Mayflower Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Mayflower

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Zusammenfassung von Mayflower

Name: Mayflower
Rating: 4.6 (33 reviews)
Author: Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick

A Story of Courage, Community, and War

4.6 (33 Bewertungen)

19 Min.

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Geschichte der USA Kultur Politik der USA Kriege Kolonialismus & Imperialismus

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What’s in it for me? Discover an era shrouded in myth and misunderstanding.

For many, the voyage of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony is the stuff of legend. For others, it marks the beginning of centuries of devastation and displacement.

But the story of the Mayflower begins decades before and continues long past the two troubled months of ocean passage. While it’s a tale of religious separatists who migrated twice in order to establish a community of like-minded souls, it’s also one of their determination, adaptation, and integration in a new world.

For a look at the events and personalities that went on to shape a nation, read on.

Troubled Waters

When the 104 passengers of the Mayflower set sail for North America in the Autumn of 1620, it was their second time voyaging to foreign shores in pursuit of religious freedom. Far from typical colonists, they were families joined together in a shared faith. Offended by what they perceived as the excesses of Christianity since the early church, they were strict interpreters of the Bible. They eschewed church hierarchy and pomp in their religious practice, and rejected all traces of pagan influence, like celebrating Christmas. True separatists, they made a dramatic choice: to leave rather than work for change within the Church of England.

Their desire to practice this radical form of religious conservatism initially drove them from the rolling farmlands of England to the university town of Leiden, the Netherlands. Leiden was an open and tolerant community that welcomed these pilgrim families to establish a close-knit settlement. But even as their transplanted community thrived, the unexpected happened – their children slowly became Dutch.

Faced with an identity crisis, they decided on a bold new course of action. If they were to establish a colony in North America, they could preserve their children’s English culture while building a godly community.

This choice presented many new obstacles. Securing a ship, provisions, and financing for such a voyage was a monumental endeavor. Eventually, they made a deal with a London merchant by the name of Thomas Weston, who’d assembled a group of investors looking to finance a new colony in North America – one that could supply a host of trade goods in return. Smooth-talking but ruthless, he extracted harsh terms for the Pilgrim's passage, furnishing few provisions and hiring an old, unreliable merchant vessel for the trip, the Mayflower. The passengers would include non-Pilgrims, too. Many in the Leiden community, including their pastor, decided against making the voyage under these conditions.

The negotiations cost valuable time, too. Instead of setting out in balmy summer, it was now stormy Autumn, They’d arrive at their destination – without food – in the dead of winter. The passage itself was horrific. Near-constant gales almost broke the ship apart. Two months at sea exhausted the ship’s stores, and passengers suffered greatly from hunger and disease.

When Captain Jones first spotted land on November 6, 1620, he knew he needed to get the passengers ashore quickly if they were going to survive. But there was a problem – the gales had blown the ship too far North. Instead of Virginia, where they’d been granted a colony, they were in Cape Cod.

Realizing their precarious situation, the Captain and passengers drafted what was to become known as the Mayflower Compact. This agreement created the framework for a democratic settlement. As the first action of a community on foreign shores, it set a remarkable precedent for the future.

The Struggle to Survive

Landing in Massachusetts meant scouting a location for the new colony in unknown territory. Miles Standish, the Pilgrim’s hired soldier, led small scouting parties along the frozen shore. While conditions were terrible on land, they were far worse on the ship. Disease and starvation claimed more and more lives.

Unnervingly, despite traveling for weeks to locate a safe harbor, they’d seen no people. Where passengers expected to see crowded villages, they saw only empty land. In part, this was due to seasonal migration patterns of native tribes inland during the winter. But in 1620, there was another reason.

The First Thanksgiving

When the tall, naked Samoset introduced himself, it was as sachem of a people near Monhegan Island in Maine. This area was frequented by English fishermen, and it was from them that he’d learned English. He told the Pilgrims their new home was once a thriving village, wiped out by plague. He told them about the leader of the region, the sachem Massasoit, who lived with the Pokanoket about 40 miles south. Massasoit was kindly disposed toward their settlement, but other sachems weren’t. The Pilgrims had offended their regional rivals, the Nauset, for instance, by stealing corn the previous year.

