The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World* (42 page)

WHEN I BEGAN
writing this book, I wanted to tell the story of how the voyage of the
Mayflower
led to the voyage of the
Seaflower
. It would be a very different story from the one I was taught in school about the First Thanksgiving and Plymouth Rock. This is not to say that what I learned as a child was all wrong. As we have seen, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did join in a celebration in the fall of 1621, during which they ate ducks, geese, deer, and perhaps turkeys. There is also a boulder beside Plymouth Harbor that is still known today as Plymouth Rock. But unlike the First Thanksgiving, there is no direct evidence connecting Plymouth Rock with the Pilgrims. As it turns out, the story of Plymouth Rock is not about what actually happened in Plymouth Colony. It's a story about how a hunk of granite became one of America's most popular—and powerful—myths.

The Pilgrims never mentioned a rock in their own accounts of their arrival in Plymouth Harbor. Not until 121 years later, in 1741, did ninety-five-year-old Thomas Faunce claim that his father (who didn't even arrive in Plymouth until 1623) told him that the
Mayflower
passengers used a boulder at the edge of Plymouth Harbor as a kind of stepping-stone to America. so was born the legend of Plymouth Rock. several decades later, just before the start of the American Revolution, a group of patriots known as the sons of Liberty decided that the rock was the perfect symbol for their cause. They decided to move the rock from its original location beside the harbor to the center of town. Unfortunately, when the sons of Liberty pulled the rock from the mud, it broke in half. Leaving half the rock behind, they carted the other half to the town square.

◆
A photograph of Plymouth Rock in front of Pilgrim Hall.

In the years to come, souvenir hunters used hammers to knock pieces from the rock in the center of town until it was about half its original size. In 1834, the Plymouth town fathers decided that they should move what was left of the rock to the front of a newly built museum called Pilgrim Hall. Once again, disaster struck: After being loaded onto a cart, the rock was passing by the town's courthouse when it fell to the ground and broke in two. With the help of some cement, it was put back together and placed in front of the museum.

By 1880, it had been decided to build a fancy monument around the
other
half of the rock, which was still beside Plymouth Harbor. It was also decided that it was now time for the two pieces of the rock to be put back together. That year, the half in front of Pilgrim Hall was moved down to the waterfront (this time without being dropped), and the two halves were finally reunited after more than a hundred years apart.

Today, the town of Plymouth is a place of historic houses, museums, restaurants, and gift shops. A few miles away on the north bank of the Eel River is Plimoth Plantation, a re-creation of the Pilgrim settlement as it looked in 1627, the last year the original settlers all lived within the great wall. The design and construction of the buildings have been carefully researched, and historical interpreters dress and act as if they were English men and women from 1627. Outside the wall is the re-creation of a small Native settlement known as the Wampanoag Homesite. Here the interpreters are busy with the many daily tasks of a typical Wampanoag village in the early 1600s, which includes carving a large log into a beautifully crafted dugout canoe.

Also part of Plimoth Plantation is the
Mayflower II,
a replica of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America. It is now tied to a dock beside the fancy granite monument that encloses what remains of Plymouth Rock. The monument is large and impressive, but the actual rock is much smaller than most people expect. some have even claimed that Plymouth Rock is one of the biggest letdowns in American tourism.

And yet, even if the Pilgrims never did set foot on the rock, it is still, I believe, an important part of this story. Plymouth Rock has been broken, moved, chipped away, broken again, and put back together, but in the end it is still there, reminding us that in 1620 something important happened at this spot, something that eventually led to the making of America.

TIME LINE

1524
• Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano stops at Narragansett Bay.

1602
• English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold visits New England and names Cape Cod.

1605
• French explorer samuel Champlain explores the Cape and creates detailed maps of the region.

1607
• Jamestown settlement founded in Virginia.

1608
• English separatists from scrooby decide to emigrate to more religiously tolerant Holland.

1611
• William Bradford turns twenty-one and becomes a leading member of the separatist congregation in Leiden, Holland.

1614
• Captain John smith visits New England and creates maps of the region. Thomas Hunt captures Natives and sells them as slaves in spain.

June 1619
• John Carver and Robert Cushman secure a patent from the Virginia Company to start settlement in America.

July 1620
• The Pilgrims depart from Delfshaven, Holland, aboard the
Speedwell.

September 6, 1620
• The
Mayflower
sets out from Plymouth, England, for America.

November 9, 1620
• The
Mayflower
passengers see land on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

November 11, 1620
• The
Mayflower
arrives in Provincetown Harbor. Forty-one men sign the Mayflower Compact.

December 1620
• The Pilgrims have the First Encounter with Natives when they meet the Nausets of Cape Cod. The next day they find Plymouth Harbor.

December 15, 1620
• The
Mayflower
leaves Provincetown Harbor to sail for Plymouth Harbor.

December 25, 1620
• First house frame erected.

