Introduction to “Mourt’s Relation” by Kara Thompson

“Mourt’s Relation (1620)”, also known as the “Journal of the Pilgrims”^[1], tells the story of the earliest years of Plymouth Plantation, the second permanent English colony^[2], located in Cape Cod in the modern-day state of Massachusetts. The authors of “Mourt’s Relation” were George Morton, William Bradford^[3], and Edward Winslow, who were members of the Puritan community, specifically a radical sect of Protestant separatists today known as the “Pilgrims”, who had formally exited the Anglican Church of England. Morton, Bradford, and Winslow wrote the “Relation” in November 1620. Formally a journal or diary, its genre would today be considered a promotional tract, a genre of early American writing advertising the virtues, opportunities, and promises of the land in order to promote emigration and private investments in the colonial project. Writing from the point of view of those who had experienced what they wrote about, the authors idealize the New World^[4], often focusing on a positive, favorable image of the English colonial project for a contemporary audience at home. The authors focus on the positive qualities of the colony and spend less time on the difficulties that its environment posed to the European settlers^[5]. For example, the “Relation” describes the economic advantages of the colony of Plymouth, such as its food sources, but the journal does not fully describe the challenges of living in the New World, such as illnesses and death that befell the colonists during their travel to, and stay in, the colony of Plymouth^[6]. Several months after the publication of “Mourt’s Relation”, there was an increase of Plymouth’s population, which some have attributed to the impact of the journal in England^[7]. Today, “Mourt’s Relation” must be considered an important early American text that contributes to our modern understanding of the history of colonialism and religion in the early Americas.

George Morton (1585-1624)^[8], one of the founders of the colony at Plymouth, appears to have been the primary author of the preface of the text, “To the Readers”, which is signed “G.M”.  He was born in Yorkshire and was part of the Separatists in Scrooby, which is located in North Nottinghamshire, England^[9]. When the Pilgrims traveled to Massachusetts, Morton stayed in Holland. He was married to Juliana Carpenter and had several children with her. Morton’s main role in “Mourt’s Relation” is that he received the journal and sent it to the printing press to be published in London^[10].

The first part of the account, which relates the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth aboard the Mayflower, is attributed to William Bradford (1590-1657). Bradford was born in Austerfield to a family of farmers and later joined the Separatists in Scrooby^[11]. In 1609, he led a group of English Separatists from Scrooby to Amsterdam, Holland, before settling at Leyden, where Bradford worked as a weaver^[12]. In 1620, the group decided to embark for the New World and settled in a region that had recently been named “New England” by the English explorer and colonist John Smith.  Upon the first sight of the New England coast, Bradford’s wife, Dorothy May, died by drowning, and possibly by suicide, after falling overboard a ship^[13]. Bradford served as governor of the settlement, which they had named “Plymouth,” after the first governor, John Carver, had died in 1621.^[14] In 1623, Bradford married Alice Southworth and had several children with her. He continued to be the governor of Plymouth Plantation until his death in 1657^[15].

The primary author of “Mourt’s Relation” is believed to be Edward Winslow (1595-1655)^[16].Winslow came from a family of farmers, but he was well-regarded in English society and attended the King’s School at Worcester Cathedral, from 1601 to 1611^[17]. He wrote the second half of “Mourt’s Relation”^[18]. Winslow married twice, once in 1618, to Elizabeth Barker, who died shortly after landing in Plymouth Colony, and again in 1621, to Susanna White. Between the two marriages, Winslow had several children with her^[19].  Winslow worked as a missionary, attempting to convert indigenous people to Christianity^[20]. Today, he is perhaps most famous for helping an ill Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag people  of southern New England, to recover from smallpox; Winslow used a combination of English and indigenous medicine to help Massasoit^[21]. As a result, Winslow was able to maintain positive relations with the indigenous people.

The “Relation” contains within its text one of the first governing documents of Plymouth Colony, today known as the Mayflower Compact but then titled “Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth”^[22]. In December of 1620, the document was signed by Bradford, Winslow, as well as Miles Standish, the Puritan’s military officer, treasurer, and assistant governor^[23].  In the Compact, the Puritans agreed to create laws, make a body politic, and elect officials to run the Plymouth Colony’s government.

The Protestant Reformation and English Colonialism

In “Of Plymouth Plantation”, Bradford’s extensive history of the colony written over several decades, he gives several reasons why the Pilgrims should leave Holland. One reason was that they found hardships and difficulties in Holland. Many of the Pilgrims worried that, despite the “truce” between Holland and Spain, war could break out again. Other Pilgrims were, in a religious sense, feeling displaced while they lived in Holland^[24].  After deep thought and discussion, the leaders of the Pilgrims decided that they should move to “some other place”, or to another country. More specifically, the Pilgrims wanted to “injove the ordinances of God in their purity”, or practice their faith in a complete and full way, but faced “bondage” or restrictions, in expressing their beliefs.  They compare their struggles to express their faith to the biblical Orpah and Naomi, as well as the Romans’ relationship with Cato in the country Utica: although the Pilgrims had found a religious safe haven in Holland and acknowledged their need to be there, they still faced difficulties in Holland. Bradford, in “Of Plymouth Plantation,” mentions that the Pilgrims’ church leader encouraged them  to leave Holland. Finally, Bradford writes that the Pilgrims feared the Dutch influences on their children:

But that which was more lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was that many of their children, by these occasions, and the great licentiousness of youth in that country, and the manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away by evil examples to extravagant and dangerous courses, getting the reins off their necks, and departing from their parents. Some became soldiers, others took upon them for villages by sea, and others[took] some worse courses, tending to dissolution and the danger of their souls, to the great grief  of their parents and dishonor of God. So that they saw their posterity would be in danger of degenerating and being corrupted.

Overall, the Pilgrims worried that there were too many “temptations” and “licentiousness”, or sin, around Holland for their children to bear, as well as extraneous lifestyles that would take the Pilgrims’ children away from the Pilgrims. In addition, the Pilgrims found New England to be a place to spread Christianity. Apart from their concern for the purity of their faith among their children, the Pilgrims’ stated purpose in traveling to America was to bring God’s word to the indigenous people who lived there.

The religion that the Pilgrims practiced was a variety of a larger religious movement   today known as Puritanism^[25]. Puritanism had emerged during the second part of the sixteenth century in England^[26] under the reign of Elizabeth I. During the reign of Elizabeth’s predecessor, Queen Mary the Catholic, many English Protestants had fled to the European Continent, where they came into contact with radical forms of Protestantism, such as Calvinism, the doctrines taught by the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) working in Geneva, Switzerland. This exchange resulted in the Geneva Bible, the first English translation of the Bible into the English language. When Mary the Catholic died and her half-sister Elizabeth^[27], who was a Protestant, became the ruler of England, many English Protestants who had lived in exile on the Continent returned to England, hoping that Elizabeth would complete the unfinished reformation of the Church of England, which had separated from the Roman Catholic Church under Henry VIII in 1534. However, they were disappointed by the reforms^[28] undertaken by the Anglican Church under the Elizabethan Settlement in 1559. Even though the Anglican Church was Protestant, the Puritans felt that it fell short of purging English Protestantism of Catholic rituals and ideas^[29]. These returned exiles started a reformist movement that would be called Puritanism by their enemies, for their attempt to cleanse the Church of England from any vestiges of Catholicism^[30].

The dissenters from the Church of England can be divided into two main groups: the Separatists^[31] and the non-Separatists. While the Pilgrims belonged to the former group, a second wave of Non-Separatist Puritans arrived during the so-called Great Migration of 1630^[32], and they founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston. The ones who stayed in England would later start the Puritan Revolution^[33], which culminated with King Charles I’s beheading in 1649 and the Puritan Interregnum (1649-1660), a period when the Puritans, under the regime of Oliver Cromwell, ruled England.  The Separatists who had fled England before the Puritan Revolution to Holland in 1608 and then to America in 1620 thought of their colony at Plymouth^[34] as a place for spiritual refuge because it was beyond the control from the English monarch and the Anglican Church. Although the Pilgrims thought that America provided an “unpeopled” place where they could practice their religion undisturbed, they also claimed aspirations for an evangelical mission to the Native Americans:

For the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so great a work… the place they had thoughts on was some of those vast and unpeopled  countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, whether are only savage and brutish men, which range up and down, little otherwise then the wild beasts of the same.

By describing New England as “unpeopled” and “vast”, the Pilgrims characterize America as a place of opportunity. Although the Pilgrims claimed, in some places, that America was “unpeopled” and, in other places, that they considered it their mission to convert the Native Americans, they also portrayed them as being “savage” and “brutish”. The Pilgrims’ views of the indigenous population anticipate later racist stereotypes arising in the United States.

“Mourt’s Relation” sheds light on the significance the Pilgrims attached to their small settlement in New England in the providential history of salvation and their own place therein. Their understanding of salvation history was deeply influenced by Continental Calvinism^[35]. Calvinism is a religious sect of Protestantism that attributes all agency to an all-powerful and sovereign God and leaves little room for human agency in the world.^[36]. In Calvinism, the Bible validates the justification of faith, or God’s work in converting people from sin to salvation^[37]. The five points of Calvinism include predestination, limited atonement, total depravity, justification, and irresistible grace^[38].  Predestination, in Puritan theology, is the concept that God chooses who will be saved and go to Heaven^[39] before a person is even born, hereby minimizing the role that an individual’s morality, will, and actions play in their salvation^[40]. In 1628, Calvinism was outlawed in England, due to King Charles I’s antagonism towards the sect^[41].

The Pilgrims believed that all agency derived directly from God, and humans had limited power in the world. Limited atonement is the idea that Christ’s death redeemed only the elect^[42]. Total depravity^[43] is the idea that people are in a fallen state because of Original Sin. The Fall has corrupted man’s very nature, including his reason.^[44]. Justification is the state of salvation before God^[45]. In Calvinism, justification can only be achieved by God’s election^[46]. In this sense, justification differs from Arminianism and the Covenant of Works, where good works can lead to salvation^[47].  Irresistible grace, also known as efficacious grace^[48],  is the idea that those among the elect cannot resist their  election, even if they rejected God.

Besides Calvinism, another tradition of Protestant theology that shaped English Puritanism was Arminianism, a theology that argued that predestination did not exist. The theology of Arminianism was taught by Jacob Arminius^[49] (1560-1609), a pastor from Leyden, Holland. Arminius taught a Covenant of Works, the concept stating that good works can lead to salvation. Although Armianism shares the belief of total depravity with Calvinism, it differs in the idea that grace is not mandatory, but rather, resistable–humans can choose, through free will, whether to follow God or to reject Him^[50].

The Puritan theologians working in England and America elaborated a synthesis of various strains of Protestantism, especially between Calvinism and Arminianism. Justification is the state of the soul before God. Sanctification is the way one acts in the world, such as doing good works like  a saint; However, sanctification is not a cause, but a sign of salvation. Unlike in Arminianism, where good works could be the cause of salvation, in the Puritan concept of Visible Sainthood, salvation is already guaranteed to some—those who are among God’s Elect, or Chosen People, even though individual Puritans could ultimately never be sure of the state of their souls.

As is evident from the “Relation”, the Pilgrims strongly believed in Divine Providence, the notion that God’s inscrutable will, rather than his law (which is knowable through human reason), is the first cause of all things that happen in the world.^[51] For instance, at the beginning of the “Relation”, the authors comment on God’s intervention on their behalf  by delivering the Puritans from a dangerous storm:

After many difficulties in boisterous storms, at length by God’s providence upon the ninth of November following, by break of the day we spied land which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. At the appearance of it much comforted us, especially, seeing so goodly a Land, and wooded to the brink of the sea, it caused us to rejoice together, and praise God that had given us once again to see land^[52].

Here, we can see that the Puritans believed that God will directly intervene in history on behalf of His people, who are, of course, the Pilgrims. This belief is at the root of a profoundly Puritan (and later American) sense of exceptionalism, which is ultimately derived from the Old Testament, which tells the story of one people, the Israelites, who were favored by God. “Mourt’s Relation” is relevant today because of its influence on contemporary ideas, such as the American concept of manifest destiny, a concept that is similar to the Puritan idea of election. Both concepts involve Puritans and Americans having a higher purpose in colonizing the rest of the world, despite harmful consequences on indigenous groups.

The people God chooses to save, who will go to Heaven, are called the elect^[53], while the people that God chooses to punish are called the reprobates. The Gospel was interpreted as part of God’s plan for the elect, specifically the work of the Holy Trinity^[54]. The Pilgrims believed that Divine Providence was not always benevolent and can involve wrathful punishment. The notion that God punishes His chosen people more severely for their transgressions in order to chastise and reform was a common rhetorical feature in a subgenre of the Puritan sermon called the “jeremiad”^[55].  Sermons following this rhetorical mold involved Pilgrims being reminded of their sinful nature and inability to keep a stable covenant with God; according to this type of sermon, the prophet Jeremiah’s predictions were coming true, but God’s wrath could be stopped if Puritans chose to repent^[56].  The rhetorical structure of the jeremiad is also evident in “Mourt’s Relation”, since the Puritans are both chastised and saved by God—He provided the storm for the Puritans to get caught in, but he also saves them as well.  Because the authors of “Mourt’s Relation” believe that God cares for them, they often credit God for their successes, despite the benevolent punishment of His people^[57]. For the authors, everything that happens in history is a sign of God’s Providence, or will, unfolding^[58]. For example, in the “Relation”, the writers comment,

And if taking offense carefully or easily as men’s doings be so carefully to be avoided, how much more heed is to be taken that we take not offense as God himself, which yet we certainly do so often as we do murmur at his providences in our crosses, or bear impatiently such afflictions as where with he pleases to fit us. Store we up therefore patience against the evil day, without which we take offense at the Lord himself in his holy and just works.^[59]

Here, the writers of the “Relation” explain that their election as God’s chosen people manifests itself in the form of “crosses”, or hardships, an idea which the writers suggest that, even though it appears God is punishing His people, the writers view these benevolent hardships as a way to know and serve God better.

Ultimately, Puritan exceptionalism derives from a typological interpretation of Scripture, such as the concepts of Old and New Israel. Old Israel is the Israel that appears in the Old Testament, while the New Israel is interpreted as the Puritans in America. The Puritans’ figurative interpretation of the relationship between the Old and the New Testament has a long history in Christian exegesis. One example of Puritan typology in “Mourt’s Relation” is the author’s comparison of themselves to the Jewish people in Canaan:

Like unto the possession to which the Jews had in Canaan, being legally holy and appropriately unto a holy people the seed of Abraham, in which they dwelt securely, and had their days prolonged…an immediate voice said, that he (the Lord) gave it them a land of rest after their weary travels, and a type of Eternal rest in heaven, but now there is no land of that Sacrament, no land so appropriate; none typical^[60].

The authors believe that the Pilgrims’ wanderings in America are like the wanderings of the Jewish people in Canaan in the Old Testament. The Puritans, much like the Jewish people in Canaan, believe that God will reward them for staying faithful to Him while in the new land.  The concept of the Puritans’ exodus to New England is a parallel^[61] to the Biblical exodus; this is an example of typology, a particular mode of exegesis, or an interpretation of a religious text. In this interpretation, the Puritans were a new type of Israelites, who were told to cross a sea-thus the Atlantic Ocean representing the countertype of the Red Sea—in order to escape a new type of Pharaoh, King James, and arrive in the New Promised Land of America^[62].  The authors also believed in the Deuteronomic Formula, where the Pilgrims are parallels to the Israelites and Moses, whom God chose to keep a covenant with, as long as they continued to trust God in all that they did^[63].

In this typological sense, the indigenous people are parallels to the Canaanites, whom the Israelites  conquered, since they viewed them as not being the rightful owners of the land. The “Relation”’s significance lies in part in the role it played of creating a certain image of America and of Native Americans that promoted European colonialism. For example, the Puritans viewed indigenous people as inferior and uncivilized, which led to prejudice and violence against indigenous people that continues today^[64].Colonial settlement affected how people view America today, since, according to the “Relation”, America was viewed as a utopia, and today, America is often portrayed in this light as a land of opportunity in various forms of media^[65]. The relationship between the Puritans and the indigenous people was influenced by the Puritans’ own ideas of colonization^[66]. The Puritans feared and killed^[67]  many indigenous people. For example, between the years of 1637 and 1638, the Puritans committed genocide on the Pequots, an indigenous community located in Thames Valley, Connecticut, which demonstrates the often hostile nature of the relationship between Puritans and indigenous people^[68]. The English settlers battled with the indigenous people and attempted to remove them from their lands^[69]:

The cry of our enemies was dreadful, especially; when our men ran out to recover their arms, their note was after this manner: ‘Woath woath hah ha hach woach’: our men were no sooner to come to their Arms, but the enemy was ready to assault them.^[70]

By categorizing the indigenous people as “enemies who are “dreadful’”, as well as including an indigenous war cry, Morton, Bradford, and Winslow emphasize the, at first, hostile relationship between the Puritans and indigenous people. The authors describe how the Puritans were ready to attack the indigenous people because of their status as the “other”, as well as to possess their land. The removal of other ethnic groups is present in modern-day colonialist efforts. However, the Puritans made alliances with individuals who were members of Massachusetts’ native community^[71]. “Mourt’s Relation” chronicles the colonial settlement of Plymouth, as well as the origins of modern-day America. The “Relation” focuses on how indigenous people are viewed, which can apply to present-day colonialism and racism.

About this Edition     

I chose to use the original, facsimile text^[72], including the various letters that appear before and after the journal itself, in order to provide context for readers to learn more about the time period and significance of Puritanism to the Massachusetts colony members. However, the spellings have been modernized. The preliminary and concluding letters can help readers draw modern parallels between colonialism, as well as the significance of religion in American society^[73] in the seventeenth century and in the twenty-first century.  These concepts greatly impacted the Pilgrims while they lived in and colonized America. The use of modernized English helps readers understand the text presented in “Mourt’s Relation” and creates parallels to modern day views of colonialism^[74]. Through Calvinism, the writers of the “Relation” influenced modern religious ideas. Puritanism influenced modern writing, especially that of the eighteenth century, such as the idea of social compacts in American literature^[75],  as well as more contemporary ideas surrounding American religious identity. “Mourt’s Relation” is an important text because of its ideas involving American colonialism and religion, which are  ideas that affect various members of society and shape how other countries, as well as its own citizens, view American society today.

^[1]  George Barrell Cheever. The Pilgrim fathers; or, The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, New England, in 1620. (Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center; 1849, 93).

https://archive.org/details/pilgrimfathersor00inchee/page/92/mode/2up?q=Mourt%27s+Relation  Betty Booth Donohue. Bradford’s Indian Book: Being the True Roote & Rise of American Letters as Revealed by the Native Text Embedded in Of Plimouth Plantation. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2011. 58.  doi:10.5744/florida/9780813037370.001.0001.http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=396614&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_58

.William Bradford.  A relation or iournall of the beginning and proceedings of the English plantation settled at Plimoth in New England.. (John Bellamy, Cornhill, 1622) https://quod-lib-umich-edu.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/e/eebo/A09810.0001.001/1:1?c=eebo;c=eebo2;g=eebogroup;rgn=div1;view=fulltext;xc=1;q1=William+Bradford

 

^[2] The first English colony in America had been founded at Jamestown in Virginia in 1608. Before then, in the 1580s, there had been two colonies at Roanoke, in present-day North Carolina, but they did not last.

 

Robert Appelbaum, John Wood Sweet, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, and Constance Jordan. 2005. 3. Envisioning an English Empire: Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World. Early American Studies. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/chapter/141421/pdf

 

Susan Schmidt Horning.  “The Power of Image: Promotional Literature and Its Changing Role in the Settlement of Early Carolina.” The North Carolina Historical Review 70, no. 4 (1993): 365. Accessed April 7, 2021.https://www.jstor.org/stable/23521076?seq=1

 

^[3] Mourt’s Relation. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourt%27s_Relation

Edward Winslow. Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Winslow#In_Plymouth_Colony  Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrims_(Plymouth_Colony)

Puritans. Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans

^[4] M.Carmen Gomez-Galisteo,  Early Visions and Representations of America: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios and William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, 129. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Early_Visions_and_Representations_of_Ame/3IDFAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Early+visions+and+representations+of+America+:+A%CC%81lvar+Nu%CC%81n%CC%83ez+Cabeza+de+Vaca%27s+Naufragios+and+William+Bradford%27s+of+Plymouth+Plantation&printsec=frontcover

^[5] Daisy Martin.Exploration and Colonial America (1492-1755). Defining Documents in American History. (Ipswich, Massachusetts: Salem Press, 2013. 132.) http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=520312&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_132

^[6] See Martin, p. 132.

^[7] See Martin, p. 132.

^[8]John Kermott Allen . “George Morton of Plymouth Colony and some of his descendants”.  (Chicago, 1908, 1). https://archive.org/details/georgemortonofpl00lcalle/page/4/mode/2up

Wiliam Bradford, Edward Winslow, and Henry Martyn Dexter. Mourt’s relation, or, Journal of the plantation at Plymouth : with an introduction and notes. Boston: John Kimball Wiggin, 1865, xix. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (accessed March 10, 2021). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0110615444/SABN?u=umd_um&sid=SABN&xid=5d7adbf9&pg=1.

^[9]“George Morton (Pilgrim Father)”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Morton_(Pilgrim_Father)

^[10] See Martin, p. 132.

Nathaniel Philbrick and Thomas Philbrick.  The Mayflower Papers: Selected Writings of Colonial New England. (England,  2007, 12). https://books.google.com/books?id=Ldly-cYXV38C

 

^[11]  See Miller, p.  Ix.

Hunter, Joseph. Collections concerning the church of congregation of Protestant Separatists formed at Scrooby in north Nottinghamshire, in the time of King James I : the founders of New-Plymouth, the parent-colony of New-England. London: J.R. Smith, 1854, 15. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (accessed March 10, 2021).https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0100226175/SABN?u=umd_um&sid=SABN&xid=3955c85a&pg=1

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Nottinghamshire.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 12, 2013. https://www.britannica.com/place/Nottinghamshire.

