I didn’t know much about the mayflower and colonial New England. It is hard to read, as so much of it is about the native Americans being slaughtered, sold into slavery and dispossessed. Philbrick obviously has some desire to redeem the pilgrims and manages to present a few good portraits ( )

(2006) Very good history of the Pilgrim movement from Leiden, the Netherlands to England to Massachusetts. Gives the unknown true story of the hardships and how not very nice the Pilgrims were towards the native population and to other English communities in the area.

Audiobook. ( )

story of courage, community, war

The story of the Pilgrims and King Philip's War, another fine history by Nathaniel Philbrick, and winner of the National Book Award. The 2019 Folio Society edition is beautifully done and, I think, the first edition with color figures. It is ultimately quite depressing if you expect any story resembling what is taught in grade school, but it can be encouraging if you like having your suspicions confirmed that any story that seems far-fetched probably is. ( )

I enjoyed the first half of this book more than the second. The first, of course, focuses mainly on the Pilgrims'' flight from England/Europe to the New World and their struggles to survive that first frigid winter and year. As the book progresses beyond that first generation, we get into the Indian wars (and alliances) between the various tribes and these new white inhabitants. This began to drag a bit for me in part because of the many characters (both Indian and English) to keep track of in the book.

Still, it was written very well and often compelling. As a student of the American Revolution, it was good to go back 150 years to learn more about how it all began. ( )

I really couldn't decide how many stars to give this because it was not at all what I expected.
I was interested in reading about, and bought the book because, I wanted to learn about the Mayflower, her passengers and her voyage. And the first 100 pages or so were about that.
I thought while reading that section that it was bit condensed, short even, but I had no idea that the author was going to get them onto land and into a settlement, and then devote the rest of the book to King Philip's War.
If I had wanted to read about King Philip's War I would have sought out a book about it, so while interesting, and backed by thorough research, I found this book to be a big disappointment since it dealt not with the subject of its title, but of another altogether.
If you want a deep study of the Mayflower, this is not the book to buy. On the other hand, if you want an in-depth account of King Philip's War, this is the one for you. ( )

Great history of the times. Clarifies it. ( )

Non-fiction about the Pilgrims, including their journey to form a religious colony in New England, the first Thanksgiving, the early years of the Plymouth settlement and how they survived, and their relationships with the Indians, which were friendly at first, but deteriorated into war in subsequent generations. The first half of the book focuses on the arrival at Plymouth, the strong personalities of the inhabitants, and establishment of the colony, and the second half follows the next generations into King Philip’s War (1675-1677), an episode not often covered in our history classes, which set a sad precedent for how race relations between the settlers and the native population would proceed well into the nineteenth century.

This book clears up numerous myths, which unfortunately continue to be perpetuated in elementary schools around America. We often skip from the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements to the American Revolution but miss a good bit of history in between. This book attempts to fill part of this gap. I thought the first half of the book flowed easily, while the second half gets extremely detailed in a blow-by-blow account of the King Philip’s war. I felt Philbrick did a good job of showing the motivations of the primary players, which I appreciated, especially considering the lengthy passage of time.

Philbrick provides depth to this period in history through thorough research, logical assumptions, and direct story-telling, albeit limited by the dearth of source material, particularly of the native people. The author illuminates the complexities of the period in an informative and enlightening manner that gave me a deeper appreciation of era. The book includes an extensive bibliography, notes on each chapter, and remarkable maps. Content warnings include descriptions of executions, ritual torture, and other war-related violence. Recommended to readers of early American history.

I can also recommend another of Philbrick's books: [b:In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex|6570440|In the Heart of the Sea The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex|Nathaniel Philbrick|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413698054s/6570440.jpg|1640941] (my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1872710033?book_show_action=false&from.... ( )

Good but lost interest about 3/4 the way in. Interesting how the pilgrims came to and established a colony but the Indian wars just too much for me. ( )

Look. It would be unfair for me to gloss over the fact that I was mildly disappointed to start this book.

