and their Indigenous neighbors, and the text investigates superficial assessments of the Pilgrims, including the view that they were “good” while their Indigenous neighbors were “bad.” Ultimately, Philbrick shows the reader that this particular episode in American history was more complicated than that.

Mayflower establishes how the Pilgrims and the Pokanoket people developed a relationship based on mutual need. The Pilgrims were struggling to survive in a harsh new environment and needed allies to support their settlement. The Pokanoket, led by Massasoit, had lost their place as the most powerful people in the region, and saw the Pilgrims as possibly the key to restoring their status. Though initially distrustful of each other, the two groups came together to ensure their survival, political and otherwise.

Philbrick traces the Pilgrims’ origins to England and Leiden, in Holland, where they were known as Separatists. Oppressive circumstances led the secretive group to flee their homelands for somewhere they might worship freely. Faced with setbacks from the start, including dubious help from Thomas Weston, a Merchant Adventurer who promised to help the Pilgrims, they eventually set sail in September 1620. They knew they were leaving one problem to face others, including Indigenous attacks and harsh, unfamiliar territory, but the Pilgrims believed that their faith would sustain them.

Philbrick’s narrative depicts the uneasy meeting between the Pilgrims and Massasoit, then shows how the two sides came to rely on one another to ensure their mutual safety. Both groups faced attack by other Indigenous peoples, including the Massachusetts and the Narragansetts. Massasoit made a calculated, unpopular decision to ally with the Pilgrims, suggested by Squanto, a formerly enslaved person who was abducted years earlier by one of John Smith's captains. When Squanto returned to his homeland, he saw firsthand how disease had decimated the Pokanokets and others, but he also saw opportunity and aspired to be a sachem (leader).

The ties between the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets flourished while Squanto acted as interpreter, but the connection was also being systematically weakened by a power-hungry Squanto. Squanto plotted with the Narragansetts to destroy Plymouth and Massasoit so that he might realize his dream of becoming a leader. Though Squanto later died after his plot was discovered, the bond between Massasoit and the Pilgrims was ultimately strengthened by his actions.

When the second generation of Pilgrims came of age, the bond between the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets began to unravel. To William Bradford’s dismay, the younger generation was more concerned with land ownership, and Plymouth leaders left to start other settlements. In addition, as more Puritan settlements were established as Puritans left England, and Plymouth lost prominence. An elderly Bradford saw the deteriorating relationship between the English and Indigenous nations as a direct result of God’s wrath for their materialism.

With new leaders like Philip (Massasoit’s son) and Josiah Winslow, New England seemed headed for war. Both sides refused to give in to the other's demands, and both wanted to exist independently from their former friends. Philip began plotting to attack the English, with extrajudicial events on the part of the English forcing Philip’s hand and leading to King Philip’s War. It was one of the bloodiest wars on American soil, and resulted in the systematic destruction of Indigenous life in the region.

Mayflower addresses the devastating outcomes of King Philip’s War on New England. Philbrick traces the period from the Mayflower’s arrival to the departure of the Seaflower some 55 years later, with its cargo of enslaved Indigenous people. Philbrick shows how cooperation and coexistence between settlers and Indigenous people dissolved into enslavement and death, legacies which are still evident in modern-day America. Themes of prejudice, Indigenous-English relations and religious freedom highlight how the Pilgrims conducted themselves in their new world, and how the New World was forever changed by the actions of the Pilgrims.