^[12] See Miller, p. 4.

^[13] William Bradford (governor)-Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bradford_(governor)#Loss_of_first_wife)

^[14] See Miller, p. 4.

^[15] See Delbanco, p. 41.

^[16] See Gomez-Galisteo, p. 149.

^[17] Rebecca Fraser. The Mayflower Generation: The Winslow Family and the Fight for the New World. (London; 2017,  43-44).  Internet resource.

https://sample-f5ab5ff037edaeae6351fbc006430977.read.overdrive.com/

^[18] See Martin, pg. 132.

^[19] Edward Winslow-Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Winslow#Marriage_and_children

^[20]  Amy H Sturgis,. “Prophesies and Politics: Millenarians, Rabbis, and the Jewish Indian Theory.” The Seventeenth Century 14, no. 1 (1999): 15. doi:10.1080/0268117x.1999.10555453.  https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2000014984&site=ehost-live

^[21] See Winslow, pg. 5.

Kelly Wisecup. Medical Encounters: Knowledge and Identity in Early American Literatures. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. 34. muse.jhu.edu/book/27766.

^[22] Mayflower Compact. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact

^[23] George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920).8, 12. https://ia902306.us.archive.org/0/items/mayflowercompact00bow/mayflowercompact00bow.pdf

“Miles Standish”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish

^[24] See Martin, p. 131.

^[25] See Johnson, Perry Miller, p. 5, 8.

^[26] Puritans, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans

Rayne Allinson. “Queen Elizabeth I and the ‘Nomination’ of the Young Prince of Scotland.” Notes and Queries 53 [251], no. 4 (December 2006): 425. doi:10.1093/notesj/gjl144.  http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2006582851&site=ehost-live

Mary Ann Rygiel. “Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen.” Southern Humanities Review 46, no. 4 (2012): 397–399. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=EIS85271467&site=ehost-live.Tom Furniss. “Reading the Geneva Bible: Notes toward an English Revolution?” Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism 31, no. 1 (April 2009): 4. doi:10.1080/01440350903156995. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2009140250&site=ehost-live

^[27] Miriam Elizabeth Burstein. “Reinventing the Marian Persecutions in Victorian England.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 8, no. 2 (June 2010): 341. doi:10.1353/pan.0.0173.

^[28] Tim Harris. “Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery in Seventeenth-Century England.” In Against Popery: Britain, Empire, and Anti-Catholicism, edited by Haefeli Evan, 25-50. Charlottesville; London: University of Virginia Press, 2020. Accessed March 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1bhg26x.6. https://www-jstor-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/stable/j.ctv1bhg26x.6?refreqid=excelsior%3A10fd6e901cd31f6c0271d97fd274897f&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Elizabethan Religious Settlement – Wikipedia

^[29] See Harris, p. 25-50.

^[30]See Martin,p. 131.

^[31] T. Hancock. The Puritans and the Tithes. United Kingdom: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1905, 14). https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Puritans_and_the_Tithes/jrsTAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

^[32] Darrett B Rutman. “City Upon a Hill” in  Winthrop’s Boston: A Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014, 3. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Winthrop_s_Boston/QzPqCQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Winthrop%27s+Boston:+A+Portrait+of+a+Puritan+Town,+1630-1649&printsec=frontcover  See Rutman, p. 3.

^[33],John Coffey. John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution: Religion and Intellectual Change in Seventeenth-century England. United Kingdom: Boydell Press, 2006, 1. https://www.google.com/books/edition/John_Goodwin_and_the_Puritan_Revolution/1iEwu2dA_5AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=puritan+revolution&printsec=frontcover

See Coffey, pg 270.

“Puritan Interregnum.” In The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre, edited by Hartnoll, Phyllis, and Peter Found. : Oxford University Press, 1996. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192825742.001.0001/acref-9780192825742-e-2500.

Giuseppina Iacono Lobo. 2015. “John Milton, Oliver Cromwell, and the Cause of Conscience.” Studies in Philology 112 (4): 774–97. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2015583433&site=ehost-live.

 

^[34] Lyon Sharman. The Cape Cod Journal of the Pilgrim Fathers: Reprinted From Mourt’s Relation. (Provincetown: The Advocate Gift Shop, 1920, 7).  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t5h99gp03&view=1up&seq=7

Andrew Delbanco, and Alan Heimert. The Puritans in America. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985. 45.

http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=282725&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_Cover

 

See Delbanco,p. 45.

^[35] “John Calvin”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin

^[36] W. J. Bouwsma,. “Calvinism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, May 28, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Calvinism.

^[37] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Justification.” Encyclopedia Britannica, October 7, 2013. https://www.britannica.com/topic/justification-Christianity.

^[38] See Calvinism, Wikipedia.

^[39]Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Predestination.” Encyclopedia Britannica, May 18, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/predestination.

^[40]Catherine Gimelli  Martin.  “Experimental Predestination in Donne’s Holy Sonnets: Self-Ministry and the Early Seventeenth-Century ‘Via Media.’” Studies in Philology 110, no. 2 (2013): 354.  doi:10.1353/sip.2013.0014.

^[41] Nicholas Tyacke. Aspects of English Protestantism C. 1530-1700. Manchester University Press, 2001, 167. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=McvcmiZ6h8gC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Protestantism&ots=kjNIk84-o2&sig=1jby540ruGAEjRoWJ2qdyQoZt9w#v=onepage&q=Calvinism&f=false

^[42] Limited atonement, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_atonement#Theology.

^[43] David N Steele, Curtis C. Thomas. The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, Documented.

(Presbytertian and Reformed Publishing Co, 1963, 24)https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o6p8AruD_-4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=definition+of+calvinism&ots=B4Tp16VMB-&sig=xRkkicB_ffj3aviy3HNYPQoZSp0#v=onepage&q=definition%20of%20calvinism&f=false Total depravity.Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_depravity#Theology

^[44] See “Divine Providence”, “Calvinist” subsection, Wikipedia.

^[45] Justification (theology),  Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justification_(theology)

^[46] Calvinism, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism#Five_points_of_Calvinism

^[47] Ibid.

^[48] See Calvinism, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism#Five_points_of_Calvinism

^[49] Theodoor Marius van Leeuwen, , Keith D Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma. 2009. Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe : Jacobus Arminius (1559/60-1609). Brill’s Series in Church History, V .x. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004178878.i-302. https://books.google.com/books?id=hO15DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false

^[50] Arminianism. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism#God’s_providence_and_human_free_will

^[51] Dylan M. Burns. 2016. “Providence, Creation, and Gnosticism According to the Gnostics.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 24 (1): 55.. doi:10.1353/earl.2016.0005.http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2016306117&site=ehost-live

^[52] See “Mourt’s Relation”, EADA version.

^[53] See Unconditional election.

 Election in Christianity. Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_in_Christianity

Reprobation.Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprobation

 

^[54] Brian H.Cosby,  John Flavel : Puritan Life and Thought in Stuart England. (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2013,  114) http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=670087&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_114

^[55]Sacvan. Bercovitch, 1978. The American Jeremiad. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press .

^[56]Richard L. Johannesen,  1985. “The Jeremiad and Jenkin Lloyd Jones.” Communication Monographs 52 (2): 156–72. doi:10.1080/03637758509376102. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=1985011370&site=ehost-live

^[57]See  Hovey, p. 47.

^[58] See Hovey, p. 47, 49.

^[59]  See “Mourt’s Relation”, EADA version.

^[60] See “Mourt’s Relation” (EADA Version).

^[61] Lincoln Konkle.  2006  Thornton Wilder and the Puritan Narrative Tradition. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.34.  http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=157335&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_34

 Exegesis. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exegesis

^[62] See Konkle, p. 34.

^[63]Robert Daly, “William Bradford’s Vision of History.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 44, no. 4. (Duke University Press, 1973, 558). EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=0000101013&site=ehost-live

^[64] Ibid.

^[65] Ibid.

^[66] Frank Shufflteton. “Indian Devils and Pilgrim Fathers: Squanto, Hobomok, and the English Conception of Indian Religion.” The New England Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1976): 108-114 Accessed April 8, 2021. doi:10.2307/364560.https://www-jstor-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/stable/364560?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

^[67] Cathy Rex. “Indians and Images: The Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, James Printer, and the Anxiety of Colonial Identity.” American Quarterly 63, no. 1 (March 2011): 64-76. doi:10.1353/aq.2011.0001.http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2011381545&site=ehost-live

Alfred A. Cave . “New England Puritan Misperceptions of Native American Shamanism.” International Social Science Review 67, no. 1 (1992): 15-19. Accessed April 9, 2021.https://www.jstor.org/stable/41882032

 

^[68] Michael Freeman. “Puritans and Pequots: The Question of Genocide.” The New England Quarterly 68, no. 2 (1995): 278-93. Accessed April 9, 2021. doi:10.2307/366259. https://www.jstor.org/stable/366259

^[69] Cristobal Silva. “Miraculous Plagues: Epidemiology on New England’s Colonial Landscape.” Early American Literature 43, no. 2 (2008): 249-75. Accessed March 17, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25057557.

^[70] See “Mourt’s Relation”, EADA version.

^[71] See Shuffleton, 108-110.

^[72] William Bradford, 1588-1657. A Relation Or Iournall of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Setled at Plimoth in New England, by Certaine English Aduenturers both Merchants and Others with their Difficult Passage, their Safe Ariuall, their Ioyfull Building of, and Comfortable Planting Themselues in the Now Well Defended Towne of New Plimoth. as also a Relation of Foure Seuerall Discoueries since made by some of the Same English Planters there Resident. I. in a Iourney to Puckanokick … II. in a Voyage made by Ten of them to the Kingdome of Nawset … III. in their Iourney to the Kingdome of Namaschet … IIII. their Voyage to the Massachusets, and their Entertainment there. with an Answer to all such Obiections as are in any Way made Against the Lawfulnesse of English Plantations in those Parts. London, Printed by J. Dawson] for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the two Greyhounds in Cornhill neere the Royall Exchange, 1622. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/books/relation-iournall-beginning-proceedings-english/docview/2240890285/se-2?accountid=14696.

^[73] Malcolm Bradbury and Richard Rulan.From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2016,3. https://www.google.com/books/edition/From_Puritanism_to_Postmodernism/U037CwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

^[74] “Heike Paul in “Pilgrims and Puritans and the Myth of the Promised Land”. The Myths That Made America: An Introduction to American Studies. pp. 137–196.

 

^[75]Nicholas Tyacke, “Revolutionary Puritanism in Anglo-American Perspective.” Huntington Library Quarterly 78, no. 4 (2015): 766. doi:10.1353/hlq.2015.0023.

American Literature and the New Puritan Studies. United States: Cambridge University Press, 2017,  6. .https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Literature_and_the_New_Puritan/3DQyDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=American+Literature+and+the+New+Puritan+Studies.%C2%A0United+States,%C2%A0Cambridge+University+Press,%C2%A02017.&printsec=frontcover

Kathleen Donegan. 2002. “‘As Dying, Yet Behold We Live’: Catastrophe and Interiority in Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation.” Early American Literature 37 (1): 9. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2002130202&site=ehost-live.

 

Relation or Journal of the beginning and proceedings^[1]

Of the English plantation settled at Plymouth in New

England, by certain English Adventurers, both Merchants and Others

With their difficult Passage, their safe arrival, their joyful building of, and comfortable planting themselves in the now well-defended Town of New Plymouth.

Also a Relation of Four Several discoveries since made by some of the same English planters there resident.

1. In a journey to Packanokick, the habitation of the Indians’ greatest King Massasoit: as also their message, the answer and entertainment they had of him.
2. II. In a voyage made by ten of them to the Kingdom of Nauset, to seek a boy that had lost himself in the woods: with such accidents as befell themselves in that voyage.
3. In their journey to the Kingdom of Namaschet, in defense of their greatest King Massasoit, against the Narragansetts, and to avenge the supposed death of their Interpreter Tisquantum.
4. Their voyage to Massachusetts, and their entertainment there.

With an answer to all such objections as are in any way made against the lawfulness of English plantations in those parts.

London.

Printed for John Bellamy^[2], and are to be sold at his shop at the two Greyhounds in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange, 1622.

 

To His Much Respect Friend, M. J. P^[3].

Good Friend: As we cannot but account it an extraordinary blessing of God in the directing our course for these parts, after we came out of our native country, for that we had the happiness to be possessed of the comforts we receive by the benefit of one most pleasant, most healthful, and most fruitful parts of the world: So must we acknowledge the same blessing to be multiplied upon our whole company, for that we obtained the honor to receive allowance and approbation of our free possession, and enjoying thereof under the authority of those trice honored Persons, the President and Council^[4] for the affairs of New England, by whose bounty and grace, in that behalf, all of us are tied to dedicate our best service unto them, as those under his Majesty, that we owe it unto: the whole noble endeavors in these their actions the God of heaven and earth multiply to his glory and their own eternal comforts.

As for this poor Relation, I pray you accept it, as being written by the several Actors themselves, after their plain and rude manner, therefore doubt nothing of the truth thereof: if it be defective in anything, it is their ignorance, that we are better acquainted with planting than writing. It is fantastic those that are well affected to the business, it is all I care for. I am sure of the place we are in, and the hopes that are apparent, cannot be sufficed any that will not desire more than enough, neither is there want of ought among us but company to enjoy the blessings so plentifully bestowed upon the inhabitants that are here.

While I was writing this, I had almost forgot, that I had but the recommendation of the relation itself, to your further consideration, and therefore I will end without saying more, save that I shall always rest

From Plimoth in New-England,

Yours in the way of friendship,

R.C.^[5]

 

To the Reader.

Courteous Reader, be persuaded  to make a favourable construction of my forwardness, in publishing these incensing  discourses, the desire of carrying the Gospel of Christ, into those foreign parts, among those people that as yet have had no knowledge, nor taste of God, as also to procure onto themselves and others a quiet and comfortable habitation: we are among other things the inducements unto these undertakers of the then hopeful, and now experimentally known good enterprise for plantation, in New England, to set afoot and prosecute the same although it saved with them, as it is common to the most actions of this nature, that the first attempts prove difficult, as sequel more at large expressed, yet it has pleased God, even beyond our expectation in so short a time, to give hope of letting some of them see (though some have taken out of this vale of tears) some grounds of hope, of the accomplishment of both those ends by them, at first propounded.

And as myself then much desired, and shortly hope to effect, if the Lord will, the putting to of my shoulder in the hopeful business, and in the meantime, these relations coming to my hand from both known and faithful friends, on whole writings I do much rely, I thought it not amiss to make them more general, hoping of a cheerful proceeding, both of Adventurers and planters, entreating that the example of the same: Virginia and Bermudas Companies^[6], encountering with so many disasters, and that for diners years together, with an unwearied resolution, the good effects whereof are now eminent, may prevail as a spur of preparation also touching this no less  hopeful Country though yet an infant, the extent and commodities whereof are as yet not fully known, after time will unfold more: such as desire to take knowledge of things, may inform themselves by this valuing treaty, and if they please also by such as have been there a first and second time, my harry prayer to God is that the event of this and all other honorable and honest undertakings may be for the furtherance of the kingdom of Christ, the enlarging of the bounds of our Sovereign Lord, King James^[7], and the good and profit of those, who even by purse, or person, or both, are agents in the same, so I take leave and rest,

Thy friend, G. Mourt^[8].

 

Certain Useful  Advertisements Sent

In a Letter written by a discreet friend unto

The Planters^[9] in New England, at their first setting

Sail from Southampton, whom earnestly desire the property of their new Plantation.

 

Loving and Christian friends, I do heartily and in the Lord salute you all, as being they with whom I am present in my best affection, and most earnest longings after you, though I be constrained for a while to be bodily absent from you, I say constrained, God knowing how willingly and much rather than otherwise I would have born my part with you in this first brunt, were I not by strong necessity held back for the present. Make account of me in the meanwhile, as of a man divided in myself with great pain, and as (natural bonds set aside) having my better part with you. And though I doubt not but in your godly wisdoms you both foresee and resolve upon that which concerns you present slate and condition both severally and jointly, yet have I thought but my duty to add some further spur of provocation unto them who run already, if not because you need it, yet because I owe it in love and duty.

And first, as we are daily to renew our repentance with our God, special for our sins known, and general for our unknown trespasses; so does the Lord call us in a singular manner upon occasions of such difficulty and danger as lies upon you, to a both more narrow search and careful reformation of our ways in his fight, left he calling to remember our sins forgotten by us or unrepresented of, take advantage against us, and in judgement leave us for the fame to be swallowed up in one danger or other; whereas on the contrary, sin being taken away by earnest repentance and the pardon thereof from the Lord sealed up into a man’s conscience by his Spirit, great will be his security and peace in all dangers, sweet his comforts in all distresses, with happy deliverance from all evil, whether in life or in death.

 

Now next after this heavenly peace with God and our own consciences, we are carefully to provide for peace with all men what in us lies, especially with our associates, and for that end watchfulness must be had, that we neither at all our selves do give, no nor easily take offense being given by others. Woe be unto the world for offenses, for though it be necessary (considering the malice of Satan and man’s corruption) that offenses come, yet woe unto the man or woman either by who the offense comes, says Christ, Matthew 18.7^[10]. And if offenses in the unreasonable use of things in themselves are indifferent, be more to be feared than death itself, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Corinthians 9. 15^[11] , how much more in things simply evil, in which neither honor of God nor love of man is thought worthy to be regarded.

Neither yet is sufficient that we keep ourselves by the grace of God from giving offense, except withal we be armed against the taking of them when they are given by others. For how unparsed and lame is the work of grace in that person, who wants charity to cover a multitude of offenses, as the Scriptures speak. Neither are you to be exhorted to this grace only upon the common grounds of Christianity, which are, that persons ready to take offense, either want charity to cover offenses, or wisdom duly to weigh human frailties, or lastly are gross, through close hypocrites, as Christ our Lord teaches, Matthew 7:1, 2,3^[12], as indeed my own experience, few or none have been found which sooner give offense, than such as easily take it; neither have they ever proved found and profitable members in societies, which have nourished in themselves that touchy humor. But besides there, there are diverse, special motives provoking you above others to great care and conscience this way: As first, you are many of you strangers, as to the persons, so to the infirmities one, of another, and so stand in need of more watchfulness this way, left when such things fall out in men and women  as you suspected not, you be inordinately seated with them; which does require at your hands much wisdom and charity for the covering and preventing of incident offenses that way. And lastly your intended course of civil community will minister continually on occasion of offense, and will be a fuel for that fire, except you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance. And if taking offense carefully or easily as men’s doings be so carefully to be avoided, how much more heed is to be taken that we take not offense as God himself, which yet we certainly do so often as we do murmur at his providences in our crosses, or bear impatiently such afflictions as where with he pleases to fit us. Store we up therefore patience against the evil day, without which we take offense at the Lord himself in his holy and just works.

 

A fourth thing there is carefully to be provided for, to wit, that with your common employments you join common affections truly bent upon the general good, avoiding as a deadly plague of your both common and special comfort all retirement of mind for proper advantage, and all singularly affected any manner of way; let every man repress in himself and the whole body of each person, as so many rebels against the common good, all private reflects of men’s selves, not sorting with the general conveniency. And as men are careful not to have a new house shaken with any violence before it be well settled and the parts firmly knit: so be you, I beseech you brethren, much more careful, that the house of God which you are and are to to be, be not shaken with unnecessary novelties or other oppositions at the first settling thereof.

Lastly, whereas you are to become a body politic, using among yourselves civil government, and are not furnished with any persons of special eminence above the rest, to be chosen by you into office of government: let your wisdom and godliness appear, not only in choosing such persons as do entirely love, and will diligently promote the common good, but also in yielding unto them all due honor and obedience in their lawful administrations, not beholding in them their ordinariness of their persons, but God’s ordinance for your good; nor being like unto the foolish multitude, who more honor the gay coat, then either the virtous mind of the man, or glorious ordinance of the Lord. But you know better things, and that the image of the Lord’s power and authority which the Magistrate bears, in honorable, in how mean persons suffer. And this duty you both may the more willingly, and ought the more consciously to perform, because you are at least for the present to have only them for your ordinary governors, which yourselves shall make choice for the work.

Sundry other things of importance I could put you in mind if, and of those before mentioned in more words, but I will not so far wrong your godly minds, as to think you heedless of these things, there being also diverse among you so well able to admonish both themselves and others of what concerns them. These few things therefore, and the fame in few words I do earnestly commend unto your care and conscience, joining there with my daily incessant prayers unto the Lord, that he who has made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all rivers of waters, and the whole providence is over all his works, especially over all his dear children for good, would so guide and guard you in your ways, as inwardly by his Spirit, so outwardly by the hand of his power, as that both you and we also, for and with you, may have after matter of praising his Name all the days of your and our lives. Farewell in him in who you trust, and in who I rest,

An unfeigned, well wisher

Of your happy success

In this hopeful voyage,

J.R^[13].

 

 

A Relation or Journal of the Proceedings of the Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England.

 

Wednesday the first of September 1620, the Wind coming East, North East, a fine small gale, we left Plymouth, having been kindly entertained and courteously used by diverse friends there dwelling, and after many difficulties in boisterous storms, at length by God’s providence upon the ninth of November following, by break of the day we spied land which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. At the appearance of it much comforted us, especially, seeing so goodly a Land, and wooded to the brink of the sea, it caused us to rejoice together, and praise God that had given us once again to see land. And then we made our course South, South West, proposing to go to a River ten leagues to the South of the Cape, but at night the wind being contrary, we put round again for the Bay of Cape Cod: and upon the 11th of November, we came to an anchor in the Bay^[14], which is a good harbour and pleasant Bay, circled round, except in the trance, which is about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the very Sea with Oaks, Pines, Juniper, Sassafras, and other sweet wood; it is a harbor wherein 1000m sail of Ships may safely ride, there we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed by our people, while our shallop  was fitted to coast the Bay, to search for a habitation: there was the greatest store of fowl that we ever saw.