I was really looking forward to learning more about both Mayflower: The Ship and Mayflower: The Compact.

It’s not a spoiler to mention that any involved Details about the ship or the compact end pretty quickly in the first 100 pages.

But, it would also be unfair of me to gloss over the fact what I learned from the rest of the book was still interesting.

Think of the book’s title ‘Mayflower’, as it concerns with the mentality and character of a New People, rather than a 100 specific people on a specific boat. ( )

I'm going to be the fountain of knowledge during the dinner conversation tomorrow night ... ( )

An engaging history ( )

The first half of this book was thoroughly intriguing. Somewhere around the death of William Bradford it lost momentum. It picked up again about 50 pages later but the tie between the two generations wasn't as strong as I would have liked. It gets an extra point for the research. Philbrick does a stellar job with that. ( )

This book is written in such a way that I felt for all those involved as I never had in my school education. It was easy to read and filled with information that was new to me. I enjoy reading historical books, especially when it is obvious that time and research was invested in the creation of the story.
I recommend this book highly.
I was given this book by NetGalley and Penguin Group in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. ( )

Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower re-examines one of the founding narratives of the United States to demythologize the Pilgrims’ settlement in Massachusetts in 1620, focusing on how the journey itself developed among European religious conflict and how the Pilgrims came into conflict with the Native Americans on whose land they settled. At the beginning of his narrative, Philbrick alternates between the actions of the Pilgrims in England and Leiden and the political status of the Pokanokets, one of the members of the Wampanoag, in Massachusetts following intermittent contact with prior Europeans and the ravages of disease. Rather than settling an untouched wilderness, the Pilgrims arrived in a land that had just emerged from a holocaust due to European diseases (pgs. 96-97), with the various groups in the Wampanoag confederation re-evaluating their alliances and territorial claims. As Philbrick writes, “In 1620, New England was far from being a paradise of abundance and peace. Indeed the New World was, in many ways, much like the Old – a place where the fertility of the soil was a constant concern, a place where disease and war were omnipresent threats. There were profound differences between the Pilgrims and Pokanokets to be sure…, but in these early years, when the mutual challenge of survival dominated all other concerns, the two peoples had more in common than is generally appreciated today” (pgs. 108-109).

Rather than a narrative of inevitable European conquest, Philbrick portrays how they were, for a time, simply another political power in northeastern North America. In aligning himself with the Pilgrims and gaining their loyalty, Massasoit became the supreme power in Massachusetts and established the Wampanoag nation (pg. 142). Further, “In the forty years since the voyage of the Mayflower, the Native Americans had experienced wrenching change, but they had also managed to create a new, richly adaptive culture that continued to draw strength from traditional ways,” incorporating European goods and spirituality into their lives (pg. 172). Unfortunately, the arrival of the Puritans shifted the politics of the region. Where the Pilgrims sought to create a self-contained enclave, the Puritans expanded throughout New England, coming into greater and greater conflict as they bought as much land as possible, leading to King Philip’s War.

Philbrick concludes, “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” (pg. 307). Further, “By doing their best to destroy the Native people who had welcomed and sustained their forefathers, New Englanders had destroyed their forefathers’ way of life” (pg. 308). Philbrick’s account is essential reading for all who are interested in a deeper understanding of one of the founding myths of America. This Folio Society edition beautifully reprints Philbrick’s text with curated images from historical sources as well as several maps throughout. ( )

Philbrick is at his best with character and sustained narrative events ie. a singular story. His best book is In the Heart of the Sea for that reason it lends itself well to his strengths. In Mayflower we also get this for the first half of the book - the Pilgrims journey and settlement at Plymouth. The first weeks are enthralling as they explore their way around the Cape, I followed them with Google Maps. At some point the narrative speeds up and fragments, then we are into the second half mostly about King Phillip's War a few generations later. The war itself is told through highlights of battles. There is some mythology debunking, like Thanksgiving. And we learn it is estimated 10% of the US can trace a line to the Mayflower. The Indians seem fairly portrayed, though a sad story. The epidemics that preceded settlement are the main tragedy, played out in North and South America at scale and beyond comprehension, as the worst things are. I never realized how important the city of Leiden is to American history. Great introduction to a vital part of early American history. ( )