During that long first winter, Massasoit had watched the English struggle. He listened as a former native abductee, Squanto, warned the Pokanoket not to attack the English. Squanto claimed that colonists had barrels of plague hidden under their houses as a weapon. A survivor of English captivity, Squanto spoke perfect English, and spread rumors amongst local tribes about the English to leverage his own position as interpreter.

The Politics of Change

But even as the settlement prospered, things in New England were changing. Ships of additional colonists sent by the London merchant’s association arrived in Massachusetts, and these newcomers were very different from the devout Pilgrims. Mostly secular young men, they changed the colony’s culture enough for the devout puritans to take notice and offense.

When news of a vicious native massacre at Jamestown made its way to Plymouth, Miles Standish, who provided security for the settlement, promoted the idea of building a wooden fort for defense. Meanwhile, Squanto was spreading contradictory rumors between local native groups and the English, looking to gain power. Claiming the Pokanoket had betrayed their English allies and were about to attack, Squanto almost started a war.

The Winds of War

As things in New England shifted radically, so too did things in England. If the Puritans had once been separatists because of the excesses of the Church of England, the English Civil War saw Oliver Cromwell and his armies impose puritanism on England itself. Where they’d once had reason to flee their homeland to practice their religion, now all of England was under puritan rule – and the reason for their suffering to establish a colony seemed for naught. Many colonists returned to England to join the conflict.

In 1646, now Governor Winslow was dispatched to England on another diplomatic mission for the colonists and came to the notice of Cromwell himself. Winslow kept delaying his return to the colony, effectively abandoning them. Miles Standish left Plymouth to found another colony in Duxbury, where he died in 1656. With so many of the original colonists back in England or elsewhere, by 1650 many declared the Plymouth experiment to be over.

The Aftermath, from Mayflower to Seaflower

If the children of the Mayflower passengers had little understanding of what their parents had endured to establish the colony, their ignorance extended to the vital role that indigenous neighbors played in their survival. The intervening decades had seen Massachusetts Bay colony far better situated as a deep water harbor and prosperous trading port. Meanwhile, Plymouth colony bore witness as intertribal politics and infighting claimed the lives of their closest native allies. When the first armed conflict in what became known as King Philip’s War broke out in June 1675, this shared history was all but forgotten.

As raiding bands of native warriors fell on settlement towns and villages, burning them to the ground, the militarized retaliation by the colonists and English forces was swift and terrifying. Indigenous people who surrendered were deported to internment camps and brutalized. Cowed by his dwindling forces, Philip fled to upstate New York, hoping to ally himself with the French to gain ammunition and the fierce Mohawk tribe to replenish his army. When Philip attempted to gain an alliance with the Mohawks through deception – by attacking a small band of their warriors and blaming it on the English – he was found out. Ultimately, Philip was disgraced and defeated.

Final Summary

When the Pilgrims set sail in the Fall of 1620, they had no idea what hardships and alliances awaited them in a new world. Initially dependent on their native neighbors, in just a single generation conflicts and racism escalated. The brutal war that resulted was devastating on all sides and led to a new era of subjugation and enslavement for the Pilgrim’s native allies.

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Worum geht es in Mayflower?

Mayflower (2006) tells the epic story of the 1620 voyage to establish a colony of religious separatists on North American shores, and the astonishing aftermath of their fateful trip. From life-or-death struggle to peaceful coexistence with native peoples to devastating war just a half century later, it tells the unvarnished truth of the people and politics that went on to shape a nation.

Wer Mayflower lesen sollte

History buffs looking for new insights into a little-known chapter of America’s past
Epic saga lovers who crave complex stories of survival, politics, and conflict
Anyone curious about the real facts behind all the feel-good myths, and how they went on to shape the future of a nation

Über den Autor

Nathaniel Philbrick is an award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of many history-themed books including In the Heart of the Sea, Bunker Hill, and Away Off Shore.

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