And every day we saw Whales playing hard by us, of which in that place, if we had instruments and means to take them, we might have made a very rich return, which to our great grief we wanted. Our master and his mate, and others experienced in sithing^[15], possessed, we might have made three or four thousand pounds worth of Oil; they preferred it before Greenland Whale-sighting, and purpose the next winter to sith for Whale here; for Cod we assayed, but found none, there is good store no doubt in their season.

Neither got we any sith all the time we lay there, but some few little ones on the shore. We found great Mussels, and very fat and full of Sea pearl, but we could not eat them, for they made us sick that did eat, as well sailors as passengers; they caused us to sour, but they were soon well again.  The bay is so round and circling, that before we could come to anchor, we went round all the points of the Compass. We could not come near the shore by three quarters of an English mile , because of the shallow water, which was a great prejudice to us, for our people going on shore were forced to wade above shoot or two in going inland, which caused many to get colds and coughs, for it was many times freezing cold weather.

This day before we came to harbor, observing some not well affected to unity and concord, but gave some appearance of sanction, it was thought good there should be an association and agreement, that we should combine together in one body, and to submit to such government and governors, as we should by common consent agree to make and choose, and let our hands to this that follows word for word.

 

In the name of God, Amen^[16]. Our whole names are underwritten, the loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the Northern parts of Virginia^[17], does by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and of one another, covenant, and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, furtherance of the said ends; and by virtue here to enact, continue, and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances-acts, constitutions, offices from time to time, us will be thought most meek and convenient for the general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness where we have here under subscribed our names: Cape Cod, 11 of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, 18. And of Scotland, 54. Anno Domini, 1620.
The same day so soon as we could we set ashore 15 or 16 men, well armed, with some to fetch wood, for we had none left; as also to see what the Land was, and what Inhabitants they could meet with, they found it to be a small neck of Land; on this side where we lay is the Bay, and the further side of the Sea; the ground or earth, sand, much like Holland^[18], but much better; the crust of the earth spits depth, excellent black earth; all wooded with Oak, Pines, Sassafras, Juniper, Birch, Holly, Vines, some Ash, Walnut; the wood for the most part open and without underwood, fit either go to or ride in: at night our people returned, but found not any person, nor habitation, and covered  their Boat with Juniper, which smelled very sweet and strong, and of which we burnt the most part of the time we lay there.

 

Monday the 13th of November, we unshipped our Shallop and drew her on land,  to mend and to repair her, having been forced to cut her down in bestowing her betwixt the decks, and she was much opened with the peoples lying in her, which kept us long there, for it was 16 or 17 days before the Carpenter had finished her; our people went on shore to refresh themselves, and our women to wash as they had great need; but while we lay this ship, hoping our Shallop would be ready in five or six days at the furthest, but our Carpenter made flow work of it, for that some of our people impatient of delay, defined for our better furtherance to travel by Land into Country, which was not without appearance of danger, not having the Shallop with them, not means to carry provision, but on their backs, to see whether it might be fit for us to see in or no, and the rather because as we sailed into the Harbor, there seemed to be a river opening itself into the mainland; the willingness of the persons was liked, but the thing itself, in regard of the danger was rather permitted then approved, and to with cautions, directions, and instructions, sixteen men were let out with every man his Musket, Sword, and Corslet, under the conduct of Captain Miles Standish^[19], unto whom was adjoined for council and advice, William Bradford^[20], Stephen Hopkins^[21], and Edward Tulley^[22].

Wednesday the 15 of November, they were set ashore, and when they had ordered themselves in the order of a single File, and marched about the space of a mile, by the Sea they spied five or six people, with a Dog coming towards them, who were Savages, who when they saw them ran into the Wood and whiled the Dogs after them, etcetera. First, they supposed them to be Master Jones, the Master and some of his men, for they were ashore, and knew of their coming, but after they knew them to be Indians, they marched after them into the Woods, left other of the Indians should lie in Ambush, but when the Indians saw our men following them, they ran away  with might and main and our men turned out of the Wood after them, for it was the way they intended to go, but they could not come near them. They followed them that night about ten miles by the trace of their footings, and saw how they had come the same way they went, and at a turning perceived how they ran up a hill, to see whether they followed them. At length night came upon them, and they were constrained to take up their lodging, so they set forth three Sentinels, and the rest, some kindled a fire, and others fetched wood, and there held our Rendezvous that night. In the morning so soon as we could see the trace, we proceeded on our journey and had the track until we had compassed the head of a long creek, and these they took into another wood, and we after them, supposing to find some of their dwellings, but we marched through boughs and bushes, and under hills and valleys, which tore our very Armor in pieces, and yet could meet with none of them, nor in their homes, nor find any fresh water, which we greatly desired, and stood in need of, for we brought neither beer nor water with us, and our victuals was one Biscuit and Holland cheese, and a little bottle of aquavite^[23]so we were thirsty.

About ten o’ clock we came into a deep Valley, full of brush, wood gail, and long grass, through which we found little paths or tracks, and there we saw a Deer, and found springs of fresh water, of which we were heartily glad, and sat us down and drunk our first New-England water with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives. When we had refreshed ourselves, we directed our course full South, that we might come to the shore, which within a short while after we did, and there made a fire, that they in the ship might see where we were (as we had direction) and so marched on towards this supposed River; and as we went in another valley we found a fine, clear Pond of fresh water, being about a Musket short broad, and twice as long, there grew also many small vines and Foul and Deer haunted there; there grew much Sassafras: from there we went on and found much plain ground, about fifty Acres, fit for the Plow, and some signs where the Indians had formerly planted their corn; after this, some thought it best for nearness of the river go down and travel on the Sea sands, by which means some of our men were tired, and lagged behind, so we stayed and gathered them up, and struck into the Land again; where we found a little path to certain heaps of land, one whereof was covered with old Matts, and had a wooden thing like a mortar whelmed on top of it, and an earthen poet laid in a little hole at the end of it; we musing what it might be, digged  and found a Bow, and, as we thought, Arrows, but they were rotten; We supposed, there were many other things, but because we deemed them graves, we put in the Bow again and made it up as it was, and left the rest untouched, because we thought it would be odious unto them to ransack their Sepulchres.

We went on further and found new stubble, of which they had gotten Corn this year, and many walnut trees full of Nuts, and great store of Strawberries, and some Vines, passing thus a field or two, which were not great, we came to another, which had also been  new,  and four or five old Planks laid together; also we found a great Kettle, which had been some Ship’s kettle and brought out of Europe; there was also a heap of sand, made like the former, but it was newly done, we might see how they had paddled it with their hands which we digged up and in it we found a little old Basket full of fair Indian Corn, and digged further and found a fine great new Basket full of very fair corn of this year, with some 36 goodly ears of corn, some yellow, and some red, and others mixed with blue, which was a very goodly sight: the Basket was round, and narrow at the top, it held about three or four Bushels, which was as much as two of us could lift up from the ground, and was very handsomely and cunningly made; But while we were busy about their things, we set our men Sentinel in a round ring, all but two or three which we digged up the corn. We were in suspense, what to do with it, and the Kettle, and at length after much consultation, we concluded to take the Kettle, and as much of the Corn as we could carry away with us, and when one Shallop came, if we could find any of the people, and come to parley with them, we would give them the Kettle again, and satisfy them for their Corn, so we took all the cares and pur a good deal of the loose Corn in the Kettle for two men to bring away on a staff, besides, they that could put any into their Pockets filled the same; the rest we buried again, for we were so laden with Armor that we could carry no more. Not far from this place we found no remainder of an old Fort, or Palizado, which as we conceived had been made by some Christians, this was also hard by that place which we thought had been river, unto this we went and found it so to be, dividing itself into two arms by a high bank, standing right by the cut or mouth which came from the Sea, that which was next unto us was the less, the other arm was more than twice as big, and not unlike to be a harbor for ships; but whether it be a fresh river, or only an indraught of the Sea, we had no time to discover, for we had Commandment to be out but two days. Here also we saw two Canoas, the one on the one side, the other on the other side, we could not believe it was a Canoa, til we came near it, so we returned leaving the further discovery here of our Shallop and came that night back again to the freshwater pound, and there we made our Rendezvous that night, making a great fire, and a Barricado to windward of us, and kept good watch with three Sentinels all night, everyone standing when his turn came, while five or six inches of Match was burning. It proved to be a very rainy night.

In the morning we took our Kettle and sunk it in the pond, and trimmed our Muskets, for few of them would go off because of the wet, and so coasted the wood again to come home, in which we were shrewdly puzzled, and lost our way, as we wandered we came to a tree, where a young Spirit was bowed down over a bow, and some Acorns strewn underneath; Stephen Hopkins said, it had been to catch some Deer, so as we were looking at it, William Bradford being in the Rear, when he came looked also upon it, and as he went about, it gave a sudden jerk up, and he was immediately caught by the leg; It was a very pretty device, made with a Rope of their own making, and having a noose as artificially made, as any Roper in England can make, and as like ours as can be, which we brought away with us. In the end we got out of the Wood, and fell about a mile too high about the creek, where we saw three Bucks, but we had rather had one of them. We also did spring three couple of Partridges; and as we came along by the creek, we saw great flocks of wild Geese and Ducks, but they were very fearful of us. So we marched some while in the Woods, so while on the sands, and other while in the water up to the knees, till at length we came near the Ship, and then we shot off our Pieces, and the Long Boat came to fetch us, Master Jones^[24], and Master Carver^[25] being on the shore, with many of our people, came to meet us. And thus we came both weary and welcome home, and delivered in our Corn into the store, to be kept for feed, for we knew not how to come by any, and therefore were very glad, supposing so soon as we could meet with any of the Inhabitants of that place, to make them large satisfaction. This was our first Discovery, whilst our Shallop was in repairing, our people did make things as fitting as they could, and time would, in seeking out wood, and helping of Tools, and sawing of Timber to build a new Shallop, but the discommodations of the harbor did much hinder us for we could neither go, nor come from the shore, but at high water, which was much to our hindrance and hurt for oftentimes they waded to the middle of the thigh, and of the knees, to go and come from land, some did it necessarily, and so me for their own pleasure, but it brought to the most, if not to all, coughs and colds, the weather pouring suddenly cold and stormy, which afterward turned into scurvy, whereof many died.

When our Shallop was fit indeed, before she was fully fitted, for there was two days work after bestowing on her, there were appointed some 24 men of our own, and armed, then to go and make a more full discovery of the rivers before mentioned. Master Jones was desirous to go with us, and took such of his sailors as he thought useful to us, so as we were in all about 34 men; we made Master Jones our Leader, for we thought it best herein to gratify his kindness and of it, if we had not made our first Journey, for the ground was now covered with snow, and so hard frozen, that we were without our Curtalaxes^[26] and short Swords, to hew and carve the ground a foot deep, and then rest it up with levers, for we had forgot to bring other Tools; whilst we were in this employment, foul weather being towards Master Jones  was earnest to go aboard, but sundry of us decided to make further discovery, and to find out the Indians’ habitations, so we went home with him, our weakest people, and some that were sick, and all the Corn, and 18 of us stayed full, and lodged there that night, and desired that the Shallop might return us next day, and bring us home Mattocks and Spades with them.

The next morning we followed certain beaten paths and tracts of the Indians into the Woods, supposing they would have let us into Town, or houses; after we had gone a while, we light upon a very broad, beaten path, well night two foot broad, then we lighted all our Matches and prepared ourselves, concluding we were near their dwellings, but in the end we found it to be only a path made to drive Deer in, when the Indians hunt, as we supposed; when we had marched  five or six miles into the Woods, and could find no signs of any people, we returned again another way, and as we came into the plain ground, we found a place like a grave, but it was much bigger and longer than any we had yet seen. It was also covered with boards, so as we mused what it should be, and resolved to dig it up, where we found, first a mat, and under that a fair Bow, and there another Matt, and under that a board about three quarters long, finely carved and painted, with three tines, or brooches on the top, like a Crown, also between the Mats we found Bowls, Trays, Dishes, and such like Trinkets; at length we came to a fair new Mat, and under that two Bundles, the one bigger, the other less, we opened the greater and found in it a great quantity  of fine and perfect red Powder, and in it the bones and skull of a man. The skull had fine, yellow hair still on it, and some of the flesh unconsumed; there was bound up with it a knife, a pack-needle, and two or three old iron things. It was bound up in a Sailor’s canvas Casack, and a pair of cloth breeches; the red Powder was a kind of Embalming, and yielded a strong, but no offensive smell; It was as fine as any flower.

We opened the lesser bundle likewise, and found of the same Powder in it, and the bones and head of a little child, about the legs, and other parts of it was bound strings, and  bracelets  of fine white Beads; there was also by it a little Bow, about three quarters long, and some other and odd knacks; we bought sundry of the prettiest things away with us, and covered the Corpse up again. After this, we dug in sundry-like places, but found no more corn, nor anything else but grasses. There was a variety of options among us about the embalmed person: some thought it was an Indian Lord and King: others said, the Indians have all black hair, and never any was seen with brown or yellow hair; some thought, it was a Christian of some special note, which had died among them, and they thus burned him to honor him; others thought, they had killed him, and did it in triumph over him. While we were thus ranging and searching, two of the Sailors, which were newly come on the shore, by chance spied two houses, which had been lately dwelt in, but the people were gone. They had their pieces, and hearing nobody entered the houses, and took out some things, and did not stay, but came again and told us; so some seven or eight of us went with him, and found how we had gone within a slight shot of them before. The houses were made with long, young Sapling trees, bended and both ends stuck into the ground; they were made round, like unto an Arbor, and covered down to the ground with thick and well wrought mats, and the door was not over a yard high, made of a mat to open; the chimney was a wide open hole in the top, for which they had a mat to cover it close when they pleased; one might stand and go upright in them, in the midst of them were four little trunches knocked into the ground, and small sticks laid over, on which they hung their Pots, and what they had to see, around the fire they lay on mats, which are their beds. The houses were double matted, for as they were matted without, so were they within, with newer and fairer mats. In the houses we found wooden Bottles, Trays, and Dishes, Earthen Pots, Hand baskets made of Crab shells, wrought together; also an English Pail or Bucket, it wanted a bale, but it had two Iron ears: there was also Baskets of sundry forts, bigger and some lesser, finer and some courser: some were curiously wrought with black and white in pretty works, and sundry other of their household stuff.  We found also two or three Deer heads, one whereof had been newly killed, for it was still fresh; there was also a company of Deers’ feet stuck up in the houses, Hart’s horns, and Eagles’ claws, and sundry such like things there was: also two or three Baskets full of parched Acorns, pieces of filth, and a piece of a broiled Herring. We found also a little like grass, and a little Tobacco feed, with some other foods which we knew not; without was sundry bundles of Flags, and Sedge, Ball rushes, and other stuff to make matts; there was thrust into a hollow tree; two or three pieces of Venison, but we thought it fitter for the Dogs than for us: some of the best things we took away with us, and left the houses standing still as they were, for it growing towards night, and the tide almost spent, we hasted with our things down to the Shallop, and got aboard that night, intending to have brought some Beads, and other things to have left in the houses, in sign of Peace, and that we meant to take with them, but it was not done, by means of our hasty coming away from Cape Cod, but so soon as we can meet conveniently with them, we will give them full satisfaction. Thus much of one second Discovery.

Having discovered this place, it was controversial among us, what to do touching our aboard and settling there: some thought it best for many reasons to abide there.

At first, there was a convenient harbor for Boats, though not for ships.

Secondly, Good Corn ground ready to our hands, as we saw by experience in the goodly corn is yielded, which would again agree with the ground, and be natural feed for the same.

Thirdly, Cape Code was like to be a place of good seething, for we saw very great Whales of the best king for oil and bone, come close aboard our Ship, and in the fair weather swim and play about us; there was once one when the Sun shone warm, and lay above water, as if she had been dead, for a good while together, within a half a Musket shore of the Ship, at which two were prepared to shoot, to see whether the would stir or no, be that good fire first, his Musket flew in pieces, both stock and barrel, yet thanks be to God, neither he or many man else was hurt with it, though many were there about, but when the Whale saw her time the game snuffed and away.

Fourthly, the place was likely to be healthful, secure, and defensible.

But the last and special reason was that now the heart of Winter and unreasonable weather was come upon us, so that we could not go upon coasting and discovery, without danger of losing men and Boat, upon which would follow the overthrow of all, especially considering what variable winds and sudden storms there arise. Also cold and wet lodging had so tainted our people, for fierce any of us were free from vehement coughs, as if they should continue long in the state, it would endanger the lives of many, and breed diseases and infection among us. Again, we had yet some Beer, Butter, Flesh, and other such victuals left, which  would quickly be all gone, and then we should have nothing to comfort us in the great labor and toil we were like to undergo at the first; It was also conceived, while we had competent victuals, that the Ship would stay with us, but when that grew low, they would be gone, and let us shift as we could.

Others again, urged greatly for us to go to Anguum or Angoum^[27], a place twenty leagues off to the North-wards, which they had heard to be an excellent harbor for ships; better ground and better seething. Secondly for anything we knew, it might be hard for us to achieve a fair better feat, and it should be a great hindrance to seat where we should remove again. Thirdly, the water was but in ponds, and it was thought there would be none in Summer, or very little.

Fourthly, the water there must be fetched up a steep hill; but to omit many reasons and replies used hereabouts; It was in the end concluded, to make some discovery within the Bay, but in no case so far as Angonum: besides, Robert Coppin^[28] our Pilot, made relation of a great Navigable River and good harbor in the other headland of this Bay, almost right over against Cape Cod, being a right line, not much alone eight leagues distant, in which he had been once and because that one of the wild men with whom they had some tracking, stole a harping Iron from them, they called it the harbor. And beyond that place they were enjoined not to go, whereupon, a Company was chosen to go out upon a third discovery: whilst some were employed in this discovery, it pleased God that Mistress White was bought a bed of a Son, which was called Peregrine.

The fifth day, we through God’s mercy escaped a great danger by the foolishness of a Boy, one Francis Billington’s son^[29], who in his Father’s absence, had got gun-powder, and had shot a piece or two, and made squibs, and there being a fowling piece charged in his father’s Cabin, shot her off in the Cabin, there being as little barrel of powder half full , feathered in and about the Cabin, the fire being within four foot of the bed between the Decks, and many slits and Iron things about the Cabin, and many people about the fire, and yet by God’s mercy no harm done.

Wednesday the sixth of December, it was resolved our discovers should set forth, for the day before it was too foul weather, and so they did, though it was well over the day all things could be ready: So ten of our men were appointed who were of themselves willing to undertake it, to wit, Captain Standish, Master Carver^[30], William Bradford, Edward Winslow^[31], John Tilley^[32], Edward Tilley, John Howland^[33], and three of London, Richard Warren^[34], Stephen Hopkins^[35], and Edward Doty^[36], and two of our Sea-men, John Alderten^[37] and Thomas English^[38],of the Ship’s Company there went two of the Masters Mates, Master Clark  and Master Coppin^[39], the Master Gunner⁵³, and three Sailors. The narration of which Discovery follows, penned by one of the Company.

Wednesday the sixth of December we let out, being a very cold and hard weather, we were a long while after we lurched from the ship, before we could get clear of a sandy point, which lay within less than a furlong of the same. In which time, two were very thick, and Edward Tulley had like to have founded with cold; the Gunner was also sick unto Death (but hope of drinking made him to go) and so remained all that day, and the next night; at length we got clear of the sandy point, and got up our sails, and within an hour or two we got under the weather shore, and then had smoother water and better sailing, but it was very cold, for the water froze on our clothes, and made them many times like coats of Iron: we sailed six or seven leagues by the shore, but saw neither river nor creek, at length we met with a tongue of Land, being flat off from the shore, with a sandy point, we bore up to gain the point, and found there a fair income or road, of a Bay, being a league over at the narrowest, and some two or three in length, but we made right over to the land before us and left the discovery of this Income till the next day: as we drew near to the shore, we spied some ten or twelve Indians, very buddy about a black thing, what it was we could not tell, till afterwards they saw us, and ran to and fro, as if they had been carrying something away, we landed a league or two from them, and had much ado to put a shore anywhere, it lay so full of flat lands, when we came to shore, we made a Barricado, and got firewood, and set our Sentinels, and took us to our lodging, such as it was, we saw the smoke of the fire which the Savages made that night, about four or five miles from us, in the morning we divided our company, some eight in the Shallop, and the rest  on the shore went to discover this place, but we found it only to be a Bay, without either river or creek coming into it, yet we deemed it to be as good a  harbor as Cape Cod, for they that founded it, found a ship might ride in fine fathom water, we on the land found it to be a level foil, but none of the fruit we saw two buckets of fresh water, which were the first running streams that we saw in the Country, but one might stride over them: we found also a great fish, called a Grampus dead on the lands, they in the Shallop found two of them also in the bottom of the bay, dead in like fort, they were cast up at high water, and could not get if for the frost and ice; they were some five or six pieces long, and about two inches thick of fat, and fleshed like a Swine, they would have yielded a great deal of oil, if there had been time and means to have taken it, so we finding nothing for our turn, both we and our Shallop returned. We then directed our course along the Sea-lands, to the place where we first saw the Indians, when we were there, we saw it was also a Grampus which they were cutting up, they cut it into long strands or pieces, about an ell long, and two handful broad, we found here and there a piece seated by the way, as it seemed, for haste: this place the most were minded we should call, the Grampus Bay, because we found so many of them there: we followed the trace of the Indians’ bare feet a good way on the lands, at length we saw where they struck into the Woods by the side of a Pond, as we went to view the place, one said, he thought he saw an Indian-house among the trees, so went up to see: and here we and the Shallop lost fight one of the another till night, it being now nine or ten o’clock, for we hiked on a path, but saw no house, and followed a great way into the woods, at length we found where Corn had been set, but not that year, anon we found a great burying place, one part whereof was encompassed with a large Palazado, like a Church-yard, with young spires four or five yards long, set as close one by another as they could two or three foot in the ground, within it was full of Graves, some bigger, and some less, some were also placed  about and others had like an Indian-house made over them, but not matted; those Graves were more sumptuous than those at Corn-hall, yet we digged none of them up, but only viewed them, and went our way; without the Palazado were games also, but not so softly: from this place we went and found more Corn ground, but not of this year.

