My Takeaways
- The relationship between Native Americans and the Pilgrims was very complicated. The traditional view of benevolent Pilgrims with buckle-hats having a feast with equally benevolent but primitive Indians isn’t quite right, nor is the more modern view of evil white colonizers systematically destroying innocent and unsuspecting Native cultures. Both of these narratives have truths, and both are incomplete.
- The Pilgrims were harassed and arrested in England for wanting to separate from the official Church of England. Their goal in traveling to America was to enact their ideal of a separated, spiritual community. However, half of the Mayflower passengers were not religious separatists (or even religious.) As the number of religiously-minded Pilgrims shrunk and the Plymouth community became more economically focused rather than spiritually focused, the violence towards Natives grew. Although the religious Pilgrims were far from blameless in their relationships with natives, their religion seemed to be a restraining force on violence and racism.
- King Philip’s War, one of the first wars between Natives and Europeans, was incredibly bloody. The Plymouth colony lost 8% of its men (for comparison, in WWI the US lost 1% of its adult male population). The Native American population that was already half wiped out by plagues in the early 1600s was further reduced by 60-80%.
- Indians and Europeans alike were angling for power, and they were willing to trample over anyone (regardless of race) to do it.
- America had a slave exporting business, where Native American prisoners of war were sold as slaves in the Caribbean.
Should you read it?
Yes. This is a well-written account of the Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving, the expansion of the English colonies in North America, and the violent wars that happened between English and Native Americans (including King Philip’s War, which I had never heard of).
I was skeptical to read this book, expecting it to be a revisionist history reading our current cultural values into historic events. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see an even-handed, nuanced narrative that highlighted the virtues, tragic flaws, and attrocities of both Pilgrims and Natives.
Native Politics
Squanto, far from being the romanticized friend of the Pilgrims from elementary school Thanksgiving coloring sheets, was using his friendship with the Europeans to extort nearby tribes. He convinced his own people that the Pilgrims could unleash plague at will and that Squanto was the only one that could stop it–something he would happily do if he were compensated. This was all done with intent of gaining more influence than Massasoit and replacing him as sachem (chief).
Massasoit was also playing politics, to his own people’s ruin. His desire for superiority over neighboring tribes led him to make a fatal deal with the Pilgrims: in exchange for weapons to attack other tribes, he would sell the Pilgrims his peoples’ land. This seemed reasonable and fair to all parties at the time, but ultimately led to the Europeans getting stronger and the Native Americans unjustly becoming weaker, more fractured, and more dependent on the Europeans.
An Unbroken Cycle of Violence
Before the Pilgrims even arrived, some French traders had killed some Indians. This made the natives suspicious of Europeans, and they retaliated against the French. News of this bloody retaliation (from the French point of view) reached the Pilgrims, which made them fearful and suspicious of the natives right off the bat.
By the time the Pilgrims finally met the Pokanokets, things were already tense. Violence didn’t break out until Squanto and his chief, Massasoit, decided to manipulate the English into wiping out their rival tribes by making up a story about how all the other tribes were about to attack, and that the only defense was a preemptive strike. The hot-headed Miles Standish (who was not a Pilgrim in the religious sense) took the bait and escalated the violence even more.
As the religious Pilgrims died off and their economically-minded children took their place, things got even worse. Things spiraled out of control until all-out war broke out. Some tribes, fearing for their lives, engaged in the sort of warfare they always had–scalping and cutting off heads and hands. This terrified the Europeans, which made them fear for their lives, causing them to engage in the type of warfare that Europe had been perfecting for centuries–widespread violence, murder, and rape of warriors and civilians alike. This over-the-top violence forced tribes (who would have preferred to remain peaceful) to enter the war to defend themselves, which made the Pilgrims’ descendants even more afraid and suspicious of the natives.
This is a specific example of the dynamics shown in Guns, Germs, and Steel–when a society with several centuries of advanced political structures and technology comes into contact with a society struggling to achieve a food surplus due to few domesticable crops and animals, conquering or assimilation is inevitable. In this case, there was conquering, bloodshed, and a near-eradication of Native culture through murder and slavery.
But what would have happened if one of the parties had broken the cycle of violence? What if the Pilgrims set aside their fears and the violence done to them and committed to loving their neighbors? This likely wouldn’t have saved Native American culture or preserved tribal identities–the diseases, technology, and political organization of the Europeans would still have taken its toll on Native society. But, had the Pilgrims and their descendants stopped the cycle of escalating violence by allowing themselves to be wronged and doing the hard work of reconciliation rather than the easy work of retaliation, they would have left behind a legacy worthy of their original ambitions–to be a City on a Hill led by their merciful and suffering Savior-King Jesus.