November 2022 Book, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War

Talk About Books meets every third Wednesday at 6:30 at Guilford Free Library and via zoom.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War is a historic nonfiction narrative Nathaniel Philbrick. The narrative outlines the reasons for the Mayflower’s historic voyage, before giving a realistic account of the Pilgrims in the New World during their first fifty-five years. Perhaps most important in Philbrick’s assessment is the tenuous relationship between the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors; with this cooperative relationship in mind, Philbrick investigates several other, “superficial” assessments of the Pilgrims, including the view that the Pilgrims were “good” while their Native American neighbors were “bad”. Ultimately, Philbrick shows the reader that this particular episode in American history was not black and white; the history of beginnings never is.

Mayflower highlights how the Pilgrims and their neighbors, the Pokanokets, came to establish a relationship based on mutual need. The Pilgrims needed to survive in a harsh new environment. They also needed allies if they were to develop their settlement. At the same time, the Pokanokets, led by Massasoit, had lost their place as the most powerful people in the region, largely due to death and disease. The Pilgrims could be the key to restoring their status. Though initially distrustful of each other, the two sides came together to ensure their survival, political and otherwise.

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