As we ranged we light on four or five Indian houses, which had been lately dwelt in, but they were uncovered, and had no mats about them, else they were like those we found at Corn-hull, but had not been so lately dwelt in, there was nothing left but two or three pieces of old mats, a little sedge, also a little further we found two Baskets full of parched Acorns hid in the ground, which we supposed had been Corn when we began to dig the same, we cast earth thereon again and went our way. All this while we saw no people, we went ranging up and down until the Sun began to draw low, and then we hasted out of the woods, that we might come to our Shallop, which when we were out of the woods, we espied a great way off, and called them to come unto us,  the which they did as soon as they could, for it was not yet high water, they were exceeding glad to see us, (for they feared because they had not seen us in so long a time) thinking we would have kept by the shoreside, so being both weary and faint, for we had earned nothing all that day, we fell to make our Rendezvous and get the wood, which always cost us a great deal of labor, by that time we had done and our Shallop come to us, it was within night, and we fed upon such victuals as we had, and betook us to our raft, after we had set out or watch. About midnight we heard a great and hideous cry, and our Sentintell called, “Arms, Arms”. So we bestirred ourselves and shot off a couple of Muskets, and noise ceased; we concluded that it was a company of Wolves or Foxes, for one told us, he had heard such noise in New-found-land. About five o’clock in the morning we began to be stirring, and two or three which doubted whether their Pieces would go off or no made trial of them, and shot them off, but thought nothing at all, after Prayer we prepared ourselves for breakfast, and for a journey, and it being now the twilight in the morning, it was thought meet to carry the things down to the Shallop; some said, it was not best to carry the Armor down, others said, they would be readier, two or three said, the would not carry theirs till they went themselves, but unassuming nothing at all: as it fell out, the water not being high enough, they laid the things down upon the shore and came up to breakfast. Anon, all upon a sudden, we heard a great and strange cry, which we knew to be the same voices, though they varied their notes, one of our company being abroad came running in, and cried, “They are men, Indians, Indians” and withall, their arrows came flying among us, our men ran out with all speed to recover their arms, as by the good Providence they did. In the meantime, Captain Miles Standish, having a snaphaunce^[40] ready, made a shot, and after him another, after they two had shot, other two of us were ready, but we wished us not to shoot, til we could take aim, for we knew not what need we should have, and there were only four of us, which had their arms there ready, and stood before the open side of our Barricado, which was first assaulted, they thought it best to defend it, least the energy should take it and our stuff, and so have the more vantage against us, our care was no less for the Shallop, but we hoped all the rest would defend it; we called unto them to know how it was with them, and they answered: “Well, everyone, and be of good courage”: We heard three of their Pieces go off, and the rest called out for a fire-brand to light their matches, one took a log out of the fire on his shoulders and went and carried it unto them, which was thought did not a little discourage our enemies. The cry of our enemies was dreadful, especially; when our men ran out to recover their arms, their note was after this manner: “Woath woath hah ha hach woach”: out men were no sooner to come to their Arms, but the enemy was ready to assault them.

There was a lusty man and no whit less valiant, who was thought to be their Captain, stood behind a tree within half a musket shot os us, and there let his arrows fly at us; he was seen to shoot three arrows, which were all avoided, for he at whom the first arrow was aimed, saw it, and stooped down and it flew over him, the rest were avoided also: he stood three shots of a Musket, at length one took as he said full aim at him, after which he gave a extraordinary cry and away they went all, we followed them to about a quarter of a mile, but we left fix to keep our Shallop, for we were careful our business: then we shouted all together two several times, and shot off a couple of muskets and so returned: this we did that they might see we were not afraid of them nor discouraged. Thus it pleased God to vanquish our Enemies and give us deliverance, by their noise we would not guile that they were less than thirty or forty, though some thought that they were many more yet in the dark of the morning, we could not so well discern then among the trees, as they could see us by our fireside, we took up 18 of their arrows which we have sent to England by Master Jones, somewhere of were headed with battle, others with heart’s horn, and others with Eagle claws many more no doubt were shot, for these we found, were almost covered with leaves: yet by the special providence of God, none of them either hit or hurt us, though many same close by us, and on every side of us, and some coats which hung up in our Barricado, were shot through and through. So after we had given God thanks for our deliverance, we took our Shallop and went on our Journey, and called this place, “The first Encounter”, from hence we intended to have sailed to the aforesaid Harbor, if we found no convenient Harbor by the way, having the wind good, we said all that day along the Coast about 15 leagues, bur saw neither River nor Creek put into, after we had sailed a hour or  two, it began to snow and rain, and to be bad weather, about the midst of the afternoon, the wind increased and the Seas began to be very tough, and the hinges of the rudder broke, so that we could steer no longer with it, but two men with much ado were same to steer with a couple of Oars, the Seas were grown so great, that we were much troubled and in great danger, and night grew on: Anon Master Coppin had us be of good cheer he saw the Harbor, as we drew newar, the gale being stiff, and we bearing great sail to get in, split our Mast in 3 pieces, and were like to have cast away our Shallop , yet by God’s mercy recovering ourselves, we had the shroud with us, and struck into the Harbor.

Now he that  thought had been the place was deceived, it being a place where not any of us had been before, and coming into the Harbor, he that was our Pilot did heave up North-ward, which if we had continued we had been cast away, yet still the Lord kept us, and we bare up for an Island before us, and recovering of that Island, being compassed about with many Rocks, and dark night growing upon us, it pleased the Divine Providence that we fell upon a place of sandy ground, where our Shallop did ride safe and secure all that night, and coming upon a strange Island kept our watch all night in the rain upon that Island and in the morning we marched about it, and found no Inhabitants at all, and here we made our Rendezvous all that day being Saturday, 10 of December, on the Sabbath day, we rested ,and on Monday we founded the Harbor, and found it a very good Harbor for our shipping, we marched also into the Land, and found diverse cornfields, and little running brooks, a place very good for situation, so we returned to our Ship again with good news to the rest of our people, which did much comfort their hearts.

On the fifteenth day, we weighed Anchor, to go to the place we had discovered, and coming within two leagues of the Land, we could not fetch the Harbor, but were faine to put room again towards Cape Cod, our course lying West, and the wind was at Northwest, but it pleased God that the next day being Saturday the 16th day, the wind came fair, and we put to Sea again, and came safely into a safe Harbor; and within half an hour the wind changed, so as if we had been letted but a little, we had gone back to Cape Cod. This Harbor is a Bay greater than Cape Cod, compassed with a goodly Land, and in the Bay, 2 fine Islands uninhabited, wherein are nothing but wood, Oaks, Pines, Walnuts, Beech, Sassafras, Vines, and other threes which we know not; This Bay is a most hopeful place, innumerable store of fowl, and excellent good, and cannot be of fish  in their seasons: Skote, Cod, Turbot, and Herring, we have tasted of, abundance of Muscles the greatest and best that we ever saw: Crabs and Lobsters, in their time infinite, it is in fashion like a Sickle or Fish hook.

Monday the 13th day, we went a land, manned with the Master of the Ship, and 3 or 4 of the Sailors, we marched along the coast in the woods, some 7 or 8 miles, but saw not an Indian nor an Indian house, only we found where formerly, had been some Inhabitants, and where they had planted their corn: we found not any Navigable River, but 4 or 5 final running brooks of very sweet fresh water, that all run into the Sea: The Land for the crust of the earth is a spits depth, excellent black mold and fat in some places, 2 or 3 great Oaks but not very thick, Pines, Walnuts, Beech Ash, Birch, Hasell, Holley, Ash, Sassafras in abundance and Vines everywhere, Cherry trees, Plum trees, and many others which we know not; many kinds of herbs, we found here in Winter, as Strawberry leaves innumerable, Sorrel, Yarrow, Carvell, Brook-lime, Liver-wort, Water-cresses, great store of Leeks, and Onions, and an excellent strong kind of Flax, and Hemp; here is sand, gravel, and excellent clay no better in the World, excellent for pots, and will wash like soap, and great store of stone, though somewhat soft, and the best water that we ever drunk, and the Brooks now begin to be full of fish; that night many being weary with marching, we went abroad again.

The next morning being Tuesday the 19 of December, we went again to discover further, some went on Land, some in the Shallop, the Land we found as the former day we did, and we found a Creek, and went up three English miles, a very pleasant river at full Sea, a Bark of thirty tons may go up, but at low water we found our Shallop could pass: this place we had a great liking to plant in, but that it was so far from our seething our principal profit, and to encompassed with woods, that we should be in much danger of the Savages, and our number being so little, and so much ground to clear, so as we thought good to quit and clear that place, till we were of more length, some of us having a good mind for safety to plant in the greater Isle, we crossed the Bay which there is five or six miles over, and found the Isle about a mile and a half, or two miles about, all wooded, and no fresh water but 2 or 3 pints, that we doubted of fresh water in Summer, and so full of wood, as we could hardly clear so much as to serve us or Corn, besides we assumed it cold for our Corn, and some part very rocky, yet diverse thought of it as a place defensible, and of great security.

That night we returned again a ship board, with resolution the next morning to settle on some of those places, to be the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places, which we thought most fitting for us, for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially, our Beer, and it being now the 19th of December. After our landing and viewing of the places, so well as we could we came to a conclusion, by most voices, to set on the mainland, on the first place, on a high ground, where there is a great deal of Land cleared, and has been  planted with Corn three or four years ago, and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hillside, and many delicate springs of as good water can as can be drunk, and where they may harbor our Shallops and Boats exceeding well, and in this brook much good fish in their seasons; on the further side of the river also much Corn ground cleared, in one field is a great hill, on which we point to make a platform, and plant our Ordinance, which will command all round about, from thence we may see into the Bay, and fare into the Sea, and we may see thence Cape Cod: our greatest labor will be fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile, but there is enough so far off; what people inhabited here we yet know it, for as yet we have seen none, so there we made our Rendezvous, and a place for some of our people about twenty, and resolving the next morning to come all ashore, and to build houses, but the next morning being Thursday the 21st of December, it was stormy and wet, that we could not go ashore, and those that remained there all night could do nothing, but were wet, not having daylight enough to make them a sufficient court of guard, to keep them dry. All that night it blew and rained extremely, it was so tempestuous, that the Shallop could not go on land so soon as was meat, for they had no victuals on land. About 11 o’clock the Shallop went off with much ado with provision but could not return it below so strong, and was such foul weather, that we were forced to let fall our Anchor, and ride with three Anchors ahead.

Friday the 22nd, the storm still continued, that we could not get to land, nor they come to us abroad: this morning Good wife Alderton^[41] was delivered a son, but dead born.

Saturday the 23 so many of us as could, went on shore, selled and carried timber, to provide themselves stuff for building.

Sunday the 24 our people on shore heard a cry of some Savages (as they thought) which caused an Alarm, and to stand on their guard, expecting an assault, but all was quiet.

Monday the 25, day, we went on shore, some to sell timber, some to saw, some of rise, and some to carry, so on many rested all that day, but towards night some as they were at work, heard a noise of some Indians, which caused us all to go to our Muskets, but we heard no further, so we came aboard again, and left some twenty to keep the court of guard; that night we had afore storm wind and rain.

Monday the 25th , being Christmas day, we began to drink water aboard, but at night the Master caused us to have some Beer, and so on board we had divert times now and then some Beer, but on shore none at all.

Tuesday the 26, it was foul weather that we could not go ashore.

Wednesday the 27th. We went to work again.

Thursday the 28 of December, so many as could went to work on the hill, where we purposed to build our platform for our Ordinance, and which doth command all the plain, and the bay,  and from whence we may seafaire into the sea, and might be easier impaled, having two rows of houses and a fair street. So in the afternoon we went to measure out the grounds, and first, we took how many Families they were, willing all single men that had no wives  to join with some Family, as they thought fit, that so we might build fewer houses, which was done, and we reduced them to 19 Families, to greater Families we allotted larger plots, to every person half a pole in breadth, and three in length, and so Lots were cast  where every man should lie, which was done, and slaked out; we thought this proportion was large enough as the first, for houses and gardens, to impale them round, considering the weakness of our people, many of them growing ill with colds, for our former Discoveries in frost and forms, and the wading at Cape Cod had brought much weakness amongst us, which increased to every day more and more, and after was the cause of many of their deaths.

Friday and Saturday, we fitted ourselves for our Labor. But, our people on shore were much troubled and discouraged with rain and wet that day, being very stormy and cold; we saw great smokes of fire made by the Indians about six or seven miles from us as we connected.

Monday the first of January, we went betimes to work, we were much hundred in lying so far off from the Land, and same to go as the tide served, that we lost much time, for our Ship drew so much water, that the lay a mile and almost a half off, though a ship of seventy or eighty ton as high water may come to the shore.

Wednesday the third of January, some of our people were abroad, to get and gather thatch, they saw great fires of the Indians, and were at the Cornfields, yet saw none of the Savages, nor had seen any of them since we came to this Bay.

Thursday the fourth of January, Captain Miles Standish with four or five more, went to see if they could meet with any of the Savages in that place where the fires were made, they went to some of their houses, but not lately inhabited, yet they could not meet with any; as they came home, they shot at an Eagle and killed her, which was excellent meat; It was hardly to be discerned from Mutton.

Friday the fifth of January, one of the Sailors found alive upon the shore a Herring, which the Master had to his supper, which put us in hope of sith, but as yet we had got but one Cod; we wanted small hooks.

Saturday the sixth of January, Master Martin^[42] was very sick, and to our judgement, no hope of life, for Master Carver was sent to come aboard to speak with him about his accounts, who came the next morning.

Monday the eighth day of January, was a very fair day, and we went betimes to work, Master Jones sent the Shallop as he had formerly done, to see where sith could be got, they had a great Storm at Sea, and were in some danger, at night they return with three great Seals, and an excellent good Cod, which did assure us that we should have plenty of fish shortly.

This day, Francis Billington, having a week before been seen from the top of a tree on a high hill, a great sea as he thought, went with one of the Master’s mates to see it, they went three miles, and then came to a great water, divided into two great Lakes, the bigger of them five or six miles in circuit, and in it an Isle of a Cable length square, the other three miles in compass in their elimination they are fine fresh water, full of fish, and fowl, a brook effuses from it, it will be an excellent help for us in time. They found seven or eight Indian houses, but were not lately inhabited, when they saw the houses they were in some fear, for they were but two persons and one piece.

Tuesday the 9th of January, was a reasonable fair day, and we went to labor that day in the building of our Town, in two rows of houses for more safety: we divided by lot the plot of ground whereon to build our Town: After the  proportion formerly allotted, we agreed that every man should build his own house, thinking that by course, men would make more haste than working in common: the common house, in which for the first, we made our Rendezvous, being near finished wanting only covering, it being about 2.0 foot square, some should make mortar, and some gather thatch, so that in four days half of it was thatched, frost and foul weather hindered us much, this time of the year seldom could we work half the week.

Thursday the eleventh, William Bradford, being at work, (for it was a fair day), was vehemently taken with a grief and pain, and so shot to his huckle-bone; It was doubted that we would have instantly died, he got cold in the former discoveries, especially the last, and felt some pain in his ankles by times, but he grew a little better towards night and in time through God’s mercy in the use of means recovered.

On Friday the 22, we went to work, but about noon, it began to rain, which forced us to give up work.

This day, two of our people put us in great sorrow and care, there was 4 sent to gather and cut thatch in the morning, and two of them,  John Goodman^[43] and Peter Brown^[44], having cut thatch all before noon, went to a further place, and willed the other two, to bind up that which was cut and to follow them; so they did, being about a mile and a half from our Plantation: but when the two came after, they could not find them,  nor hear anything of them at all, though they hallowed and shouted as loud as they could, so they returned to the Company and told them of it. Whereupon Master Leaver and three or four more went to seek them, but could hear nothing of them, so they returning, sent more, but that night they could hear nothing at all of them: then next day they armed 10 or 12 men out, verily thinking the Indians had surprised them, they went seeking 7 or 8 miles, but could neither see nor hear anything at all, so they returned with much discomfort to us all. These two that were missed at dinnertime took their meat in their hands, and would go walk and refresh themselves, so going a little off they find a lake of water, and having a great Mastiff dog with them and a Spaniel; by the waterside they found a great Deer, the Dogs chased him, and they followed so far as they left themselves, and could not find their way back,  they wandered all after none being wet, and at night it did freeze and now, they were slenderly appeared and had no weapons but each one his sickle, nor any victuals, they ranged up and down and could find none of the Savages’ habitations; when it drew to night they were much perplexed, for they could find neither harbor nor meat, but in front and now, were forced to make the earth their bed, and the Element their covering, and another thing did very much terrify them, they heard as they thought two Lions roaring exceedingly for a long time together, and a this, that they thought was very near them, so not knowing what to do, they resolved to climb up into a tree as their fastest refuge, though  that would prove an intolerable cold lodging; so they flood at the tree’s root, that when the Lions came they might take their opportunity of climbing up, the dog they were faine to hold by the neck, for she would have been gone to the Lion; but it pleased God so to disposes, that the wild Beasts came not so they walked up and down under the Tree all night, it was an extremely cold night, so soon as it was light they traveled again, passing by many lakes and brooks and woods, and in one place where the Savages had burnt the space of 5 miles in length, which is a fine Champion Country, and even. In the afternoon, it leased God from a high hill they discovered the two Isles in the Bay, and so that night got to the Plantation, being ready to faint with travel and want of victuals, and almost famished with cold, John Goodman was faine to have his shoes cut off his feet they were so swollen with cold,  and it was a long while after ere he was able to go; those on the shore were much comforted at their retur, but they on ship-board were grieved as deeming them lost; but the next day being the 14th of January, in the morning about fix of the dock the wind being very great, they on shipboard spied their great new Rendezvous on fire, which was to them a new discomfort, fearing because of the supposed loss of the men, that the Savages has fired them, neither could they presently go to them for want of water, but after 3 quarters of an hour they went, as they had proposed the day before to keep the Sabbath on shore, because now there was the greater number of people. At their landing hey heard good tidings of the return of the 2 men, and that the house was fired occasionally by a spark that flew into the thatch, which instantly burnt it all up, but the roof flood and little hurt; the most loss was Master Carver’s and William Bradford’s, who then lay sick in bed, and if they had not risen with good speed, had been blown up with powder: but through God’s mercy they had no harm, and their Muskets charged, but blessed be God there was no harm done.

Munday the 13th day, it rained much all day, that they on ship-board could not go on shore, nor did they onshore did any labor but were all wet.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were very fair Sun-shining days, as if it had been in April, and our people so many were in health wrought cheerfully.

The 19th day, we resolved to make a Shed, to put our common provision in, of which some were already on shore, but at noon it rained, that we could not work. This day in the evening, John Goodman went aboard to use his lame feet, that there pitifully ill with the cold he had got, having a little Spaniel with him, a little way from the Plantation, two great Wolves ran after the Dog, the Dog ran to him and betwixt his legs for succor, he had nothing in his hand but took up a stick, and threw one of them and hit him, and they presently ran both away, but came again, he got a pail board in his hand, and they sat both on their tails, grinning at him, a good while, and went their way, left him.

Saturday the 20, we made up our Shed for our common goods.

Sunday the 21 we kept our meeting on Land.

Monday the 22 was a fair day, we wrought on our houses, and in the afternoon carried up our hogsheads of meal and to our common storehouse.

The rest of the week we followed our business likewise.

Monday the 29 in the morning, cold frost and fleet, but after a reasonable fair, both the long Boat and the Shallop brought our common goods on shore.

Tuesday and Wednesday 30 and 31 of January, cold frosty weather and sleet, that we could not work in the morning the Master and others saw two Savages, that had been on the Island near our Ship, what they came for we could not tell, they were going so far back again before they were decried, that we could not speak with them.

Sunday the 4 of February, was very wet and rainy, with the greatest gusts of wind that ever we had since we came forth, that though we ride in a very good harbor, yet we were in danger, because our Ship was light, the goods taken out, and the unballasted, and it caused much daubing of our houses to fall down.

Friday the 9, still the cold weather continued, that we could do little work. That afternoon our little house for our sick people was set on fire. A spark kindled in the roof, but no great harm was done. That evening the master going ashore, killed five Geese, which he friendly distributed among the sick people; he found also a good Deer killed, the Savages had cut off the horns, and a Wolf was eating of him, how he came there we could not conceive.

Friday the 15th day, was a fair day, but the northerly wind continued, which continued to the frost, this day afternoon one of our people ebbing a fowling, and having taken a stand by a creekside in the Reeds, about a mile and a half from out Plantation, there came by him twelve Indians, marching towards our Plantation, and in the woods he heard the noise of many more, he lay close till they were passed, and then with what speed he could he went home and gave the Alarm, for the people abroad in the woods returned and armed themselves, but saw none of them, only toward the evening they made a great fire about the place where they first discovered: Captain Miles Standish and Francis Cook^[45], being at work in the Woods, coming home, left their tools behind them, but before they returned, their tools were taken away by the Savages. This coming of the Savages gave us occasion to keep a more strict watch, and to make our pieces and furniture ready, by which the moisture and rain were out of temper.

Saturday the 17th day, in the morning we called a meeting for the establishing of military Orders among ourselves, and we chose Miles Standish our Captain, and gave him authority of command in affairs, and as we were in consultation here abouts, two Savages presented themselves upon the top of a hill, over against our Plantation, about a quarter of a mile and less, and made signs unto us to come unto them; we likewise mde signs unto them to come to us, whereupon we armed ourselves, and stood ready, and sent two over the brook towards them, to wit, Captain Standish and Steven Hopkins, who went towards them, only one of them had a Musket, which they laid down on the ground in their fight, in sign of peace, and to parley with them, but the Savages would not tarry their coming: a noise of a great many more was heard behind the hull, but no more came in fight. This caused us to plant out great Ordinances in places most convenient.

Wednesday the 21st of February, the master came on shore with many of his Sailors, and brought with him one of the great Pieces, called a Minion, and helped us to draw it up the hill, with another Piece that lay on the shore, and mounted them, and a sailor and two bases; he brought with them a very fat Goose to eat with us, and we had a fat Crane, and a Mallard, and a dried neat’s-tongue, and so we were kindly and friendly together.