I read this alongside the version abridged for a YA audience, which my children and I read together, to prepare for a trip to Plimoth Plantation. I was very impressed at Philbrick's ability to present the story of the European colonization of New England and the near-extermination of the Native population in a manner that expressed empathy for both the Pilgrims and the Natives. Philbrick's position is that, after fifty years of peace and cooperation, multiple missteps, misunderstandings, and a change in philosophy among the children of the Mayflower Pilgrims led to a situation in which war was inevitable.

Some rather scattered items of interest from the book:

-"Winslow explained that these Native men, women, and children had joined in an uprising against the colony and were guilty of 'many notorious and execrable murders, killings, and outrages.' As a consequence, these 'heathen malefactors' had been condemned to perpetual slavery." John Locke in his 1689 Two Treatises of Government used this same rationalization for slavery of an entire race, using the situation in the New World as an example. When I first read this, I thought Winslow and his fellows had used John Locke as a reason for the enslavement of Native Americans, but based on the dates, it seems to be the opposite.

-Despite being the "fathers of our country," and themselves escaping religious persecution in England, the Pilgrims didn't believe in religious liberty. "As far as they were concerned, King James and his bishops were wrong, and they were right," and as long as they were making the rules in the New World, everyone had to follow them, regardless of their religious convictions. We see echoes of this element of Puritanism in our culture even in the twenty-first century.

-Of the next generation's difference in philosophy from their parents': "No longer mindful of the debt they owed the Pokanokets, without whom their parents would never have endured their first year in America, some of the Pilgrims’ children were less willing to treat Native leaders with the tolerance and respect their parents had once afforded Massasoit." This is a reminder of how forgetting history influences the context of our present situation, which, of course, is relevant during all periods of history.

-I knew that there were massacres of Native populations, but what surprised me was how much Bradford's graphic description of the massacre of the Pequots in Connecticut and his connection of that killing to the praise of God sounds like human sacrifice: "'It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same,' Bradford wrote, 'and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.'"

-Philbrick asserts that part of the reason that the English and the Native population couldn't understand one another's perspective was because there was essentially no intermarriage between the groups and therefore no children to "provide them with a genetic and cultural common ground." Considering the US's historical bias against miscegenation, I'm not sure such children would have been enough to bind these groups together.

-The way the stories had always been presented in my history classes, it seemed always to have been "the Indians" against "the colonists/Pilgrims/English." But Philbrick's history makes it clear that the Native tribes and subgroups were distinct entities, and they assumed that the different groups of colonists were as well. It was the colonies' joining forces against the entire Native population that made what would have been a regional/local disagreement into a race war (which echoes again in the work of John Locke). This is a paradigm shift so huge and yet so obvious that I still feel a little disoriented.

-The central Massachusetts town where I live is nearly seventy miles from Plymouth, and yet the fighting during what's known as King Philip's War extended all the way out here. Even more surprising, the fighting actually extended all the way out to Hadley and Northampton in western Massachusetts. I had no idea the war covered essentially the entirety of modern-day Massachusetts.

-Executions of Native leaders who had surrendered took place on Boston Common. And now there's a wading pool and a carousel and sunbathers and, to my knowledge, no plaque or monument making note of this atrocity.

-During King Philip's War, nearly 8% of men in Plymouth Colony died, nearly double the rate during the Civil War. This is shocking, but "overall, the Native American population of southern New England had sustained a loss of somewhere between 60 and 80 percent." That's men, women, and children lost to war, sickness, starvation, and slavery during fourteen months. That flabbergasts me.

