Dry And Mundane Mayflower By Nathaniel Philbrick

History as a topic is as long and deep as the ocean and equally frightening. One cannot simply plunge into the study of the world’s history- there are courses focusing purely on early church history which spans only seventy years but will take a year and comprehensive, rigorous testing to fully understand. Furthermore, without an engrossing way to delve into the subject, one will be quick to drop their pursuit. For this reason, good historical novellas serve the student well, making such extensive topics as World War II, the founding of Rome and its subsequent collapse, and even the journey to the moon, easy to understand and much more enjoyable. For instance, the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville manages to take seemingly dry and mundane

Philbrick does so by describing the voyage as an adventure, in which the Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth and then immediately they engage in warfare against the natives. The pilgrims are ambushed by the indigenous peoples but soon upon meeting with the Native American leader or Sachem they strike up an allegiance. An allegiance which allied the Native Americans who targeted the pilgrims(the Wampanoag) and the Pilgrims against any who threaten them, including other Native Americans and their equivalent confederacies. Soon, approximately one generation later, hostilities start to break out between the natives and the descendents of the immigrants from England. The natives become angered as they are swindled out of their land often for little monetary gain, sometimes even for only a few trinkets. Then war breaks out when the court of Plymouth sentences natives to death, albeit illegally or unethically as to sentence an individual to death required at least two witnesses and the court only had one. When the natives were being hung, the last one acted as a witness in hopes he wouldn’t be killed; however he was and as such, outrage exploded among the indigenous peoples. However, it was King Philip, the descendant of Massasoit(a once great Sachem of the Wampanoag) who stirred the native tribes into a

This skill is twofold with interpretation, which involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate and create diverse interpretations of the past- vis a vis primary and secondary historical sources utilizing pieces of evidence. The second part, synthesis, involves the ability to arrive at meaningful and persuasive understandings of history by drawing from multiple sources of evidence and the applying of insights about the past to other historical contexts or circumstances, perhaps even the present or soon to be future. Nathaniel Philbrick, by utilizing the skill of historical interpretation fulfils the first part by drawing on multiple historical primary and secondary sources- such as the Puritan historian William Hubbard who wrote such works as General History of New England alongside A Narrative of Troubles with the Indians, or Mary Rowlandson who published the text, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs.Mary Rowlandson, a first hand source of the movement and lifestyle of many of the Native American tribes involved in King Philip’s War. But, Nathaniel Philbrick also makes use of the numerous personal diaries of the original pilgrims aboard the Mayflower such as John Winthrop or William Bradford. By doing so the author manages to reconstruct and tell the tale of the founding of America in a