Saturday the third of March, the wind was South, the morning misty, but towards no one warm and fair weather; the Birds sang in the Woods most pleasantly; at one o’Clock it thundered, which was the first we heard in that Country, it was strong and great claps, but short, after an hour it rained very sadly until midnight.

Wednesday the seventh of March, the wind was East, cold, but fair, that day Master Carver with five others went to the great Ponds, which seem to be excellent seething places; all the way they went they found it exceedingly beaten and haunted with Deer, but they saw none; among other foul they saw one a milk white foul, with a very black head: this day some garden feeds were sown.

Friday the 16 a fair warm day towards; this morning we determined to conclude of the military Orders, which we had begun to consider of before, but were interrupted by the Savages, as we mentioned formerly; and whilst we were busied here about, we were interrupted again, for there presented himself a Savage, which caused an Alarm, he very boldly came all alone and along the houses straight to the Rendezvous, where we intercepted him, not suffering him to go in, as undoubtedly he would, out of his boldness, he saluted us in English, and bade us welcome, for he had learned some broken English amongst the English men that came to fish at Monchiggon^[46], and knew by name the most of the Captains, Commanders, and Masters, that usually come, he was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carnage, we questioned him of many things, he was the first Savage we could meet withal; he said he was not of these parts, but of Massasoit’s,  and one of the Sagamores or Lords thereof, and had been a months in these parts, it lying hence a day’s sail with a great wind, and five days by land; he discoursed of the whole Country, and of every Province, and of their Sagamores, and their number of men and strength; the wind beginning to rise a little, we cast a horseman’s coat about him, for he was stark naked, only a leather about his waist, with a fringe about a span long, or little more; he had a bow and two arrows, the one headed, the other unheaded; he was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long, behind, only short before, none on his face at all; he asked for some beer, but we gave him strong water and bisket, and butter and cheese and pudding, and a piece of mallard, all which he liked well, and had been acquainted with such among the English; he told us the place  where we now lived, is called Patuxet, that about forty years ago, all the Inhabitants died of an extraordinary plague, and there is neither man, woman, nor child remaining, as  indeed we have found none, as there is none to hinder our possession, or to lay claim unto it; all the afternoon we spent in communication with him, we would gladly have been rid of him at night, but he was not willing to go this night; he was well content, and went into the Shallop, but the wind was high and water scant, that it would not return back: we lodged him that night at Steven Hopkin’s house, and watched him; the next day he went away back to that  Massasoit^[47] from whence he said he came, who are our next bordering neighbors: they are sixty strong, as he said; the Nausets^[48] are as near South-east of them, and are a hundred strong, and those were of whom our people were encountered, as before related. They are much incensed and provoked against the English, and about eight months ago slew three Englishmen and two more hardly escaped by flight to Monchiggon; they were Sir Ferdinand Gorges^[49] and his men, as this Savage told us, as he did likewise of the Huggerie, that is Fight,  that our discoverers had with the Naughtes, and of our tools that were taken out of the woods, which  we willed him should be brought again, otherwise, we would right ourselves. These people are ill affected towards the English, by reason of one Hunt, a matter of ships who deceived the people, and got them under color of crucking with them, twenty out of this very place where we inhabit, and seven men from the Nauset, and carried them away, and sold them for slaves like a wretched man (for 20 pound a man) that cares not what mischief he does for him profit.

Saturday in the morning we dismissed the Savage, and gave him a knife, a bracelet, and a ring; he promised within a night or two to come again, and to bring with him home to the Massasoits, our neighbors, with such Bear skins as they had to trade with us.

Saturday  and Sunday were reasonable fair days. On this day came again the Savage, and brought him five other tall proper men, they had every man a Deer’s skin on him, and the principal of them had a wild Cat’s skin, or such like on the one arm; they had most of them long hosen up to their groins, clothes made; and about their groins to their waist another leather, they were altogether like the Irish-trousers; they are of complexion like our English Gypsies, no hair or very little on their faces, on their heads long hair to their shoulders, only cut before some trussed up before with a feather, broad wise, like a fan, another fox tail hanging out: these left (according to our charge given him before) their Bows and Arrows a quarter of  a mile from our town, we gave them entertainment as we thought was fitting them, they did eat liberally out of our English victuals, they made semblance unto us of friendship and amity; they sang and danced after their manner-like Antics; they brought with him in a thing like a Bow-case (which the principal of them had about his waist) al little of their Corn pounded to Powder, which put to a little water they eat; he had a little Tobacco in a bag, but none of them drunk but when he whistled, some of them had their faces painted black, from the forehead to the chin, four or five fingers broad; others after other fashions, as they liked; they brought three or four skins, but we would not trade with them at all that day, but wished them to bring more, and we would trade for all, which they promised within a night or two, and would leave  these behind them, though we were not willing they should, and they brought us all our tools again which were taken in the Woods in our men’s absence, so because of the day we dismissed them so soon as we could. But Samoset our first acquaintance, either was sick, or pretended himself so, and would not go with them, and stayed with us till Wednesday morning: Then we sent him to them, to know the reason they came not according to their words, and we gave him a hat, a pair of stockings and shoes, a shirt, and a piece of cloth to wrap around his waist.

The Sabbath day, when we sent them from us, we gave everyone of them some rifles, especially, the principal of them, we carried them among with our Arms to the place where they left their Bows and Arrows, whereas they were amazed, and two of them began to slink away, but that t the other called them, when they took their Arrows, we bade them farewell, and they were glad, and so with many thanks given us they departed, with promise they would come again.

Monday and Tuesday proved fair days, we digged our grounds, and sowed our garden seeds.

Wednesday was a fine warm day, we sent away Samoset.

That day we had again a meeting, to conclude of law and orders for ourselves, and to confirm those Military Orders that were formerly propounded, and twice broken off by the Savages coming, but so we were again the third time, for after we had been an hour together, on the top of the hill over against us two or three Savages presented themselves, that made semblance of daring us, as we thought, so Captain Standish with another, with their Muskets went over to them, with two of the masters’ mates that follows them without Arms, having two Musket with them, they ran away. Thus we were again interrupted by them; this day with much ado we got our Carpenter that had been long sick of the scurvy, to sit our Shallop, to fetch all from abroad.

Thursday the 22nd of March, was a very fair warm day. About noon we met again about our public business, but we had circa been an hour together, but Samoset came again, and Squanto^[50], the only native of Patuxet^[51], where we now inhabit, who was one of the twenty Captives that by Hunt were carried away, and had been in England and dwelt in Cornhill with master John Slavine, a Merchant, and could speak a little English, with three others, and they brought with them some few skins to trade, and some red Herrings newly taken and dried, but not salted, and signified unto us, that their great Sagamore Massasoit was hard by, with Quadequina, his brother, and all their men. They could not well express in English what they would, but after an hour the King came to the top of a hill over against us, and had in his train sixty men, that we could well behold them, and they us: we were not willing to send our governour to them, and they unwilling to come to us, so Squanto went again unto him, who brought word that we should send one to parley with him, which we did, which we did, which was Edward Winslow, to know his mind, and to signify the mind and will of our governor, which was to have trading and peace with him. We sent to the King a pair of Knives and a Copper Chain, with a jewel at it. To Quadequina we sent likewise a Knife and a Jewel to hang in his care, and withal a Pot of strong water, a good quantity of Bisket, and some butter, which were all willingly accepted: our Messenger made a speech unto him, that King James saluted him with words of love and Peace, and did accept him as his friend and Ally, and that our Governour desired to see him and to trade with him, and to confirm a Peace with him, as his next neighbor: he liked well of the speech and heard it attentively, through the Interpreters, did not well express itl after he had eaten and drunk himself, and given the rest to his company,  he looked upon our messenger’s sword and armor which he had on, with intimidation of his desire to by it, but on the other side, our messenger showed his unwillingness to part with it: In the end he left him in the custody of Quadequina his brother, and came over the brook, and some twenty men following him, leaving all their Bows and Arrows behind them. We kept six or seven as hostages for our messenger: Captain Standish and Master Williamson met the King at the brook, with half a dozen Musketiers, they saluted him and he them, so one going over, the one on the one side, and the other on the other, conducted him a house there in building, where we placed a green Rug, and three our four Cushions, then instantly came our Governor with Drum and Trumpet after him, and some few Musketiers. After salutations, our Governor kissed his hand, the King kissed him, and so they sat down.

The Governor called for some strong water, and drunk to him, and he drank a great draught that made him sweat all the while after, he called for a little fresh meat, which the King did eat willingly, and did give his followers. Then they treated of Peace, (the agreements of peace between us and Massasoit) which was:

1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of our people.
2. And if any of his did hurt to any of ours, he should send the offender, so that we might punish him.
3. That if any of our Tools were taken away when our people were at work, he should cause them to be restored, and if ours did any harm to any of his, we would do the same to them.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, we would aid him; If any did war against us, he should aid us.
5. He should send to his neighbor Confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong us, but might be likewise compromised in these conditions of Peace.
6. That when their men came to us, they should leave their Bows and Arrows behind them, as we should do our Peace when we came to them.

Lastly, that doing this, King James would esteem to him as his friend and Ally: all which the King seemed to like well, and it was applauded of his followers, all the while he sat by the Governor, he trembled for fear: In his person he is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grace of countenance, and spare of speech. In this Attire little or nothing differing from the rest of his followers, only in a great Chain of white bone Beads about his neck, and at it behind his neck, hangs a little bag of Tobacco, which we drank and gave us to drink; his face was painted with a sad red like murray, and oiled both his head and face, that he looked greatly; All his followers likewise, were in their faces, in part of in whole painted, some black, some red, some yellow, and some white, some with crosses, and other Antic works, some had skins on them, and some naked, all strong, tall, all men in appearance: so after all was done, the Governor conducted him to the Brook, and there they embraced each other and he departed: we diligently keeping our hostages, we expected our messengers coming; but anon word was brought us, that Quadequina was coming and our messenger was stayed till his return, who presently came and a troupe with him, so likewise we entertained him, and conveyed him to the place prepared; he was very fearful of our pieces, and made signs of dislike, that they should be earned away, whereupon Commandment was given, they should be laid away. He was a very proper tall young man, of a very model and seemingly countenance, and he did kindly like our entertainment, so we conveyed him likewise as we did the King, but the majority of their people stayed still, when he was returned, then they dismissed but messenger. Two of his people would have stayed all night, but we would not suffer it: one thing I forgot the King had in his bosom hanging in a string, a great long knife he marvelled at much at our Trumpet, and some of his men would found it was well as they could, Samoset and Squanto, they stayed all night with us, and the King and all his men lay all night in the woods, not about the haste an English mile from us, and all their wives and women with him, they said that within 8 or 9 days, they would come and set corn on the other side of the Brook, and dwell there all Summer, which is hard by us: That night we kept good watch, but there was no appearance  of danger; the next morning diverse of their people came over to us, hoping to get some victuals as we imagined, some of them told us the King would have some of us come see him; Captain Standish and Jack Aldteron went venterously, who were welcomed of him after their manner: he gave them three or four ground Nuts, and some Tobacco. We cannot yet conceive, but that he is willing to have peace with us, for they have seen our people sometimes alone two or three in the woods at work and fowling, when as they offered them no harm as they might easily have done and especially because he has a potent Adversary the Narragansetts, they are at war with him, against whom he thinks we may be some, strength to him, for our pieces are terrible unto them; this morning, they stayed till ten or eleven o’Clock, and our Governor bid them send the King’s kettle, and filled it full of peas, which pleased them well, and so they went their way.

Friday was a very fair day, Samoset and Squanto still remained with us, Squanto went at noon to fish for eels, at night he came home with as many as he could well lift into one hand, which our people were glad of, they were fat and sweet, he trod them out with his feet, and so caught them with his hands without any other Instrument.

This day we proceeded on with our common business, from which we had been so often hindered by the Savages coming, and concluded both of Military orders, and of some Laws and Orders as we thought be useful for our present estate, and condition, and did likewise choose our Governor for this year, which was Master John Carver, a man well approved among us.

 

 

 

A Journey to Packanokik

The Habitation of the Great King Massasoit^[52].

As also our Message, the

Answer and Entertainment we had of him.

 

It seemed good to the Company for many considerations to send some amongst them to Massasoit, the greatest commander among the Savages, bordering about us; partly to know where to find them, if occasion served, as also to see their strength discover the Country, present abuses in their disorderly coming unto us, make satisfaction for some conceived injuries to be done on our parts, and to continue the league of Peace and Friendship between them and us. For these, and the like-ends, it pleased the Governour to make choice of Stephen Hopkins, and Edward Winslow, to go unto him, and having a fit opportunity, by reason of a Savage, called Tisquantum^[53] (that could speak English), coming unto us, with all the expedition provided a Horse-man’s coat, of red Cotton, and laced with a slight lace for a present, that they both they and their message might be the more acceptable amongst them. The Message was as follows: That forasmuch as his subjects came often and without fear, upon all occasions among us, so we were now come unto him, and in witness of the love and goodwill the English bear unto him, the Governor has sent him a coat, defining that the Peace and Amity that was between them and us might be continued, not that we feared them, but because we intended not to insure any, desiring to live peaceably; and as with all men, to especially with them our nearest neighbors. But whereas his people  came very often, and very many together unto us, bringing for the most part their wives and children with them, they were welcome; yet webring but strangers yet as Patuxet, alias New Plymouth, and not knowing how our Corn might prosper, we could no longer give them such entertainment as we had done, and as we desired still to do: yet it he would be pleased to come himself, or any special friend of his desire to see us, coming from him they should be welcome, and to the end might know them from others, our Governor had sent him a copper Chain, desiring if any Messenger should come from him to us, we might know him by bringing it with him, and hearken and give credit to his Message accordingly. Also requesting him that such as have skins, should bring them to us, and that he would hinder the multitude from oppressing us with them. And whereas our first arrival at Paonoset (called by us Cape Cod) we found there Corn buried in the ground, and finding no inhabitants but found graves of dead now buried, took the Corn, resolving if ever we could hear of any that had right thereunto, to make satisfaction to the full for it, yet since we understand the owners thereof were fled for fear of us, our desire was to either to pay them with a quantity of corn, English meal, or any other Commodities we had to pleasure them withall, requesting him that some one of his men might signify so much unto them, and we would content him for his pains. And last of all, our Governor requested one favor of his, which was that he would exchange some of their Corn for feed with us, that we might make a trial which best agreed with the soil where we live.

With the presents and message we set forward the tenth line, about nine o’ clock in the Morning, our guide resolving that night to tell Namaschez, a town under Massasoit, and conceived by us to be very near, bountiful the Inhabitants flocked so thick upon every slight occasion among us: but we found it ot be some fifteen English miles. On the way we found some ten or twelve men, women, and children, which had pestered us, till we were weary of them, perceiving that (as the manner of them all is) where victual is easiest to be got, there they live, especially in the Summer: by reason whereof our Bay affording many Lobsters, they resort every spring tide thither and now returned with us to Namaschet^[54]. There we came about, 3 o’clock afternoon, the Inhabitants entertaining us with joy, in the best manner they could, giving us a kind of bread called by them Maizium, and the spawn of Shads, which then they got in abundance, in so much as they gave us spoons to eat them, with these they boiled musty Acorns, but of the Shads we ate heartily. After this they desired one of our men to throw at a Crow, complaining what damage they sustained in their Corn by them, who shot some four elk and killing, they much admired it, as other shots on other occasions. After this, Tisquantum told us we should hardly in one day reach Pakanokick, moving us to go some 8 miles further, where we should find more store and better victuals than there: Being willing to hasten our Journey we went, and came there at Sun setting , where we found many of the Namascheucks (they so calling the men of Namaschuet) fishing upon a Ware which they had made on a River which belonged to them, where they caught an abundance of Bass. These welcomed also gave us of their fish, and we them of our victuals, not doubting but we should have enough wherever we came. There we lodged in the open fields; for houses they had none, though they spent the most of the Summer there. The head of this River is reported to be not far from the place of our abode, upon it are, and have been, many Towns, it being a good length. The ground is very good on both sides, it being for the most part cleared: Thousands of men have lived there, which died in a great plague not long ago, and pity it was and is to be so many goodly fields, so well-seated, without men to dress and maneuver the same. Upon this River dwells Massasoit: It comes into the Sea at the Narragansett Bay^[55], where the French men so much use. A ship may go many miles up it, as the Savages report, and a shallop to the head of it, but so far as we saw, we are sure a Shallop may.

But to resume to our Journey: The next morning we had breakfast, took our leave and departed, being them accompanied with some six Savages, having gone about five miles by the Riverside, at a known shole place, it being low water, they spake to us to put off our breeches, for we must wade through. Here let me not forget the valor and courage of some of the Savages, on the opposite side of the river, for there were remaining alive only 2 men, both aged, especially the one being about threescore; There two espying a company of men entering the River, ran very swiftly and low in the grass to meet us at the bank, where with shrill voices and great courage standing charged upon us with their bows, they demanded what we were, supposing us to be enemies, and thinking to take advantage of us in the water: but feeling we were friends, they welcomed us with such food as they had, and we bestowed a small bracelet of Beads on them. Thus far we are sure the Tide ebbs and flows.

Having been here again refreshed ourselves, we proceeded in our Journey, the weather being very hot for travel, yet the Country so well-watered that a man could cease be dry, but he should have a spring at hand to cool his thirst, beside final Rivers in abundance: But the Savages will not willingly drink, but at a springhead. When we came to any small Brook where no bridge was, two of them desired to carry us through of their own accords, also fearing we were or would be weary, offered to carry our pieces, also if we would lay off any of our clothes, we should have them carried, and as the one of them had found more special kindness from one of the Messengers, and the other Savage from the other so they showed their thankfulness accordingly in affording us all help, and furtherance in the Journey.

As we passed along, we observed that there were a few places by the River, but had been inhabited, by reason whereof, much ground was clear, save of weeds which grew higher than our heads. There is much good Timber both Oak, Walnut-tree, Fir, Birch, and exceeding great Chestnut trees. The Country in respect of the lying of it, is both Champagne and hilly, like many places in England. In some places it is  very rocky both above ground and in it. And though the Country is wild and overgrown with woods, yet the trees stand not thick, but many may well ride a horse among them.

Passing on at length, one of the Company, an Indian, epsied a man, and told the rest of it, we asked them if they feared any, they told us that if they were Narragansett men they would not trust them, whereas we called for our pieces and bid them not to fear; for though they were twenty, we two alone would not care for them: but they hailing him, he proved a friend, and had only two women with him; their baskets were empty, but they fetched water in their bottles, so that we drank with them and departed. After we met another man with other two women, which had been at Rendezvous by the salt water, and their baskets were full of roasted Crab fishes, and other dried shellfish, of which they gave us, and we ate and drank with them: and gave each of the women a thing of Beads, and departed.

After we came to the Town of Massasoit’s, we ate Oysters and other fish. From there we went to  Packanokick, but Massasoit was not at home, there we stayed, he being sent for: when news was brought of his coming, our guide Tisquantum requested that at our meeting, we would discharge our pieces, but one of us going, about ot charge his piece, the women and children through fear to see him take up his piece, ran away and could not be pacified, till he laid it down again, who afterward were better informed by our Interpreter.

Massasoit came, we discharged our Pieces, and  saluted him, who after their manner kindly welcomed us, and took us into his house and sat us down by hm, where having delivered our aforesaid Message, and Presents, and having put the Coat on his back, and the Chain about his neck, he was not a little proud to behold himself, and his men also to see their King so bravely attired.

For anywhere to our Message, he told us we were welcome, and he would gladly continue that Peace and Friendship which was but between him and us: and for his men they found no more pester us as they had done; also, that he would send to Paomet^[56], and would help us with Corn for feed, according to our request.

This being done, his men gathered near to him, to whom he turned himself, and made a great Speech; they sometimes interposed, and as it were, confirming and applauding him in what he said. The meaning whereof was (as far as we could learn) thus; was not he Massasoit, Commander of the Country about them? Was not such as Town his and the people of it? And should they not bring their skins unto us? To which they answered, they were his and would be at peace with us, and bring their skins to us. After this manner, he named at least thirty places, and their answer was as aforesaid to everyone; so that as it was delightful, it was tedious unto us.

This being ended, he lighted Tobacco for us, and sold  to the discoursing  of England and of the King’s Majesty, marveling that he would live without a wife. Also he talked of the Frenchmen, bidding us to not suffer them to come to Narraghaset, for it was King James his Country, and he also was King James his man. Later it grew, but victuals he offered none, for indeed he had not any, being he came so newly home. So we desired to go to rest: he laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at one end and we at the other, it being only planks laid afoot from the ground, and a thin Mat upon them. Two more of his chief men wanted room pressed by and upon us, so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.

The next day being Thursday , many of their Sachims, or petty Governors, came to see us, and many of their men also. There they went to their manner of Games for skins and knives. There we challenged them to shoot with them for skins; but they did not: only they desired to see one of us shoot at a mark, while shooting with Hail-shot^[57], they wondered to see the mark so full of holes. About one o’clock, Massasoit brought two fishes that he had shot, they were like Beams, but three times so big, and better meat.

These being boiled there were at left forty looked so share in them, the most eat of them; This meal only we had in two nights and a day, and had not one of us bought a Partridge, we had taken our Journey fasting: Very important he was to have us stay with them longer: But we desired to keep the Sabbath at home: and feared we should either be light-headed for want of sleep, for what with bad lodging, the Savage’s barbarous singing (for they used to sing themselves asleep) lice and fleas within doors, and Mosquitoes without, we could hardly sleep all the time of our being there; we much fearing, that if we should stay any longer, we should not be able to recover home for want of strength. So that on the Friday morning before Sun-rising, we took our leave and departed, and Massasoit being both grieved and alarmed, that he could no better entertain us and retaining Tisquantum to send from place to place to procure for us, and appointing another called Tokamahmon in his place, whom we had found faithful before and after upon all occasions.