March 16, 1621
• samoset, the first Native American to approach the settlement, speaks the now famous words, “Welcome, Englishmen!”

March 22, 1621
• samoset returns to Plymouth with squanto. Massasoit visits with his brother Quidequina, and the Pilgrims record treaty negotiations made with the Indians.

April 5, 1621
• The
Mayflower
sets sail for the return trip to England.

April 1621
• Governor Carver dies. William Bradford is elected the new governor.

July 7, 1621
• Edward Winslow and steven Hopkins arrive back at Plymouth after visiting Massasoit's village on Narragansett Bay.

August 14, 1621
• Hobbamock and Miles standish lead Pilgrims on a midnight raid to Nemasket.

September 13, 1621
• Nine sachems come to Plymouth to sign a treaty professing loyalty to the English King James.

Fall 1621
• The First Thanksgiving is celebrated.

November 1621
• The English ship the
Fortune
arrives at Plymouth Harbor.

November 1621
• The Pilgrims receive a threatening message from the Narragansetts and decide to build a wall around their village.

Fall 1622
• The Pilgrims build a fort at Plymouth. Thomas Weston's men leave Plymouth to settle at Wessagussett.

February 1623
• Massasoit falls ill; Winslow, Hobbamock, and John Hamden visit and attend to the sachem.

Winter 1623
• Raid at Wessagussett led by standish.

Summer 1623
• The supply ship
Anne
arrives with sixty passengers.

1625
• Minister John Robinson dies in Leiden.

1626
• Holland purchases Manhattan from the Indians and establishes the colony of New Netherland. The Adventurers in London disband, and members of Plymouth take on the colony's debt.

1630
• Puritans arrive in area of Boston, Massachusetts, and begin the Great Migration.

1636
• Roger Williams founds the colony of Rhode Island.

1637
• The Pequot War.

1639
• Benjamin Church born in Plymouth.

1642
• Miantonomi attempts to persuade the Montauks on Long Island to join the Narrangansetts against the English.

1643
• Miantonomi is captured and executed by Uncas and the Mohegans.

September 7, 1643
• The United Colonies of New England is established and meets for the first time.

1646
• Winslow sails to England on a diplomatic mission and never returns to Plymouth.

May 9, 1657
• Governor William Bradford dies.

Fall 1657
• Massasoit signs his last Plymouth land deed.

Spring 1660
• Wamsutta and his brother Metacom officially change their names to Alexander and Philip.

July 1662
• Major Josiah Winslow leaves with ten men to bring Alexander into court for illegally selling land. Alexander dies after being taken by Winslow and his men.

August 1662
• Philip becomes sachem of Mount Hope and appears in Plymouth court.

April 1664
• Philip sells land bordering the towns of Bridgewater, Taunton, and Rehoboth for a record £66 (roughly $12,000 today).

September 24, 1671
• Philip meets Plymouth officials and signs a treaty that results in the confiscation of all of his weapons and a large fine.

1673
• Philip sells the last parcels of land surrounding his territory at Mount Hope. Josiah Winslow becomes governor of Plymouth.

June 1-8, 1675
• Three Indians put on trial for murdering John sassamon are found guilty and executed.

June 20, 1675
• Indians start burning houses around the English village of Kickemuit.

June 28, 1675
• Major James Cudworth leads English forces against Philip at Mount Hope.

July 9, 1675
• Benjamin Church and thirty-six of his men are caught in the Pease Field Fight.

July 19, 1675
• A combined Plymouth-Massachusetts force engages Philip and Weetamoo in the swamps of Pocasset.

August 6, 1675
• Having escaped to Nipmuck country, Philip meets with three sachems.

August 22, 1675
• Nipmucks attack the town of Lancaster.

August 24, 1675
• Council of War held by the English at Hatfield on the Connecticut River.

September 18, 1675
• The Battle at Bloody Brook takes place just after a day of public humiliation and prayer had been declared in Boston.

October 5, 1675
• Indians attack springfield.

October 30, 1675
• Hundreds of Praying Indians are confined to Deer Island in Boston Harbor.

December 8, 1675
• Winslow and an army of a thousand men depart Dedham, Massachusetts, for Rhode Island.

December 15, 1675
• Indians attack Bull's Garrison in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

December 19, 1675
• Winslow and his army attack the Narragansetts in the Great swamp Fight.

January 27, 1676
• Winslow pursues the Narragansetts in what comes to be known as the Hungry March.

February 5, 1676
• Winslow disbands his army.

February 10, 1676
• Indians attack Lancaster for the second time and take hostages, including Mary Rowlandson.

March 4, 1676
• Governor Edmund Andros witnesses the Mohawks' triumphant return to Albany after attacking Philip's forces.

March 9, 1676
• Philip meets Canonchet, leader of the Narragansetts, for the first time during the war.

March 26, 1676
• The English, led by Captain Michael Pierce and his men, suffer one of the worst defeats of the war along the Blackstone River.