-Philbrick notes: "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." I wonder if this percentage is higher in New England because it seems like every third person I meet claims to be descended from passengers on the Mayflower.

Those are my rather disjointed thoughts about parts of this history. I knew there was a fair amount of bloodshed across the state where I currently live, but reading the details of essentially just fourteen months of it (with some from during the fifty years preceding the war) really put things into perspective. I think about the violence under the foundations of cities like Boston and Providence, and I wonder if there's any part of the United States that isn't blood-stained. I also think about Europe and how many centuries of war and violence are under people's feet there, and I find it easy to lose faith in the better angels of our nature. ( )

A vivid account of the Pilgrims plight at settlement and the First Nations encounter with the newcomers. A splendid account of the early history of America especially for those unfamiliar with America's beginnings. ( )

This is a remarkable history book covering the early colonial period. I plan on re-reading this one again because it was moving and Philbrick went to great lengths to be fair. ( )

Fascinating history as I research my early American ancestry. Gruesome, frightening, sad - reflects the best and worst of human nature and brings this time of exploration alive. I am convinced now that I have a genetic connection to some of the characters portrayed, but then I might - whether or not it is true.

As usual Philbrick delivers on the true story of Pilgrims and their interactions with the neighboring Indian Tribes. What begins as a hopeful co-existence between the Pilgrims and the natives deteriorates as new the new generation takes over and scores of new settlements spring up. ( )

This is a well told account of the happenings around the immigration of the pilgrims, their settlement at Plymouth, initial encounters with the native population and the decline of that relationship over the following years. I find it amazing how much of the story gets lost in our cultural retelling of the first Thanksgiving and the stereotypes of the Pilgrims and Indians that have evolved. The true story isn't the fairy tale we've all come to believe, but rather a tale that is so typical of humanity with its moments of greatness as well as its dismal failures. The author does a good job of maintaining a neutral tone while pointing out the failing of both the English and the native populations and how they both contributed to the decline of what was initially a cooperative relationship into a devastating war and the effects that this war had on both populations. ( )

The Pilgrims of Plimoth Plantation are part of the founding mythology of the US. But what most of us know, or at least remember, is Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving, the Puritans, and then the Revolution. Maybe we remember that King Philip's War is a thing that happened, but we may be a bit hazy on the details. Probably we remember Squanto, the friendly Indian who taught the Pilgrims to grow corn.

Philbrick brings it all marvelously to life.

And in doing so, he restores the richness, complexity, and ambiguity of the real world.

The arrival of the Pilgrims wasn't the first contact New England Indians had with Europeans--and those earlier contacts had brought diseases the Native Americans had no previous encounter with. What had been a thickly settled region was now startlingly empty, with many whole villages wiped out by diseases that killed so many there weren't enough healthy people to care for the sick. There was, in fact, room for the Pilgrims--if they could learn to live with their neighbors, and their neighbors could learn to live with them.

Philbrick gives us the fascinating tale of how, for fifty years, the Pilgrims and the local Indian tribes, most notably the Pokanoket, under the leadership of Massasoit, built an often uneasy but mutually beneficial working relationship that benefited all the groupings involved. We see the ways the Indians and the English influenced each other, learned from each other, and helped each other.

And then we see how it all broke down, first under Massasoit's older son, Alexander, and then his younger son, Philip--as well as the sons and grandsons of the English founders, including Josiah Winslow, William Bradford, Benjamin Church, and others--engaged in a cascading series of poor decisions, failures of diplomacy, and failures to communicate.

All the peoples and cultures involved were more complex and interesting than the standard version, and that includes the Pilgrims, the Massachusetts Bay colony, and the different Indian tribes.

Highly recommended.

I bought this book. ( )

I read this alongside the version abridged for a YA audience, which my children and I read together, to prepare for a trip to Plimoth Plantation. I was very impressed at Philbrick's ability to present the story of the European colonization of New England and the near-extermination of the Native population in a manner that expressed empathy for both the Pilgrims and the Natives. Philbrick's position is that, after fifty years of peace and cooperation, multiple missteps, misunderstandings, and a change in philosophy among the children of the Mayflower Pilgrims led to a situation in which war was inevitable.