At this town of Massasoit, where we before we eat, we were again refreshed with a little fish, and bought about a handful of Meal of their parched Corn, which was very precious at that time of the year, and a small string of dried shell-fish, as big as Oysters. The latter we gave to the six Savages that accompanied us, keeping the Meal for ourselves, when we drank, we ate a spoonful of it with a Pipe of Tobacco, instead of other victuals, and of this also we could not but give them so long as it lasted. Five miles they led us to an abode out of the way in hope of victuals:  but we found nobody there, and so were but worse able to return home. That night we reached the wire where we lay before, but the Namaschuesks were returned so that we had no hope of anything there. One of the Savages had shot a Shad in the water, and a small Squirrel as big as a Rat, called a Neuxis, the one half of either he gave us, and after went to wire to fish. From hence we wrote to Plimoth, and sent Tokamekannon before to Namasket, willing him from thence to send another, that he might meet us with food at Namasket. Two men now only remained with us, and it pleased God to give them good store of fish, so that we were well-refreshed. After supper we went to rest, and they to fishing again: the more they get  they fell to eating afresh, and retained sufficient ready roast for all our breakfasts. About two o’Clock in the morning, a great storm of wind, rain, lightning, and thunder, in such violent manner, that we could not keep in our fire, and had the Savages not roasted fish when we were asleep, we had set forward fasting: for the rains still continued with great violence, even the whole day through, till we came within two miles of home.

Being wet and weary, at length we came to Namaschet, there we refreshed ourselves, giving gifts to all such as had shown us any kindness. Among others one of the six that came with us from Packanokik having before this on the way, unkindly forsaken us, marveled we gave him nothing, and told us what he had done for us; we also told him of some discourtesies he offered us, whereby he deserved nothing, yet we gave him a small trifle; whereupon he offered us Tobacco: but the house being full of people, we told them he stole some by the way, and if

it were of that we would not take it: For we would not receive that which was stolen

upon any terms; if we did, our God would be angry with us, and destroy us. This abashed him, and gave the rest great content: but at our departure he would need to carry him on his back through a River, whom he had formerly in some sort abused. Feign they would have had us to lodge there all night: and wondered we would set forth again in such Weather: but God be prayed, we came safe home that night, though wet, weary, and surbated.

 

A Voyage Made by Ten of our Men to the Kingdom of Nauset, to seek a Boy^[58] that had lost himself in the Woods; which such Accidents as befell us in that Voyage.

 

The 11th of June we set forth, the weather being very fair: but we had been long at Sea, there arose a storm of wind and rain, with much lightning and thunder, in so much that a spout arose not far from us: but God be praised, it dured not long, and we put in that night for Harbor at a place, called Cummaquid^[59] , where we had some hope to find the Boy. Two Savages were in the Boat with us, the one was Tisquantum our Interpreter, and the other Tokamahamon^[60], a special friend. It being night before we came in, we Anchored in the midst of the Bay, where we were dry in low water. In the morning we espied Savages seeking Lobsters, and sent our two Interpreters to speak with them, the channel  being between them; where they told them what we were, and for what we were coming for, willing men not at all to fear us, for we would not hurt them. Their answer was, that the Boy was well, but he was at Nauset^[61], yet since we were there they desired us to come ashore and eat with them: which as soon as our Boat floated we did: and went six ashore, having four pledges for them in the Boat. They brought us to their Sachim or Governor, whom they call Iyanough^[62], a man not exceeding twenty-six years of age, but very personable, gentle, courteous, and fair conditioned, indeed not like a Savage, save for his attire; his entertainment was answerable to his parts, and his cheer plentiful and various.

 

One thing was very gracious to us at this place; There was an old woman, whom we judged to be no less than a hundred years old, which came to see us because she never saw English, yet could not behold us without breaking forth into great passion, weeping and crying excessively. We demanding the reason of it, they told us, she had three sons, who when Master Hunt was in these parts went aboard his Ship to trade with him, and he carried them Captives into Spain (for Tisquantum at that time was carried away also) by which means she was deprived of the comfort of her children in her old age. We told them we were sorry that any English man should give them that offence, that Hunt was a bad man, and that all the English that heard of it condemned him for the same: but for us we would not offer them any such injury, though it would gain us all the skins in the Country. So we gave her some small trifles, which somewhat appeased her.

 

After dinner we took Boat for Nauset, Iyanough and two of his men to accompany us. When  we came to Nauset, the day and ride were almost spent, in so much as we could not go in with our Shallop: but the Sachim or Governor of Cumaquel went ashore and his men with him, we also sent Tisquantum to tell Alpinct, the Sachim of Nauset, wherefore we came. The Savages  here came very thick among us, and were earnest with us to bring in our Boat. But we neither could, nor yet desired to do it, because we had left cause to trust them, being they only  had formerly made an Assault upon us in the same place, in our time of Winter Discovery for Habitation. And indeed it was no miracle they did so, for however through snow or otherwise we saw no houses, yet we were in the midst of them.

 

When our boat was on ground they came very thick, but we flooded therein upon our ground, not suffering any to enter except two: the one being Maramoick^[63], and one of those, whose Corn we had formerly found, we promised him restitution, or else we would bring them so much corn again, he promised to come, we used him very kindly for the present. Some sew skins while we sat  there,  but not many. After Sunset, Aspinet^[64] came with a great train, and brought the boy with him, one bearing him through the water: he had not less than a hundred with him, the half whereof came to the Shallop side unwarmed with him, the other flood aloof with their bows and arrows. There, he delivered us the boy, behung with beads, and made peace with us, we bestowed a knife on him, and likewise on another that fully entertained the Boy and brought him there. So they departed from us.

Here we understood, that the Narragansetts^[65] had spoiled some of Massasoit’s men, and taken him. This shook some fear in us, because the Colony was so weakly guarded, the strength thereof being abroad. But we set forth with resolution to make the resolution to make the best haste home we could; yet the wind being contrary, having scarce any fresh water left, and at least 16 leagues home, we put in again for the shore. There we met again with Iyanough the Sachim of Cumaquel, and most of his Town, both men, women, and children with him. He was still willing to gratify us, took us to a runlet and led our men in the dark a great way for water, but could find none good: yet brought fish as there was on his neck with them. In the meantime, the women joined hand in hand, singing and dancing before the Shallop, the men also showing all the kindness they could, Iyanough himself taking a bracelet from about his neck, and hanging it upon one of us. Again we set our but to  no small purpose: for we got  but little homeward ; Our water also was very brackish, and not to be drunk.

The next morning, Iyanough spied us again and ran after us; we, being resolved to go to Cummaquid again to water, took him into the Shallop, whose entertainment was not inferior unto the former.

The soil at Nauset and here is alike, even and sandy, not so food for corn as where we are; Ships may safely ride in either harbor. In the Summer, they abound with fish. Being now watered, we put forth again, and by God’s providence, came safely home that night.

 

 

A Journey to the Kingdom of Namaschet in defence of the Great King Massasoit against the Narragansetts, and to avenge the Supposed Death of our Interpreter Tisquantum.

 

On our return from Nauset, we found it true that Massasoit was put from his Country by the Narragansetts. Word also was brought unto us, that one Coubatant^[66], a petty Sachim or Governor under Massasoit (whom they ever feared to be too conversant with the Narragansetts) was at Namaschet, who sought to draw the hearts of Massasoit’s subjects from him, speaking also disdainfully of us, storming at the Peace between Nauset, Cummaquid, and us, and at Tisquantum the worker of it; also at Tokamahannon, one Hobomok (two Indians or Lemes, one of which would treacherously have murdered a little before, being a special and trusty man of Massasoit’s) Tokamahmon went to him, but the other two would not; yet put their lives in their hands, privately went to see if they could hear of their King, lodging at Namaschet were discorused to Coubatant, who set a guard to beset the house and took Tisquantum (for he had said, if he were head, the English had lost their tongue) Hobbamock^[67] seeing that Tisquantum was taken, and Coubantant held a knife at his breast, being a strong and stout man, broke from them and came to New-Plymouth, full of fear and sorrow for Tisquantum, whom he thought to be slain.

 

Upon this news the company assembled together, and resolved on the morrow to send ten men armed to Namaschet and Hobbanock for their guide, to revenge the supposed death of Tisquantum on Coubatant our bitter Enemy, who was of this confederacy, till we heard what became of our friend Massasoit. On the morrow we sent out ten men Armed, who took their journey aforesaid, but the day proved very wet. When we supposed we were within three our four miles of Namaschet, we went out of the way and stayed there all night, because we would not be discovered. There we consulted what to do, and thinking best to beset the house at midnight, each was appointed his task by the Captain, all men encouraging one another, to the utmost of their power. By night our guide lost his way, which much discouraged our men, being we were wet, and weary of our arms: but one of our men having been before at Namaschet brought us into the way again.

Before we came to the Town we sat down and ate such as our Knapsack afforded, that being done, we threw them aside, and all such things as might hinder us, and so went on and beset the house, according to our last resolution. Those that entered, demanded if Coubatant were not there: but fear had bereft the Savages of speech. We charged them not to stir, for if Coubatant were not there, we would not meddle with them, if he were, we came principally for him, to be avenged on him for the supposed death of Tisquantum, and other matters: but how forever we would not at all hurt their women, or children. Notwithstanding some of them pressed out a private door and escaped, but with some wounds: At length perceiving our principal ends, they told us Coubatant was returned with all his train, and that Tisquantum was yet living, and in the town offering some Tobacco, other such as they had to eat. In this hurry we discharged two Pieces ta random, which much terrified all the Inhabitants, except Tisquantum and Tokamahamon, who they knew our end in coming, yet assured them of our honesty, that we would not hurt them. Those boys that were in the house seeing our care of women, often cried “Neensquaes”, that is to say, “I am a Woman”. The Women also hanging upon Hobbamock, calling him “Towam”, that is, Friend. But to be short, we kept them we had, and made them make a fire that we might see to search the house. In the meantime, Hobbamock gat on the top of the house, and called Tisquantum and Tokmahammon, which came unto us accompanied with others, some armed and others naked. Those that had Bows and Arrows we took them away, promising them again when it was day. The house we took for our better safeguard and released those we had taken, manifesting whom we came for and wherefore.

 

The next morning we marched into the middle of the Town, and went to the house of Tisquantum to breakfast. Thither came all whole hearts were upright towards us, but all Coubatant’s faction fled away. There in the midst of them we manifested again our intendment, alluring them, that although Coubatant had now escaped us, yet there was no place should secure him and his from us if he continued his threatening us, and provoking others against us, who had kindly entertained him,and never intended evil towards him til he now so justly deferred it. Moreover, if Massasoit did not return in safety from Narragansetts, or if hereafter he should make any insurrection against him, or offer violence to Tisquantum, Hobbamock, or any of Massasoit’s subjects, we would revenge it upon him, to the overthrow of him and his. As for those who were wounded, we were sorry for it, though they procured it by not staying in the house at our command: yet if they would return home with us, our Surgeon would heal them. At this offer, one man and a woman that were wounded went home with us, Tisqauntum and many other known friends accompanying us, and offering all help that might be by carriage of anything we had to eat us. So that by God’s good Providence we safely returned home the morrow night after we set forth.

 

A Relation of our Voyage to Massachusetts and what happened there.

 

It seemed good to the Company in general, that though Massachusetts had often threatened us (as we were informed) yet we should go among them, partly to make Peace with them, and partly to procure their trust.

For these ends the Governors chose ten men, fit for the purpose, and sent Tisquantum, and two other Savages to bring us to speak with the people and interpret for  us.

We set out about midnight, the tide then calming for us, we supposing it to be nearer than it is, thought to be there the next morning betimes: but it proved well near twenty Leagues from New Plymouth.

We came into the bottom of the Bay, but being late we anchored and lay in the Shallop, not having seen any of the people. The next morning we put in for the shore. There we found many Lobsters that had been gathered together by the Savages, which we made ready under a cliff. The Captain set two Sentinels behind the cliff to the landward to secure the Shallop, and taking a guide with him, and four of our company, went to seek the Inhabitants, where they met a woman coming for her Lobsters, they told her of them, and contented  her for them. She told them where the people were, Tisquantum went to them, the rest returned, having direction on which way to bring the Shallop to them.

The Sachim, or Governor of this place, is called Obbatinewat^[68], and though he lives in the bottom of the Massachusetts Bay, yet he is under Massasoit. He used us very kindly, he told us, he did not then remain in any settled place, for fear of the Teredines. Also the Squa Sachim, or Massachusetts Queen was an enemy to him. We told him of diverse Sachims that had acknowledged themselves to be King James and his men, and if he also would submit himself, we would be his safeguard from his enemies; which he did, and went along with us to bring us to the Squa Sachim. Again, we crossed the Bay, which is very large, and hath at left fifty Islands in it; but the certain number is not known to the Inhabitants. Night it was before we came to that side of Bay where his people were. On shore the Savages went but found nobody. That night also we sat at Anchor aboard the Shallop.

On the morrow we went ashore, all but two men and marched in Armies up in the Country. Having gone three miles, we came to a place where Corn had been newly gathered, a house pulled down, and the people gone. A mile from here, Nanepashemet^[69] and their King in his lifetime had lived.  His house was not like the others, but a scaffold was largely built, with pools and planks some six feet from ground, and the house upon that, being situated on the top of a hill. Not far from here in a bottom, we came to a Fort built by their deceased King, the manner thus; There were pools some thirty or forty feet long, stuck in the ground as thick as they could be set one by another, and with theirs they enclosed a ring some forty or fifty feet over. A trench breast high was digged on each side; one way there was to go into it with a bridge, in the midst of this Pallizado stood the frame of a house, wherein the dead were buried.About a mile from here, we came to such another seated  on the top of a hill: here Nanepashemet was killed, none dwelling in it since the time of his death. At this place we stayed, and sat two Savages to look for the Inhabitants; and to inform them of our ends in coming, as they might not be fearful of us. Within a mile of this place they found the women of the place together, with their Corn on heaps, whither we supposed them to be fled for fear of us, and the more, because diverse places they had newly pulled down their houses, and for haste in one place had left some of their Corn covered with a Mat, and nobody within. With much fear they entertained us first, but seeing our gentle carriage towards them, they took heart and entertained us in the best manner they could, boiling Cod and such other things as they had for us. At length with much sending for came one of their men, shaking and trembling for fear. But when he saw we intended them no hurt, but came to trust, he promised us his skins also. Of him we inquired for their Queen, but it seemed she was far from there, at least we could not see her.

Here, Tisquantum would have had us risen the Savage women, and taken their skins, and all such things as might be serviceable for us, for (said he) they are a bad people, and have often threatened you: But our answer was, were they never so bad, we would not wrong them, or give them any  just occasion against us: for their words we little weighted them, but if they once attempted anything against us, then we would deal far worse than he desired.

Having well spent the day, we returned to the Shallop, about all the women accompanying us, to trust, who took their coats from their backs, and tied boughs about them, but with great shamelessness (for indeed they are more modest than some of our English women are) we promised them to come again to them, and they us, to keep their skins. Within this Bay, the Savages say, there are two Rivers: the one whereof we saw, having a fair entrance, but we had no time to discover it. Better harbors for shipping cannot be then here are. At the entrance of the Bay are many Rocks, and in all likelihood very good fishing ground. Many, yes, of the Lands have been inhabited, some being cleared from end to end, but the people are all dead, or removed.

 

Our victuals  growing scarce, the Wind coming fair, and having a light Moon, we set out at evening, and through the goodness of God, came safely home before noon the day following.

 

 

 

A Letter sent from New England to a friend in these parts, setting forth a brief and true Declaration of the worth of the Plantation

Also certain useful Directions for such as intended a Voyage into these parts.

 

Loving, and old Friend, although I received no Letter from you by this Ship, yet forasmuch as I know you expect the performance of my promise, which was, to write unto you truly and faithfully of all things. I have therefore at this time sent unto you accordingly. Referring you for further satisfaction to our more large Relation: You shall understand, that in this little time, that a few of us have been here, we have built seven dwelling houses, and four for the use of the Plantation, and have made preparation for diverse others. 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 cause at our doors.

Our Corn did prove well and God be praised, we had a good inheritance of Indian Corn, and our Barely indifferently 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, one harvest begotten is, our Governor sent four men on sowling, these so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors, they filled in one day, killed as much fowl of our labors they found in one day, killed as much fowl, as with a little help on the side, formed the Company almost a week, as which time among us after Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their great King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days as we entertained and feasted and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the Plantation, and bestowed our Governor, and upon the Captain, and others. And although it is not always so plentiful, as it was this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often with you partakers of our plenty. We have found the Indians very faithful in their Covenant of Peace with us; very loving and ready to pleasure us: we often go to them, and they come to us, some of us have been fifty miles by Land in the Country with them, the occasions and Relations whereof you shall indeed and by our general and morseful Declaration of such  things and are worth the noting, yea, it hath pleased God so to politicize the Indians with a fear of us, and love unto us, that not entirely the greatest King among them called Massasoit, but also all the Princes and peoples round about us, have either made fuse unto us, or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us, so that features of them at once have sent their messengers to us to that end, yea, a Pleasure, which we never saw hath also together with the former yielded, willingly to be under the protection, and  subjects to sovereign Lord King James, to that there is now great times among the Indians themselves, which was not formerly, neither would have been but for us, and we for our parts walk as peaceably and safely in the woods, as in the highways of England, we entertain them familiarly in our homes and they as friendly bestowing their Venison on us. They are a people without any Religion, or knowledge of any God, yet trusty, quick of appreciation, quick witted, just, the men and women go naked, only about their middles, for reaper of the air, live in agreeth well in England if those be vastly different at all this is somewhat hot in summer, some with indeed behold in Winter, but I cannot out of despertinmented to say, the air is very clear and not foggy, as hath been reported. I never in my life remember a more seasonable year, then we have here enjoyed: and if we have one but Kind of Horse and Sheep, I make no question, but men might live as content here as in any part of the world. For fish and fowl, we have great abundance, fresh Cod in the summer but it is, of course meat with us, our Bay is full of lobsters all the summer, and assorted variety of other Fish. In September we can take a Hogshead of fish, in the night, with small labor and can dig them out of their beds,till the Winter we have Mussels and Others at our doors and Oysters we have none, but we can have them brought by the Indians when we will; all the Springtime the earth sends forth naturally very good Sallet Herbs: here are Grapes, white and red, and very sweet and strong also. Strawberries, Gooseberries. Raspberries, etc. Plums of three sorts, with black and red, being almost as good as a Damsen: abundance of Roses, white, red, and damask: single, but very sweet indeed, the Country wants only industrious men to employ, for it would  grieve your hearts (if as I) you had seen so many moles together by goodly Rivers uninhabited, and withal to consider those parts of the world wherein you live, to be ever greatly but booned with an abundance of people. These things I thought good to let you understand, being the truth of things as needed as I could experimentally take knowledge of and these you might, on our behalf, give God thanks who has dealt so favorably with us.

Our supply of men from you came the ninth of November 1621, putting in at Cape Cod, some eight or ten leagues from us, the Indians that dwell whereabout were they who were owners of the Corn which we found in Caves, for which we have given them full content, and are in great league with them, they are giving us a bargain a ship near unto them, but though it be again, and indeed for ourselves, we expected not a friend so soon. But when we perceived that they made for our Bay, Governor commenced a great action to bestow to all were upon abroad at work; whereupon everyone that could handle the gun were ready, with full resolution, that if there were an Enemy, we would stand  adroit in defense, not fearing them, but God provided better,  so then we supposed; these came in all health unto us, being sick by the way (the other wife then by Sdausit) and so continued at this time, by the blessing of God, the good wife Sord was delivered a son the first night she landed, and both of them are very well. When it pleases God, we are settled, and fitted for the fishing business, and other trading. I doubt not but by the blessing of God, the gain will give content to all; in the meantime, that we have gotten we have sent by this ship, and though it be not much, yet it will witness for us, that we have not been idle, considering the finale of our number all this Summer. We hope the Merchants will accept it, and be encouraged to furnish us with things needful for further employment, which will also encourage us to put forth ourselves to the utmost. Now because I expect your coming unto us with other of our friends, whole company we much desire, I thought good to advertise you of a few things needful, be careful to have a very good bread-room to put your Biscuits in,let your Cask for Beer and Water be Iron-bound for the first tire if not more; let not your meat be dry salted, none can better do it than the Sailors; let your meal be so hard trodden in your Cask that you shall need an Ad or Hatchet to work it out with: Trust not too much on us for Corn, for by reason of this last company that came, depending wholly upon us, we shall have little enough till in a rest; be careful to come by some of your meal to spend by the way, it will much refresh you, build your Cavins as open as you can, and bring good store of clothes, and bedding with you, bring every man a Musket or fowling piece, let your Piece  be long in the barrel, and fear not the weight of it, for most of our shooting is from Stands; bring juice of Lemons, and take as fasting, it is of good use, for hot water. Any seed water is the best, but use it sparingly: if you bring anything for comfort in the Country, Butter or Saltlet oil, or both is very good; our Indians’ Corn even the coarsest, make as pleasant meat as Rice, therefore spare that unless to spend by the way, bring Paper, and Linseed Oil for your windows, with Cotton yarn for your Lamps; let your shot be most for big Fowls, and bring store of Powder and shot: I forebear further to write for the present, hoping to see you by the next return, so I take my lean, commending you to the Lord for a safe conduct unto us. Resting in Him

Plimoth in England this 11 of December,

1621

Your loving  friend,

E.W^[70].

 

 

Reasons and considerations touching the lawfulness of removing out of England into the parts of America.

 

Forasmuch as many exceptions are daily made against the going into, and inhabiting for rain desert places, to the hindrances of plantations abroad, and the increase of distractions at home: It is not amiss that some which have been careful witnesses of the exceptions made, and are either Agents or Assessors of such removals and plantations, does seek to give content to the world, in all things that possibly they can.

And although the most of the opposites are such as either dream of raising their fortunes here, to that then which there is nothing more unlike, or such as affecting their home-born country so vehemently, as that they had rather with all their friends beg, yea stare in it, then undergo a little difficulty in seeing abroad, yet there are some who out of doubt in the tenderness of conscience, and fear to offend God by running before they be called, are straightened and do straighten others, from going to foreign  plantations.

