Mayflower A Story Of Courage Community And War Sparknotes

Introduction Mayflower a Story of Courage, Community, and War, by Nathaniel Philbrick. This book poses the simple question, how did America begin? While it is a simple question, it is anything but a simple answer. Throughout the story, the author explains the relationship between the native americans and the new settlers and how they changed for the worse. In the book the author states “When violence and fear grip a society, there is an almost overpowering temptation to demonize the enemy.” (preface, page xiv)This quote is the author saying that the reason the pilgrims treated the native americans so badly at first was because they were scared of this new place and all the things in it. It also talks about King Phillips war and the terrible

“I soon learned that the real-life Indians and English of the seventeenth century were too smart, too generous, too greedy, too brave—in short, too human—to behave so predictably.” (preface, pages xv-xvi) This quote tells us that, after researching the topic, he wants to challenge the idea of the “simple” things we are taught about the event. He states that there is much more that happened then most people know, these are events that have shaped america. To summarize, this book explains the real events that occurred when the pilgrims came to America, it talks about their relationship with their Indian neighbors on the new land, specifically the Pokanokets. The pilgrims originally had a bad relationship with all of the Indian tribes in the new world, but the Pokanokets and the pilgrims came together over their mutual need for each other. The Pilgrims had been from England where they had been known as Separatists, they had seeked the new land so they could be able to worship freely. The pilgrims had known that there would be incoming challenges in the new land but had hoped that their religion would keep them safe and healthy.

I think that the author used them well and understood what he was talking about while writing. Most of the pilgrims were educated, which made it much easier to gain information from the stories and books they wrote. A few of them had documented their journey into the new land, this was very helpful because it is a primary source describing what the pilgrims had gone through and what they thought about the native americans. It also showed how their views changed the longer they were in the new