Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick
480 pages, @2006
When the Mayflower book first came out I was super excited to read it. I don’t know what took me 3 years to do so. Jon had already read this book and told me it was fantastic. I finally picked it up and brought in on vacation with me. Usually on vacation I’m very grandiose about how many books I think I’m going to read. On this vacation this book was so good that I was happy to take some downtime to read it.
This book is the story of the Mayflower and the community that landed at “Plymouth” in the 17th Century. A group of devout English Christians first fled England for Holland before embarking on the 10-week journey to the New World. Instead of arriving during the summer as they had planned they arrived in the dead of winter. The fact that they even survived is a story in and of itself. They survived in large part to the Wampanoag Indians and their leader Massasoit. Although there were rocky patches in their relationship with the Wampanoag tribe, they were able to work out a truce with the Indians that helped them both in the beginning. After 50 years of peace, Massasoit’s heir Philip, launched a war with the settlers in the region (which had grown tremendously during those 50 years) which in 14 months killed over 5,000 people.
I found this book fascinating! First of all, can someone explain to me how I made it to the age of 30 and this was the first I was hearing of King Philip’s War? I was shocked by this fact. Maybe I learned it at some point along the way but it was not taught to me in a way that stuck with me. This war was a huge war if you look at all the wars that have come since in America. Not just for the amount of people that died but because of the significance of the war as well.
As the same time, it’s hard not to be amazed at the strength and courage of the settlers. Think about it, I mean really think about it. Imagine crossing an ocean to a world that you know is there but you’re not sure what it will be like. You know that you will most likely never see your family and friends that you left behind again and you will have limited ability to every hear from them. You arrive in this new world and there is nothing but land. You have no shelter, you have no food except that which you brought with you, you have no clothes or possessions except for the few things that you were able to bring on the ship. After a few months you have shelter for everyone, families are sharing their houses with the children who’s parents didn’t survive the crossing, the bachelors of the group are sharing one house as well. OK great you have shelter. You still need to figure out where your food is coming from, one bad crop and your community starves. There are no stores where you can buy food, or clothes, or supplies. You have to make and create everything that you need. They didn’t come in from a hard day in the field and sit down for 30-60 minutes to watch TV and decompress, they went from one task to the next or else they didn’t survive. It was humbling to really think about what that must have been like.
I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you are a history buff but even if you’re not. For a non-fiction account this book read like a novel, even though it was meticulously researched. This is a story that every American should read. If you do read it I’d love to discuss it!!!
5 Stars
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Have you read Mayflower? If so, what were your thoughts?
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