Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

Nathaniel Philbrick

May 2006 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

"Vivid and remarkably fresh...Philbrick has recast the Pilgrims for the ages."--The New York Times Book Review

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History
New York Times Book Review Top Ten books of the Year

With a new preface marking the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower.

How did America begin? That simple question launches the acclaimed author of In the Hurricane's Eye and Valiant Ambition on an extraordinary journey to understand the truth behind our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony. As Philbrick reveals in this electrifying history of the Pilgrims, the story of Plymouth Colony was a fifty-five year epic that began in peril and ended in war. New England erupted into a bloody conflict that nearly wiped out the English colonists and natives alike. These events shaped the existing communites and the country that would grow from them.

Ratings and reviews

The systematic genocide of the Original Americans began long before the US government codified it's decimation of the Indian Peoples, so well chronicled by Dee Brown in his now iconic classic, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." The truth of the matter is that we need look no further than to the Mayflower. Yes, the English immigrants who hopped on that mythologized vessel to avoid their own religious persecution, played a key role in helping to shape the attitudes & subsequent behavior of our nation's people to come. Well, what I just intimated is not entirely fair. The actual Pilgrims who first arrived on these shores found themselves in such a weakened position - barely able to feed themselves - concluded that they had to discover common ground with their new neighbors. And, so they did, collaborating & compromising so that both groups could survive & prosper. The real culpability can be laid at the doorsteps of the next generation of Pilgrims & Puritans & Native Americans who forgot that they all needed one another. In that "forgetting" came the seeds for the King Philip's War which is what the "Mayflower" is all about. Philbrick does a simply brilliant job of introducing us to a host of characters - Native Americans, Pilgrims, Puritans, politicians, warriors, statesmen, entrepreneurs, charlatans & thieves - who make this drama come alive. From Benjamin Church, a true hero of that war, a man who "embraced the wilderness his forefathers has shunned" to Captain Samuel Mosley whose motto was : "get mad and get even" and also allegedly the man responsible for coining the slur "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," Philbrick recreates for us the society, Caucasian & Indian, that laid the ground work for the heartbreaking tragedies that unfolded. Regardless of the accountability that existed on both sides, at the end of the day, it was the Original Inhabitants who got the short end of the stick. Prior to the onset of the war Native Americans "constituted almost 30% of the population of New England." Following the war that percent was reduced to less than 15% A tradition had been established & it was not nearly as cheery as the Pilgrim's famous Thanksgiving.

I learned so much reading this book. It always caught my attention and I loved every part of it.

It is a good book but not superior than "in the heart of the sea"

About the author

Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award; Mayflower, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Bunker Hill, winner of the New England Book Award; Sea of Glory; The Last Stand; Why Read Moby Dick?; Away Off Shore; Valiant Ambition, and most recently, In the Hurricane's Eye. He lives in Nantucket.