Pittsburgh author describes '100 years of hell'
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As a pupil at Linden School in Point Breeze, Nathaniel Philbrick wore a paper Pilgrim hat and collar while other classmates dressed in feathers and facepaint for the annual Thanksgiving pageant.
'Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War' by Nathaniel Philbrick
The legendary goodwill gathering of English settlers and Native Americans in the fall of 1621 near Plymouth Rock, is still one of the first pieces of American mythology taught in school.
It has been portrayed as a lesson in tolerance, generosity and democracy, establishing the bedrock principles of the United States. Philbrick calls it "the myth of our national origins."
"We think the story of the Mayflower ends in that first meal," Philbrick said. "The fact is, it was just the beginning of the story."
In truth, it's not one of sweetness and light suitable for grade-school parties, the Pittsburgh native discovered. Even though he's been a longtime resident of Nantucket, Mass., Philbrick said he knew little of the dark and disturbing history around him.
"'The Mayflower' has its start in an earlier book I wrote about Nantucket history, 'Away Off Shore,'" Philbrick said. "To write it, I had to understand what had happened in New England since the days of the Pilgrims. It turns out, we had no idea about the real history of the place."
After writing three more books including the national best sellers "In The Heart of the Sea" (2000) and "Sea of Glory" (2003), the 49-year-old writer said he realized he had "to get back to that primal story" of New England's beginnings.
First, he had to wipe away the Norman Rockwell image of the hearty kindly Pilgrims, one that was formed by two 19th-century figures, Abraham Lincoln and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The president established a national day of thanksgiving during the dark days of the Civil War, a time "when America really needed reassurance," said Philbrick.
Longfellow's 1858 poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish," based on a legend of the family of original Pilgrim John Alden, was another myth builder, coming two years after the publication of "Of Plymouth Plantation," the discovered log of William Bradford, Plymouth's second governor.
"As a consequence of these things, the Mayflower story became frozen for Americans," Philbrick believes. "Now, you've got the Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower Compact, the idea that these were refugees seeking religious freedom in the New World. That's the conventional story and now we cling to it. The fact is that the Mayflower landing was the beginning of 100 years of hell."
As Philbrick dug deeper into the rocky New England soil, he learned that the last thing the Pilgrims were interested in was religious freedom.
"They came to New England to do what they wanted. They were separatists and believed that if you weren't with them, you were against them," Philbrick said.
Joined in New England, then surpassed by the Puritans, another fundamentalist Protestant sect, the Pilgrims persecuted "nonbelievers" with diligence.
But, the real eye-opener was how these Christians captured and sold Native Americans into slavery, bound on ships to the Caribbean.
"If you had told me 10 years ago that the Pilgrims were into the slave trade, I would have been really surprised," Philbrick admitted.
However, the transplanted Britons did manage to maintain a shaky truce with Indian tribes for 55 years until it collapsed into King Philip's War, a devastating time for both sides. That truce was "the one ray of light in the Pilgrims early years.
"The war caught everybody by surprise. If this war could have been avoided in some way, it might have made a difference in the fate of relations with the Indians," Philbrick said.
Correction/Clarification: (Published May 9, 2006) King Philip's War, the conflict between Native Americans and English settlers in New England, was misnamed in the original version of this interview with author Nathaniel Philbrick in May 7, 2006 editions.
First Published May 7, 2006 12:00 am