For whose cause especially, I have been drawn out of my good affection to them, to publish some reasons that might give them content and satisfaction, and also stay and stop the willful and witty cavalier: and herein I trust I shall not be blamed of any godly wife, though thorough my slender judgment I should miss the mark, and not strike the nail on the head, considering it is the first attempt that has been made (that I know of) to defend those enterprises.  Reason would therefore, that if any man of deeper reach and better judgement see further or otherwise, that he rather instruct me, then deride me.

After being studious for brevity, we must first confide, that whereas God of old did call and summon our Fathers by predictions, dreams, visions, and certain illuminations^[71] to go from their countries^[72], places, and habitations, to reside and dwell here or there^[73], and to wander up and down from city to city, and Land to Land, according to his will and pleasure. Now there is no such calling to be expected for any matter whatsoever, neither must any so such as imagine that there will now be any such thing^[74]. God did once to train up his people, but now he does not, but speaks in another manner, and so we must apply ourselves to God’s present dealing, and nor ro his wanted dealing: and as the miracle of giving Manna that God created^[75], when the fruit of the land became plenty, so God having such a plentiful storehouse of directions in his holy Word, there must not one any extraordinary reluctance be expected.

But now the ordinary examples and precepts of the Scriptures reasonably and rightly understood and applied, must be the voice and the word, that must call us, press us, and direct us in every action.

Neither is there any land or possession now, like unto the possession to which the Jews had in Canaan, being legally holy and appropriately unto a holy people the seed of Abraham, in which they dwelt securely, and had their days prolonged, it being by an immediate voice said, that he (the Lord) gave it them a land of rest after their weary travels, and a type of Eternal rest in heaven, but now there is no land of that Sacrament, no land so appropriate; none typical: much left any that can be said to given of God to any nation was a Canaan, which they and their seed must dwell in, till God sends upon them (word or captivity, but now we are all in all, places and strangers and Pilgrims, travellers and foreigners, most properly, having no dwelling but in this earthen Tabernacle^[76]; our dwelling is but a wandering, and our abiding but as a fleeting, in a word our home is nowhere, but in the heavens: in that house not made with all hands, whose master and builder is God, and to which all ascend that love the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Through them, they may be reasons to persuade a man to live in this or that land, yet there cannot be the same reasons which the Jews had, but now as natural, civil and religious bands tie man, so they must be bound, and as good reasons for things terrain and heavenly appear, so they must be led. And so here falls in our question, how a man that is here born and bred, and hath lived some years, may remove himself into another country.

I answer, a man must not respect only to live, and does good to himself, but he should see where he can live to do most good to others: for as one faith, He whole living is but for himself, it is time he were dead. Some men there are who of necessity must here live, as being tied to duties either to Church, Common-wealth, household, kindred, etc. but others, and that many, who do no good in none of those nor can do none, as being not able, or not in favor, or was wanting opportunity, and live as outcasts: nobodies, eyesores, eating but for themselves, teaching but themselves, and doing good to none, either in soul or body, and so pass days, years, and months, yea so live and to die. Now such should lift up their eyes and see whether there be not some other place and country to which: they may go to do good and have use towards others of that knowledge, wisdom, humanity, reason, strength, skill, faculty, etc. which God has given them for the service of others and his own glory.

But not to pass the bounds of modesty so far as to none any, though I confess I know many, who sit here still with their talent in a napkin, having notable endowment both of body and mind^[77], and might do great good if they were in some places, which here do none, nor can do none, and yet through fleshly fear, niceness, straightness of heart, etc. sit still and look on, and will not hazard a dram  of health, nor a day of pleasure, nor an hour of rest to further the knowledge and salvation of the sons of Adam, in that New World, where a drop of the knowledge of Christ is most precious, which is here not set by. Now what shall we say to such a profession of Christ, to which is joined no more denial of a man’s self? But some will say, what right have I to go live in the heathens’ country?

Letting the pass the ancient discoveries, contracts, and agreements which our English men have long since made into those parts, together with the acknowledgement of the histories and Chronicles of other nations, who possess the land of America from the Cape De Florida unto the Bay of Canada (which is South and North 300 leagues and upwards; and East and West, further than yet hath been discovered) is proper to the King of England, yet letting that pass, lest I he thought to meddle further than it concerns me, or further then I have discerning: I will mention such things as are within my reach, knowledge, sight and practice, since I have traveled in these affairs.

And first seeing we daily pray for the conversion of the heathens, we must consider whether there are not some ordinary means, and of course for us to take to convert them, or whether prayer for them be only referred to God’s extraordinary work from heaven. Now it seems unto me that we ought to also to endeavor and use the means to connect them, and the means cannot be used unless we go to them or they come to us: to us they cannot come, our land is full: to them we may go, their land is empire.

This then is a sufficient reason to prove our going thither to live, lawful their land is spacious and void, and there are few and deer but run over the giraffe, as does also the Foxes and wildebeests: they are not industrious, neither have art, science, skills or faculties use either the land or the commodities of it, but all spoils, rots, and is marred for want of maturing, gathering, ordering, etc. As the ancient Patriarchies therefore removed from straighter places into more room, where the Land lay idle and waste and none used it, though there dwelt inhabitants by them, as Genesis 13.6.11.12. And 34., 21, and 40.21^[78], so is it lawful now to take a land which none uses, and make use of it. And as it is a common land or unused, and undressed country, so which use it by common content, composition and agreement, which agreement is double: First the Imperial Governor Massasoit,  whose circuits in likelihood are larger than England and Scotland, has acknowledged the King’s Mastery of England to be his Master and Commander, and that once in anything, yea and in writing, under his hand to Captain Standish, both he and many other Kings which are under him, as Pamet, Nauset, Cummaquid, Narrowhiggonset, of Patuxet, and Massachusetts: neither has his been accomplished by threats and blows, or shaking of sword, and found of trumpet, for as our faculty that way is small, and our strength less: so one warring with them is after another manner, namely by friendly usage, love, peace, honest, and just carriages, good counsel, etc. that so we and they may not only live in peace in that land, and they yield subjection to an earthly Prince^[79], but that as volunteers they may be persuaded at length to embrace the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus, and rest in peace with him forever.

 

Secondly, this composition is also more particular and applicatory, as teaching ourselves there inhabiting  the Emperor by a joint consent, has promised and appointed us to live at peace, where we will in all his dominions, taking what place we will, and as much land as we will, and bringing as many people as we will, and that for these two causes. First, because we are the servants of James,  King of England, whose the land (as he confesses) is, 2. Because he has found us just, honest, kind, and peaceable, and so loves our company, yea, and that in these things there is no dissimulation on his part, nor fear of breach (except our security engender invoke them to anger) is most plain in other Relations, which shows that the things they did were more out of love than out of fear.

It being then first a vast and empty Chaos: Secondly, acknowledged the right of our Sovereign King: Thirdly, by a peaceable composition in part possessed of diverse of his loving subjects, not who can doubt or call in question the lawfulness of inhabiting or dwelling here, but that it may be as lawful for such as are not tied upon some special occasion here, to live there as well as here, yea, and as the enterprise is weighty and difficult, so the honor is more worthy, to plant a rude wilderness, to enlarge the honor and fame of our dread Sovereign, but chiefly to displace the efficacy and power of the Gospel both in zealous preaching, professing, and wise walking under it, before the faces of their poor blind Infidels.

And as for such as object the tediousness of the voyage there, the danger of Pirates’ robbery, of the Savages’ treachery, etc. but there are but Lions in the way, and it were well for such men if they were in heaven, for who can now show them a place in this world where inequity shall not compass them at the heels^[80], and where they shall have a day without grief, or a lease of life for a moment^[81]; and who can tell but God, what dangers may he at our doors, even in our native country, or what plots may be abroad, or when God will cause our sun to go down at noon days, and in the midst of our peace and security^[82], lay upon us some lasting scourge for our so long neglect and contempt of his most glorious Gospel.

But we have here great peace, plenty of the Gospel, and many sweet delights and variety of comforts.

True indeed, and so be it for us to deny and diminish the least of the mercies^[83], but have we rendered unto God thankful obedience for this long peace, whilst other peoples have been at wars? Have we not rather murmured, repined, and fallen amongst ourselves, whilst our peace has lasted with foriegn power? Was there ever more fruits in law, more ennui, contempt and reproach than nowadays? Abraham and Lot^[84] departed asunder when there fell a branch betwixt them, which was occasioned by the straightness of the land, and surely I am persuaded, that however the frailties of men are principal in all contentions, yet the straightness of the place is such, as each man is fegin to pluck his means as it were out of his neighbor’s throat, there is such pressing and oppressing in town and country, about Farms, trades, traffic, etc., so as a man can hardly anywhere set up a trade but he shall pull down two of his neighbors.

The Towns abound with young tradesmen, and the Hospitals are full of the Ancient, the country is replenished with new Farmers, and the Alms-houses are filled with old Laborers, many there are who get their living with bearing burdens, but more are faine to burden the land with their whole bodies: multitudes get their means of life by prating, and so do numbers more by begging.

Neither come there straits upon men always through intemperance, ill husbandry, indiscretion, etc., as some think, but even the most wise, sober, and discreet men, go often to the wall, when they have done their best, wherein as God’s providence waits all, so it is easiest to see, that the straightness of the place having in it so many straight hearts, cannot but produce such effects more and more, so as every indifferent minded man should be ready to say with Father Abraham, Take thou the right hand, and I will take the left. Let us not thus oppress, straighten, and afflict one another, but seeing there is a spacious Land, and the way to which is through the sea, we will end this difference in a day.

That I speak nothing about the bitter contention that has been about Religion, by writing, disputing, and inveighing earnestly one against another, the heart of which zeal if it were turned against the rude barbarism of the Heathens, it might do more good in a day, then it has done in many years. Neither of the little love to the Gospel and profit which is made by the Preachers in most places, which might easily drive zealous to the Heathens who no doubt if they had but a drop of that knowledge which here flies about the streets, would be filled with exceeding great joy and gladness, as that they would even place the kingdoms of heaven by violence, and take as it were by force.

The greatest lesson is yet behind is the sweet fellowship of friends, and the sanctity of bodily delights.

But can there be two nearer friends almost than Abraham and Lot, or than Paul and Barnabas and yet upon as little occasions as we have here, they departed asunder, two of them being Patriarchs of the Church of old; the other the Apostles of the Church which is new, and their covenants want such as it seems might bind as much as any covenant between men at this day, and yet to avoid greater inconveniences they departed asunder.

Neither must men take so much thought for the flesh, as not to be pleased except they can pamper their bodies unbearingly of dainties. Nature is content with little^[85], and health is much endangered by mixtures upon the stomach: The delights of the palate do often inflame the vital parts as the tongue sets afire the whole body. Secondly, varieties here are not common to all, but many good men are glad to snap as a crust. Their taker lives on sweet morsels, but the rent payer eats a dry crust often with watery eyes: and it is nothing to say what someone of a hundred have, but what the bulk, body and commonality have, which I warrant you is short enough.

And they also which now live so sweetly, hardly will their children attain that privilege, but some circumentor or other will outstrip them, and make them sit in the dust, to which men are brought in one age, but cannot get out of it again in seven generations.

 

To conclude, without all partiality, the present consumption which grows upon us here, whilst the land groans under so many close-fitted and unmerciful men, being compared with the earnest, plainest, and plentifulness in living in those remote places, may quickly persuade any man to a liking of this course, and to practice a removal, which being done by honest, godly, and industrious men, they shall thereby right heartily welcome, but for others of dissolute and profane life, their rooms are better than their companies, for if here where the Gospel has been so long and plentifully taught, they are yet frequent in such vices as the Heathen would shame to speak of, what will they be when there is less restraint in word and deed? My only suit to all men is that, whether they live there or here, they would learn to use this world as they used it not, keeping faith and a good conscience, both with God and men, that when the day of account shall come, they may come forth as good and fruitful servants, and freely be received, and enter into that joy of their master.

R.C^[86].

FINIS.

 

 

^[1]Bradford, William, 1588-1657. 1622. A relation or iournall of the beginning and proceedings of the english plantation setled at plimoth in new england, by certaine english aduenturers both merchants and others with their difficult passage, their safe ariuall, their ioyfull building of, and comfortable planting themselues in the now well defended towne of new plimoth. as also a relation of foure seuerall discoueries since made by some of the same english planters there resident. I. in a iourney to puckanokick … II. in a voyage made by ten of them to the kingdome of nawset … III. in their iourney to the kingdome of namaschet … IIII. their voyage to the massachusets, and their entertainment there. with an answer to all such obiections as are in any way made against the lawfulnesse of english plantations in those partsLondon, Printed by J. Dawson] for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the two Greyhounds in Cornhill neere the Royall Exchange, https://search.proquest.com/books/relation-iournall-beginning-proceedings-english/docview/2240890285/se-2?accountid=14696 (accessed March 9, 2021).

The  original title, introduction, and letters that appear at the end of the manuscript have been retained from the original facsimile.  However, the spellings have been modernized. Original source is from Early English Books Online.

 

^[2] “John Bellamy (London: 1620-1651).” In The British Literary Book Trade, 1475-1700, edited by James K. Bracken and Joel Silver, 19-23. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 170. Vol. 170. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1996. Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography (accessed February 8, 2021). https://link-gale-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/apps/doc/RTKOKL769264986/DLBC?u=umd_um&sid=DLBC&xid=7b6c5c94.

John Bellamy printed works related to the travels of the Puritans in New England, such as “Mourt’s Relation”, as well as documents regarding the Virginia Company.

 

^[3] George Cheever. The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,in New England, in 1620. ( New York: John Wiley, 1849. 5-6.)   https://archive.org/details/journalofpilgrim1620chee/page/n23/mode/2up)

M.J.P. refers to  “Mr. John Pierce”, who was a “leading merchant under authority from the Council of persons” (Cheever 5-6).

 

^[4] William G. Robbins. “The Massachusetts Bay Company: An Analysis of Motives.” The Historian 32, no. 1 (Nov 01, 1969): 83-85. https://search.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/massachusetts-bay-company-analysis-motives/docview/1296484275/se-2?accountid=14696.

 

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Council for New England.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 29, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Council-for-New-England.

 

William T. Davis. History of the town of Plymouth : with a sketch of the origin and growth of Separatism. (Philadelphia: J. Lewis and Co,1885. 145. ) https://archive.org/details/historyoftownofp00indavi/page/144/mode/2up?q=President+and+Counsel+

 

The President and Council for New England was the Puritan’s “governing body” that created charters and trading business, led by Sir Ferdinando Gorges (Robbins, Encyclopedia Britannica). The President and Council was originally created in Plymouth (Davis 145).   In  the 1620s, the Council decided to move their operations from Massachusetts to New England (Robbins 83).

 

^[5]  Cheever, The Journal, 7.

Andrew Delbanco and Alan Heimert. 1985. The Puritans in America. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 41. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=282725&site=ehost-live

 

R.C. refers to “Robert Cushman”, who was “the first agent appointed by the Church of the Pilgrims in Leyden” (Cheever 5). Cushman was also the Leyden  congregation’s priest, and this congregation would eventually become the Puritans after being called Separatists from the Protestant Church   (Delbanco 41).

 

^[6]Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Virginia Company.” Encyclopedia Britannica, April 1, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Virginia-Company.

 

William Strachey and Alden T. Vaughan, et al. A Voyage to Virginia in 1609: Two Narratives: Strachey’s “True Reportory” and Jourdain’s Discovery of the Bermudas. United States: University of Virginia Press, 2013. Foreward.  https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Voyage_to_Virginia_in_1609/ecWtnVBYndMC?hl=en&gbpv=0

 

Virginia and Bermudas Companies were a “commercial trading company, chartered by King James I of England in April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of North America” (Encyclopedia Britannica).Indigenous people lived in Virginia  prior to the Puritans (Strachey, Foreward).

 

^[7] “The Enduring King James.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) 35, no. 2 (2011): 78-79. Accessed March 9, 2021. doi:10.2307/45269948.www.jstor.org/stable/45269948

This reference to King James refers  to “King James VI of Scotland”, also known as King James I of England, who created the King James Bible, which was influential in the thinking and teaching of the Puritans (Wilson Quarterly, 78).

 

^[8].  George Barrell Cheever. The Pilgrim fathers; or, The journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, New England, in 1620. (London: William Collins, 1849, 27, 93)

https://archive.org/details/pilgrimfathersor00inchee/page/92/mode/2up?q=Mourt%27s+Relation

Bellamy,  The British Literary Book Trade, 19-23.

Nathaniel Philbrick, Thomas Philbrick, et. al. “From William Bradford and Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation” in  The Mayflower Papers: Selected Writings of Colonial New England  (Penguin, 2007). https://books.google.com/books?id=Ldly-cYXV38C

Mourt, or George Morton was “the brother-in-law of Governor Bradford, who came to the Colony in 1623, but died in June, 1624”(Cheever 93). Mort was also a merchant and worked for the Leyden church (Bracken 19-23). He also received the “Mourt’s Relation” manuscript and gave it to the printing press (Philbrick).

 

^[9]Massachusetts, Or, the First Planters of New-England the End and Manner of their Coming Thither, and Abode there: In several Epistles .. Boston (Mass.) Boston (Mass.), Printed by B. Green, and J. Allen sold by Richard Wilkins, 1696. https://www.proquest.com/books/massachusetts-first-planters-new-england-end/docview/2240896530/se-2?accountid=14696 .

The Planters were “the first” of the colonists  to arrive in New England.

^[10] Steve Zychal. Geneva Bible.org. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Matthew.pdf

The Geneva Bible’s origins version of the quote reads,”Woe be unto the world because of offences, for it must need[s] be that offences shall come, but woe be to that man by whom the offence cometh” (Zychal 49).

 

^[11] Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/1_Corinthians.pdf

According to the Geneva Bible, the original quote reads,” But I have used none of these things. Neither wrote I these things, that it should be so done unto me; for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my rejoicing vain” (Zychal 18).

^[12] Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Matthew.pdf

The Geneva Bible’s version of the quote reads: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye me[et], it shall be measured to you again. And why seest thou the mote, that is in thy brother’s eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Zychal 17).

^[13]Cheever, The Journal, 87.

J.R. was short for,  “John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrim church at Leyden” (Cheever 87). He wrote this letter for the Puritans on their “embarking” to Massachusetts in 1620 (ibid).

 

^[14]Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Cape Cod.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 22, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/place/Cape-Cod.

The Bay is located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which is near New York and Boston.

 

^[15]“sithe, v.1”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/180484?rskey=VSjKxL&result=4&isAdvanced=false (accessed November 17, 2020). .

Sithe means,  “to go; to journey, to travel.”

 

^[16]Jeremy Bangs. New Light on the Old Colony: Plymouth, the Dutch Context of Toleration, and Patterns of Pilgrim Commemoration. (Netherlands: Brill, 2019, 13). https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_Light_on_the_Old_Colony/A828DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

The Mayflower Compact, which begins “In the name of God, Amen” and ends with “Anno Domini, 1620” (Bangs 13). This document is important because it implies that the signers of the Compact are under the rule of  King James of Scotland, explains the purpose of their travels as a way to glorify God, demonstrates the creation of a body politic, and shows how the signers’ goals were to keep the colony together and create laws that will help the Massachusetts colony  (ibid).

 

^[17]Mary Hill Cole. “Elizabeth I (1533–1603).” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 17 Sep. 2014. Web. 5 Feb. 2021. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/elizabeth-i-1533-1603/

Cape Cod is referred to as being part of Virginia because of Elizabeth I, the Queen of England, who helped to create the Roanoke colonies, and, although these colonies did not succeed, many colonists, as well as Elizabeth, claimed “the eastern coast of North America” as Virginia (Cole).

 

^[18] Lives Out of Letters: Essays on American Literary Biography and Documentation in Honor of Robert N. Hudspeth. Italy: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004. 41, 50.  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lives_Out_of_Letters/s0PuV3RwVH4C?hl=en&gbpv=0

 

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “William Bradford.” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 25, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Bradford-Plymouth-colony-governor.

 

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Edward Winslow.” Encyclopedia Britannica, October 14, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Winslow.

 

William Bradford and Edward Winslow, the authors of “Mourt’s Relation” compare the bay to Holland because Bradford and Winslow, who were originally from England, lived in Holland prior to moving to the United States.

 

^[19]  Kelly Wisecup. “Good News from New England” by Edward Winslow: A Scholarly Edition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. muse.jhu.edu/book/41827.

 

Heath, William. “Thomas Morton: From Merry Old England to New England.” Journal of American Studies 41, no. 1 (2007): 135-168. Accessed March 9, 2021. doi:10.2307/27557923.

 

Thomas Cruddas Porteus. Captain Miles Standish : his lost lands and Lancashire connections : a new investigation. University of Manchester: 1920, 5.  https://archive.org/details/captainmylessta00portgoog/page/n20/mode/2up?q=Myles+Standish

 

Miles Standish was the “military leader, assistant governor, and treasurer” of the Puritans (Wisecup, Heath). He “acted as commander of the exploring parties” and “was the only one of the colonists  who had ever fished or fired a gun” (Porteus 5).

 

 

^[20] Ethan Allen Doty. Edward Doty, a Mayflower passenger and Plymouth settler.  National Genealogical Society Library: Washington, D.C., 1954,  5. https://archive.org/details/edwarddotymayflo00doty/page/n9/mode/2up?q=Edward+Doty+Plymouth

 

James Shephard. Governor William Bradford, and his son, Major William Bradford. Connecticut: 1900, 29. https://archive.org/details/governorwilliam00shepgoog/page/n34/mode/2up

 

 

William Bradford was the governor of Plymouth Plantation, born in Holland, and one of the writers of “Mourt’s Relation” (Shephard 29 ). Bradford was also “the second governor of the Plymouth Colony” (Doty 5 ).