Some rather scattered items of interest from the book:

-"Winslow explained that these Native men, women, and children had joined in an uprising against the colony and were guilty of 'many notorious and execrable murders, killings, and outrages.' As a consequence, these 'heathen malefactors' had been condemned to perpetual slavery." John Locke in his 1689 Two Treatises of Government used this same rationalization for slavery of an entire race, using the situation in the New World as an example. When I first read this, I thought Winslow and his fellows had used John Locke as a reason for the enslavement of Native Americans, but based on the dates, it seems to be the opposite.

-Despite being the "fathers of our country," and themselves escaping religious persecution in England, the Pilgrims didn't believe in religious liberty. "As far as they were concerned, King James and his bishops were wrong, and they were right," and as long as they were making the rules in the New World, everyone had to follow them, regardless of their religious convictions. We see echoes of this element of Puritanism in our culture even in the twenty-first century.

-Of the next generation's difference in philosophy from their parents': "No longer mindful of the debt they owed the Pokanokets, without whom their parents would never have endured their first year in America, some of the Pilgrims’ children were less willing to treat Native leaders with the tolerance and respect their parents had once afforded Massasoit." This is a reminder of how forgetting history influences the context of our present situation, which, of course, is relevant during all periods of history.

-I knew that there were massacres of Native populations, but what surprised me was how much Bradford's graphic description of the massacre of the Pequots in Connecticut and his connection of that killing to the praise of God sounds like human sacrifice: "'It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same,' Bradford wrote, 'and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.'"

-Philbrick asserts that part of the reason that the English and the Native population couldn't understand one another's perspective was because there was essentially no intermarriage between the groups and therefore no children to "provide them with a genetic and cultural common ground." Considering the US's historical bias against miscegenation, I'm not sure such children would have been enough to bind these groups together.

-The way the stories had always been presented in my history classes, it seemed always to have been "the Indians" against "the colonists/Pilgrims/English." But Philbrick's history makes it clear that the Native tribes and subgroups were distinct entities, and they assumed that the different groups of colonists were as well. It was the colonies' joining forces against the entire Native population that made what would have been a regional/local disagreement into a race war (which echoes again in the work of John Locke). This is a paradigm shift so huge and yet so obvious that I still feel a little disoriented.

-The central Massachusetts town where I live is nearly seventy miles from Plymouth, and yet the fighting during what's known as King Philip's War extended all the way out here. Even more surprising, the fighting actually extended all the way out to Hadley and Northampton in western Massachusetts. I had no idea the war covered essentially the entirety of modern-day Massachusetts.

-Executions of Native leaders who had surrendered took place on Boston Common. And now there's a wading pool and a carousel and sunbathers and, to my knowledge, no plaque or monument making note of this atrocity.

-During King Philip's War, nearly 8% of men in Plymouth Colony died, nearly double the rate during the Civil War. This is shocking, but "overall, the Native American population of southern New England had sustained a loss of somewhere between 60 and 80 percent." That's men, women, and children lost to war, sickness, starvation, and slavery during fourteen months. That flabbergasts me.

-Philbrick notes: "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." I wonder if this percentage is higher in New England because it seems like every third person I meet claims to be descended from passengers on the Mayflower.

Those are my rather disjointed thoughts about parts of this history. I knew there was a fair amount of bloodshed across the state where I currently live, but reading the details of essentially just fourteen months of it (with some from during the fifty years preceding the war) really put things into perspective. I think about the violence under the foundations of cities like Boston and Providence, and I wonder if there's any part of the United States that isn't blood-stained. I also think about Europe and how many centuries of war and violence are under people's feet there, and I find it easy to lose faith in the better angels of our nature. ( )