If it weren't for Indian
deaths, the Pilgrims would have been hard-pressed to settle in Plymouth
that cold winter of 1620. In a brief skirmish, the Pilgrim's muskets had
slain no natives, nor had any arrows struck Englishmen. Disease had been
the killer. The Pilgrims discovered corn fields cleared in the forests,
now deserted. What had once been a bustling village of Patuxet Indians
nearby, stood empty, ravaged by disease four years earlier, leaving but a
single survivor.
Survivors
The Pilgrims, themselves, lived on the
edge of survival that first winter. They had begun well enough. After 66
days crossing the stormy Atlantic, 104 Pilgrims beheld the New World,
including a baby boy, Oceanus, born at sea.
"Being thus arrived in a good harbor
and brought safe to land," wrote Governor William Bradford,
"they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had
brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all
the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and
stable earth, their proper element."
But within four months, scurvy,
pneumonia, and a virulent strain of tuberculosis had cut down whole
families of Pilgrims. As the sickness raged, only six or seven persons in
the whole company were strong enough to tend the sick and comfort the
dying.
Six died in December, then eight in
January, seventeen in February. Of March, Bradford wrote, "This month
thirteen of our number die ... scarce fifty remain, the living scarce able
to bury the dead." Of eighteen married women, only three remained.
Baby Oceanus died.
Indian Aid
But in April, when it was time to put in
gardens, the Indians whom they feared came to their aid. One day,
unannounced, the tall, powerful warrior Samoset strode into their camp,
armed with a bow and arrows, nearly naked except for a leather string
around his waist "with a fringe about a span long, or a little
more," the embarrassed Bradford recorded. To the Pilgrims' surprise,
Samoset greeted them with the word, "Welcome!" He had learned
some English from fishermen in his native Maine. Later, he introduced the
Pilgrims to Massasoit, chief of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe, and to
Squanto, last known survivor of the Patuxets.
Though the Wampanoag braves towered over
the short Englishmen, and outnumbered their tiny militia 60 to 20, they
reached a treaty of peace that stood for forty years until Massasoit's
death.
Squanto, who had been kidnapped and lived
for a while in England, spoke their language, too. He taught the Pilgrims
where to trap eels and how to plant corn. The Pilgrims, who had pilfered
Indian corn the previous December, may not have been deserving. But this
unexpected help made the difference for them between survival and
starvation. Settler Edward Winslow described it thus:
"We set the last spring some twenty
acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six acres of barley and peas, and
according to the manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with
herrings or rather shads, which we have in great abundance, and take
with great ease at our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be
praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley
indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared
they were too late sown, they came up very well, and blossomed, but the
sun parched them in the blossom."
Nevertheless, the harvest was good and
the Pilgrims' food ration increased substantially. By fall, eleven houses
lined the street of Plymouth Colony, seven private homes and four common
buildings. The dying had stopped, and trade had begun with the Indians.
A Thanksgiving Celebration
To celebrate, the Pilgrims invited
Massasoit to a harvest festival, and a hunting party shot enough waterfowl
to feed the company for a week. But when Massasoit arrived, he was joined
by ninety ravenous braves. For their contribution the Indians went out and
returned five deer. It was a three-day feast of venison, roast duck, roast
goose, clams and other shellfish, succulent eels, white bread, corn bread,
leeks and watercress, with wild plums and dried berries -- all enjoyed
with wine newly made from grapes that grew wild in the forest.
It was a feast of thanksgiving, of
thankfulness to God. Edward Winslow wrote to friends in December,
"Although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with
us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish
you partakers of our plenty."
The goodness of God was often on their
minds. Though the Pilgrims had suffered great loss and hardship, they also
were aware of God's great blessing: the produce of the land, peace with
the natives, the joy of life, and homes snug for winter.
"Enter into his gates with
thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise.
Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endures to all generations." (Psalm 100:4-5)
Quotations are from Governor William Bradford's manuscript Of
Plimoth Plantation (Boston, 1856), and Edward Winslow in Mourt’s
Relation: A Relation or Journal of the English Plantation settled at
Plymouth in New England, by certain English adventurers both merchants and
others (London, 1622). Wordings have been changed to modern spellings.
I also relied heavily on George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers
(New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945), a scholarly and popular
retelling of the history of Plymouth Colony. |