 

^[21]James Hawes. Stephen and Giles Hopkins,Mayflower Passengers, and some of  Their Descendants.  Massachusetts: 1915, 2-3. https://archive.org/details/stephen1giles2ho00hawe/page/n7/mode/2up?q=Stephen+Hopkins+Plymouth

 

John D Austin. Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower and his Descendants for Four Generations. General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1989, 1.

https://archive.org/details/stephenhopkinsof00aust/page/n7/mode/2up?q=Stephen+Hopkins+Plymouth

 

 

William Eaton Foster. Stephen Hopkins: A Rhode Island Statesman. United States: S. S. Rider, 1883. 9, 98. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Stephen_Hopkins/kTslAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

 

Stephen Hopkins was a wealthy Mayflower passenger who brought along two servants with him to Massachusetts (Hawes 2, 3).He was also a “minister’s clerk”  as well (Austin 1). According to S.S. Rider, Stephen Hopkins was also the  governor of Rhode Island in the 1700s (Foster 9, 98).

 

^[22] American Historical Society. Guiteras, Wardwell and allied families; genealogical and biographical. New York: 1926. 79. https://archive.org/details/guiteraswardwell00unse/page/n207/mode/2up?q=John+Tilley+Plymouth

Edward Tulley was  was another “Mayflower passenger”, unrelated to John Tilley and his family.

 

^[23] “aqua-vitae, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/10037?redirectedFrom=aqua-vitae (accessed December 20, 2020).

Aquavite is “A term of the alchemists applied to ardent spirits or unrectified alcohol; sometimes applied, in commerce, to ardent spirits of the first distillation.”

 

^[24] William Bradford.  Homes in the wilderness; a pilgrim’s journal of Plymouth plantation. Ed.by Mary Wilson Stewart, New York: William R. Scott Inc, 1939, 17. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106015216648&view=1up&seq=23

Master Jones was the leader of the shallop and in possession of several sailors.

 

^[25]  Bradford. Homes in the wilderness.

Master Carver refers to a Mayflower passenger, married to Catherine Carver and possessor of several “man-servants” and one maid.

 

^[26] “curtal-ax | curtal-axe, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/46183?redirectedFrom=curtlax (accessed March 09, 2021).

A curtalax is,” A short, broad cutting sword”.

 

^[27] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Angoumois.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. https://www.britannica.com/place/Angoumois .

Anguum is short for Angoumois, a province of France.

 

^[28] Bradford, Homes in the wilderness, 32.  

 

“gunner, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/82584?redirectedFrom=gunner (accessed December 4, 2020)

 

Robert Coppin was the Puritan’s “master gunner”, or, “one whose office it is to work a cannon” (Bradford 32, Oxford English Dictionary).

 

 

^[29]Bradford,  Homes in the wilderness, 10.

Francis Billington was the son of John Bilington.

 

^[30] Shephard, Governor William. 26, 29.

Master Carver refers to “Governor John Carver”, who was the previous governor of the Plymouth colony..

 

^[31]  Bradford. A relation or iournal.

 

Hubert Kinney Shaw, Families of the Pilgrims: Edward Winslow. Massachusetts: 1955,  4-5. https://archive.org/details/familiesofpilgri00shaw_0/page/4/mode/2up

 

Edward Winslow was the main author of “Mourt’s Relation”, and he was a printer (Bradford, Shaw 4-5).

 

^[32] American Historical Society. Guiteras, Wardwell and allied families; genealogical and biographical: New York, 1926. 219-221. https://archive.org/details/guiteraswardwell00unse/page/n207/mode/2up?q=John+Tilley+Plymouth

 

“The Mayflower Compact.” The Journal of Education 56, no. 19 (1403) (1902): 315. Accessed March 9, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44056027.

 

John Tilley was “the sixteenth signer of the ‘Compact’”, which was also called the, ”Mayflower Compact”, a document wherein the Puritans decided to colonize the United States and spread their religion (American Historical Society 219-221,  Journal of Education 315).

 

^[33] American Historical Society. Guiteras. 79.

 

Mayflower Lives : Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience (version First Pegasus Books cloth edition.). First Pegasus Books clothed. Worldcat. New York: Pegasus Books, 2019. Introduction. https://umaryland.on.worldcat.org/search?sortKey=LIBRARY&databaseList=&queryString=John+Howland+Puritans&changedFacet=format&overrideStickyFacetDefault=&selectSortKey=LIBRARY&overrideGroupVariant=&overrideGroupVariantValue=&scope=&subformat=Book%3A%3Abook_digital&year=all&yearFrom=&yearTo=&author=all&topic=all&database=all&language=all&materialtype=all#/oclc/1120052575

 

John Howland was one of the original Puritans to travel from Holland to the United States, and he traveled with Governor Carter, another Mayflower passenger, and his family as well (American Historical Society, 79). Howland also created a “trading post” for the Puritans (Whittock, Martyn J, Introduction).

 

^[34] Azel Ames.  The May-flower and her log, July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 : chiefly from original sources. Houghton, Mifflin and Company: New York, 1907, 149.https://archive.org/details/mayflowerherlogj00ames_0/page/148/mode/2up?q=Richard+Warren

Richard Warren was an Essex, or Kent, man whose majority of life, such as his occupation or family,  is unknown.

 

^[35]  Annie Arnoux Haxtun. Signers of the Mayflower Compact. Josiah H. Benton Fund, 1896, 14. https://archive.org/details/signersofmayflow00haxt/page/n19/mode/2up?q=Stephen+Hopkins+

Stephen Hopkins was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact.

^[36]Ethan Allen Doty, “Edward Doty, a Mayflower passenger and Plymouth settler.“. National Genealogical Society Library: Washington, DC. 1954, 3. https://archive.org/details/edwarddotymayflo00doty/page/n9/mode/2up?q=Edward+Doty+Plymouth

Edward Doty was “a Mayflower passenger and Plymouth settler” (Doty, 3).

 

^[37]Society of Mayflower Descendants. Year Book.  New York, 1896. 16. https://archive.org/details/yearbookv1soci/page/n35/mode/2up?q=Thomas+English+Puritans

John Alderten was, “a sailor on the Mayflower  who decided to join the colony ; signed the ‘Compact’ but [died] before the vessel set sail to return” (Society of Mayflower Descendants 16).

 

^[38]Society of Mayflower Descendants. Year Book. 16.

Thomas English was “a sailor who was hired to remain with” the Puritans (Society of Mayflower Descendants).

 

^[39] William Bradford. Homes. 32.

 

“gunner, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/82584?redirectedFrom=gunner (accessed December 4, 2020).

This note refers to Robert Coppin, who was “the master gunner”, or, “one whose office it is to work a cannon”  (Bradford, Oxford English Dictionary).

 

^[40] A snaphaunce is “An early form of flintlock used in muskets and pistols (cf. 3); also, the hammer of this.” “snaphance, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/183011?redirectedFrom=snaphaunce (accessed March 11, 2021).

 

 

^[41] Whittock, Mayflower Lives.

Goodwife Aldterton refers to Elizabeth Tilley, John Tilley’s daughter, who married John Howland.

^[42] Azel Ames,  The May-flower, 284.

Master Martin was the treasurer for the Puritans in Massachusetts.

^[43] Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Mayflower descendant : a quarterly magazine of Pilgrim genealogy and history. 1896,227.  https://archive.org/details/yearbookv1soci/page/n35/mode/2up?q=Thomas+English+Puritans

John Goodman was a passenger on the Mayflower(Society of Mayflower Descendants, 227).

 

^[44] Society of Mayflower Descendants. Year Book. 1896, 16. https://archive.org/details/yearbookv1soci/page/n35/mode/2up?q=Thomas+English+Puritans

Peter Brown was an unmarried man and one of the original ninety-eight passengers on the Mayflower (Society of Mayflower Descendants, 16 ) .

^[45]Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Mayflower descendant. 229.

Francis Cook was a Mayflower passenger who received a division of land   (Society of Mayflower Descendants, 229).

 

^[46] Charles Francis Jenney, The Fortunate Island of Monhegan. Massachusetts: The Davis Press, 1922. 19.

https://archive.org/details/fortunateislando00jenn/page/18/mode/2up?q=Monchiggon

Monchiggon is another name for “Monhegan”, or an area in Massachusetts settled by indigenous people (Jenney 19).

^[47] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Massasoit.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 1, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Massasoit.

Massasoit was a “Wampanoag [indigenous] chief who throughout his life maintained peaceful relations with English settlers in the area of the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts”.

 

^[48] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Nauset.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 23, 2013. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nauset.

Nausets are,”any member of an Algonquian-speaking Native North American tribe that occupied most of what is now Cape Cod, in Massachusetts”.

 

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Sir Ferdinando Gorges.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 1, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinando-Gorges.

^[49] Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a British citizen who lived between the years 1566 and 1647, founded Maine and believed that only aristocratic people should obtain land from America.

^[50]  Andrew Ferris. “”Vile and Clamorous Reports” from New England: The Specter of Indigenous Conspiracy in Early Plymouth.” Early American Literature 54, no. 2 (2019): 381-412. doi:10.1353/eal.2019.0034.

Leonard A Adolf. “Squanto’s Role in Pilgrim Diplomacy.” Ethnohistory 11, no. 3 (1964): 247-61. Accessed March 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/480471.

 

Squanto was a “Patuxet native who served as interpreter and advisor to the colonial authorities” who also was a “cultural translator” (Ferris). He was also a “guide” and “diplomat” for the Puritans as well (Adolf).

 

^[51]Winslow. Good News.

Patuxet was another name for “Plimoth”, specifically an indigenous name for Plimoth.

 

^[52]Alfred A. Cave . “Massasoit (c. 1600–1661), leader of the Algonquian Indians.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 10 Mar. 2021. https://www-oxforddnb-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-71101.

Massasoit was the “leader of the Algonquinan” indigenous people, who used his alliance with the Puritans to fight off advances from the Narragansetts, his tribe’s enemies.

 

^[53]  Wisecup, “Introduction” in Good News from England by Edward Winslow, ed. Kelly Wisecup. Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, helped in “easing tense relations with indigenous peoples in New England”, and his travels, “influenced both English and Wampanoag peoples by applying the knowledge he gained on transatlantic voyages”  (Wisecup, Introduction).

 

 

^[54] Thomas Weston. History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts. United States: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906, 22. https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Town_of_Middleboro_Massac/JxsWAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Namaschet

Namaschet was a town that was under the rule of Massasoit.

^[55] Capers Jones .The History and Future of Narragansett Bay. Universal-Publishers, 2006, ix. https://books.google.com/books?id=viMvSIj4-tUC&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Narragansett  Bay is a “salt water Bay” that the Narrangansetts had ownership of during the 1500s.

 

^[56] Robert J King. “Calvinism and Colonial Native American Religious Worldviews.” The Virginia Mayflower.

New Jersey: 2012,  1. https://www.academia.edu/36536931/Calvinismand_Colonial_Native_American_Religious_Worldviews

Paomet is another name for Cape Cod.

 

^[57] A hail-shot is a, “ Small shot which scatters like hail when fired: used in distinction from a ball or bullet”. “hail-shot, n.”. OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/83288?redirectedFrom=Hail-shot (accessed March 12, 2021).

^[58]  Adolf, “Squanto’s Role”. 247-261

Bulletin. United States: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1907. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Handbook_of_American_Indians_North_of_Me/VUYSAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Encyclopedia of Missouri Indians. United States: Somerset Publishers, Incorporated, 2001, 71. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Missouri_Indians/Z7VELd_RJGsC?hl=en&gbpv=0

“The boy” refers to John Billington, a member of the Puritan colonists group.

 

^[59]True Life Stories: The Greatest Native American Memoirs & Biographies: Geronimo, Charles Eastman, Black Hawk, King Philip, Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse. N.p.: e-artnow, 2018.https://www.google.com/books/edition/True_Life_Stories_The_Greatest_Native_Am/BohjDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Cummaquid was a Wampanoag town up until 1755, which today is known as Barnstable Bay.

 

^[60] Samuel G. Drake. Biography and History of the Indians of North America: From Its First Discovery. United States: B. B. Mussey, 1851, 89. Tokamahamon was a member of the Wampanoag tribe who was “faithful” to the colonists and battled Coubatant.

 

^[61]  Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Nauset.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 23, 2013. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nauset.

Nauset is, “any member of an Algonquian-speaking Native North American tribe that occupied most of what is now Cape Cod, in Massachusetts.”

 

^[62]Samuel Gardner Drake. Biography and History of the Indians of North America … also a history of their wars … Likewise exhibiting an analysis of the … authors, who have written upon … the first peopling of America. Third edition, with … additions … corrections and … engravings. United States: n.p., 1837. 14. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Biography_and_History_of_the_Indians_of/EkGxj1a85XUC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Iyanough was the governor of Nauset, and, although not much is known about him, sources say he later died of starvation (Drake 14).

 

^[63]  Ebenzer Weaver Pierce. Indian History, Biography and Genealogy: Pertaining to the Good Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag Tribe, and His Descendants. Massachusetts: Zerviah Gould Mitchell, 1878. 222.

https://archive.org/details/indianhistorybio00peir_0/page/222/mode/2up?q=Manamoick

Maramoick, also known as Chatham or Monemoy, was a town that was  related to the indigenous people of Cape Cod.

^[64] Encyclopedia of Missouri Indians. United States: Somerset Publishers, Incorporated, 2001, 71.

Aspinet  was a Wampanoag “chief of the Nauset tribe” in Massachusetts who helped to find John Billington, the titular boy of this part of “Mourt’s Relation”  that was lost in the woods.

 

^[65]Matthew Ortoleva. “Rhetorics of Place and Ecological Relationships: The Rhetorical Construction of Narragansett Bay”. Order No. 3415506, University of Rhode Island, 2010. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/rhetorics-place-ecological-relationships/docview/734655374/se-2?accountid=14696.

Ruth Wallis Herndon, and Ella Wilcox Sekatau. The Right to a Name: The Narragansett People and Rhode Island Officials in the Revolutionary Era.” Ethnohistory 44, no. 3 (1997): 433–62. doi:10.2307/483031.http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2006972082&site=ehost-live

Narrangansetts were “,a Native American people indigenous to” Rhode Island who later migrated to Massachusetts after colonization by the Puritans  (Ortoleva,Herndon).

 

 

^[66]   Richard Markham. “A Narrative History of King Philip’s War and the Indian Troubles in New England.”

Volume 4 of Minor Wars of the United States. The New York Public Library: Mead Dodd, 1883, 31. https://books.google.com/books?id=7cMRAAAAYAAJ&dq=Coubatant&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Coubatant was a sachim, or governor, who “revolted against his master” because he was angry that Massasoit decided to fraternize with the Puritans.

 

^[67] David Hurst Thomas Exploring Ancient Native America: An Archaeological Guide. United Kingdom: Routledge, 1999, 197. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Exploring_Ancient_Native_America/qsYMEwmNP34C?hl=en&gbpv=0

Betty B Donohue. American Indian Texts Embedded in Works of Canonical American Literature, Order No. 9818020, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998, 151. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/american-indian-texts-embedded-works-canonical/docview/304427967/se-2?accountid=1469

 

Hobbamock was a Wampanoag indigenous person who “provided guidance and council to” the Puritans and taught them “about the ways of the land and its Native people” (Thomas 197 ). In addition, Hobomok, was both “spirit”, “signifiers and signified”, meaning that his “physical” contributions, such as teaching the Puritans how to survive, were not only important but also as “an Algoquian shaping presence among the English”, since, on a spiritual and psychological level, Hobbamock influenced the Puritans (Donohue 151).

 

^[68]. Adolf. “Squanto’s Role”. 247–261.

Obbaitinewat was a governor, or sachim, who was “loyal to Massasoit” (247-261).

 

^[69]   Harold W Van Lonkhuyzen. “A Reappraisal of the Praying Indians: Acculturation, Conversion, and Identity at Natick, Massachusetts, 1646-1730.” The New England Quarterly 63, no. 3 (1990): 396-428. Accessed March 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/366370.

 

Richard W Cogley.  John Eliot’s Mission to the Indians Before King Philip’s War. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press, 2009, 38. https://www.google.com/books/edition/John_Eliot_s_Mission_to_the_Indians_befo/JInA4oZmRrUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=cutshamekin&pg=PA38&printsec=frontcover

 

Balsley Taylor  Marie. “The Sachem and the Minister: Questions, Answers, and Genre Formation in the New England Missionary Project.” Early American Literature 55, no. 1 (2020): 21-46. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/sachem-minister-questions-answers-genre-formation/docview/2349423282/se-2?accountid=14696 .

 

Nanepashemet was a Patuxet sachim, or governor, who was associated with Cutshamekin,  a sachim of Massachusetts who was not interested in neither colonization nor Christianity (Marie 21-46, Cogley 38).

 

^[70]Cheever, The journal of the Pilgrims, 45.

Jacob Bailey Moore.  Lives of the governors of New Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay; from the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620, to the union of the two colonies in 1692.Boston: C.D. Strong,  1851, 67. https://archive.org/details/livesofgoverno1851moor/page/n199/mode/2up?q=Edward+Winslow

E.W. stands for the initials for Edward Winslow, who became the Governor of Massachusetts in 1633 (Cheever, 45). He was born in 1595 and maintained positive relations with Massasoit (Moore, 67).

 

^[71] Zychal, http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Genesis.pdf

Reference to Genesis 12:3. , 35:8., which read,”I will also bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”, and “Then Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and was buried beneath Bethel under an oak; and he called the name of it Allon Bacuth” (Zychal 28, 87).

 

^[72]Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Matthew.pdf 

. According to the original document, a reference to Matthew 2:19, which reads,”And when Herod was dead, behold, an Angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt” (Zychal 6).

 

^[73]Sacred Texts. https://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/geneva/psa105.htm . According to the original “Mourt’s Relation” document, a reference to the Geneva Bible’s version of Psalms 105:13, which reads, “He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes”.

^[74]  Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Hebrews_F.pdf

According to the original document, a reference to Hebrews 1:1, 2, which originally reads, “At sundry times and in divers manners, God spake in the old time to our fathers by the Prophets/  In these last days he hath spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath made heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Zychal 3).

^[75] Zychal, Geneva.

http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Joshua.pdf

According to the original document, a reference to Joshua 5:12: “ And the Manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the corn of the land, neither had the children of Israel Manna any more, but did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year” (Zychal 12).

 

^[76]. Zychal, Geneva.  http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/2_Corinthians.pdf

According to the original document, a reference to Corinthians 2-5, verses 1,2, and 3, which reads, “Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ,  by the will of God, and our brother Timothy, to the Church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the Saints, which are in all Achaia/ Grace be with you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ/  Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort” (Zychal 3).

 

^[77] Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Luke_F.pdf

According to the original document, a reference to Luke 19:20,which reads, “So the other came, and said, Lord, behold thy piece, which I have laid up in a napkin” (Zychal 104).

 

^[78] Zychal,Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Genesis.pdf

Reference to Genesis 13:6-12 and Genesis 34:21, as well as Genesis 40:21. Genesis 13:6-12 reads, “So that the land could not bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. Also there was debate between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle, and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. (And the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled at that time in the land.) Then said Abram unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me, neither between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we be brethren.  Is not the whole land before thee? Depart I pray thee from me; if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou go to the right hand, then I will take the left.So when Lot lifted up his eyes, he saw that all the plain of Jordan was watered everywhere; (for before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar.) Then Lot chose unto him all the plain of Jordan, and took his journey from the East; and they departed the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot abode in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent even unto Sodom”. Genesis 34:21 reads, “These men are peaceable with us; and that they may dwell in the land, and do their affairs therein (for behold, the land hath room enough for them.) Let us take their daughters to wives, and give them our daughters”. Genesis 40:21 reads, “ And he restored the chief butler unto his butlership, who gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand” (Zychal 30, 86, 101).

 

^[79]Zychal, Geneva.  http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Psalms2a.pdf

http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Psalm1a.pdf

A reference to Psalms 110.3 and Psalms 48.3, which read,”Thy people shall come willingly at the time of assembling thine army in holy beauty: the youth of thy womb shall be as the morning dew” and, “In the palaces thereof God is known for a refuge” (Zychal 43, 49).

 

^[80].Zychal,Geneva.http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Psalm1a.pdf

According to the original facsimile, a reference to Psalms 49:5, which reads,”Wherefore should I fear in the evil days, when iniquity shall compass me about, as at mine heels?” (Zychal 50).

 

^[81]Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/Matthew.pdf

According to the original document, a reference to Matthew 6:3-4, which originally reads, ” But when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth/ That thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father that seeth in secret, he will reward thee openly” (Zychal 14).

 

^[82]Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Amos.pdf

A reference to Amos 8.9, which reads, ” And in that day, saith the Lord God, I will even cause the sun to go down at noon: and I will darken the earth in the clear day” (Zychal 16).

 

^[83] Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/2_Chronicles.pdf According to the original document, a reference to the Book of Chronicles 2: 32.25, which reads, “But Hezekiah did not render according to the reward bestowed upon him: for his heart was lifted up, and wrath came upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem” (Zychal 75).

 

^[84] Zychal, Geneva. http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/Old_Testament/Genesis_F.pdf According to the original document, a reference to Genesis 13:9-10, which reads,”Is not the whole land before thee? Depart I pray thee from me; if thou wilt  take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou go to the right hand, then I will take the left. So when Lot lifted up his eyes, he saw that all the plain of Jordan was watered everywhere; (for before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was as the  garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar)” (Zychal 42).

^[85]Zychal, Geneva.  http://www.genevabible.org/files/Geneva_Bible/New_Testament/James.pdf According to the original document, a reference to James 3:6, which reads,”And the tongue is fire, yea, a world of wickedness; so is the tongue set among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell” (Zychal 6).

^[86] Kenneth Alan  Hovey. 1975. “The Theology of History in Of Plymouth Plantation and Its Predecessors.” Early American Literature 10 (1): 47–66. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=1975108249&site=ehost-live. .

Initials for Robert Cushman, the author of the  above “Answer to Objections, or “Reasons and considerations touching the lawfulness of removing out of England into the parts of America” part of “Mourt’s Relation”, wherein Cushman discusses the importance of following God’s will for the Puritans (Hovey, 47-66).