No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Earliest Minor Accounts of Plymouth Plantation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Extract
The story of the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 and of the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth has been told again and again, and in this year of the tercentenary celebration will be repeated in still further varying forms; but we are certain that it will never be more graphically narrated than by the Pilgrims themselves and their friends during the twenties, thirties, and forties of the seventeenth century.
In this paper I do not intend to venture to give any new version of that narrative. It is my purpose rather to recall certain phases of the story as they appear in the vigorous and terse English of the earliest accounts, and to note especially also the interesting archæological information concerning the Indians of New England which they furnish.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1920
References
1 I refer to the word Angoum or Anguum, which is here shown to stand for Anquam (Annisquam) on Cape Ann, and not for Agawam (Ipswich), as heretofore supposed.
2 Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918.
3 Mr. Worthington C. Ford reproduces this document in full in his Massachusetts Historical Society edition of Bradford's History (I, 268, 269), but fails to draw the obvious conclusion, and (I, 177, note 6) speaks of “Mourt” and of the “authors of the Relation.”
4 Consequently, a historical blunder has been made in calling this work Mourt's Relation. In the first place, Mourt is a ghost-name, since it never existed except by mistake. In the original printed edition the name stands as “Mourt.”, the period at the end naturally indicating an abbreviation by suspension, as well as the conclusion of the preface. The name “Mourton,” “Murton,” or “Morton” (compare the similar phonetic spellings Crumwell and Cromwell) is manifestly intended, but there is nothing to prove that George Morton wrote much more than the preface. In the second place, according to the printed title-page, the work known as Mourt's Relation contains not one Relation but two Relations, the second chiefly composed, it would appear, of letters or parts of letters written by Edward Winslow. In the third place, we have the best of reasons, both from internal evidence and from the definite statement in the complaint just mentioned, that the first Relation was written by Governor Bradford, or perhaps we might say more accurately, was compiled by him from his own observations and possibly the narrative of some eye-witness of occasional events not noted by himself.
5 S. P. Colonial, Vol. V, No. 112, Arber, E., Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1897, pp. 506, 507.Google Scholar
6 Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1897, p. 416, note. If Winslow, or any other Pilgrim besides Bradford, had been the author, he would have written “Master William Bradford,” not simply “William Bradford.”
7 Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, p. 507, note. Winslow's letter [the second so-called Relation] and Bradford's Relation were no doubt both published without the consent of their respective authors, but that fact would not prove that these were not the genuine and original accounts.
8 This rare and valuable work as published bore the following tide: A | RELATION OR | Iournall of the beginning and proceedings | of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in NEW | ENGLAND, by certaine English Aduenturers both | Merchants and others. | With their difficult passage, their safe ariual, their | ioyfull building of, and comfortable planting them- | selues in the now well defended Towne | of NEW PLIMOTH. | … London, 1622, 4°.
There is evidence in the work as printed to show that Winslow's letters were written in the secretarial hand of the period. Various misreadings by the compositor make this point clear. A statement in Robert Cushman's preface suggests that Bradford may have inserted in his narrative reports by others of certain events, not witnessed by himself.
9 See his writings entitled The Red-Paint People of Maine, 1913; The Problem of the Red-Paint People, Washington, 1916Google Scholar; and Prehistoric Cultures in the State of Maine, Washington, D.C., 1917.Google Scholar
10 The punctuation and capitalization of the citations, for convenience in reading, have been to some extent normalized.
11 Pp. 1–4.
12 Dr. Dexter thinks these graves were “somewhere in what is now the village of Great Hollow.”
13 Pp. 5–8.
14 That is, a good many faire eares of Corn.
15 Pp. 9–12.
16 Hitherto Angoum or Anguum has been interpreted to mean Ipswich, but Ipswich can hardly be said to have an excellent harbor for ships. Furthermore, it now becomes manifest from the recently discovered letters of John Pory, that Angoum or Anguum does not stand for Agawam at all, but for “Anquam, scituate within Cape Anna, aboute 40 leagues from Plimouth,” evidently now known as Annisquam.
17 P. 14.
18 Dr.Dexter, H. M. (Mourt's Relation, Boston, 1865, note 175) suggests “in the direction of Enoch's Rock and Nauset light.”Google Scholar
19 Pp. 15–18.
20 A Relation, 1622, p. 58 (in the second so-called Relation which was not written by Bradford but which consists of several sections probably for the most part written by Winslow). In this connection we will add the following instructive passage from Winslow's Good Newes, p. 58, which shows how the sachems were buried:
“When they bury the dead, they sow vp the corps in a mat and so put it in the earth. If the party bee a Sachim, they cover him with many curious mats, and bury all his riches with him, and inclose the graue with a pale. If it bee a childe, the father will also put his owne most speciall iewels and ornaments in the earth with it.… If it be the man or woman of the house, they will pull downe the mattes and leaue the frame standing, and burie them in or neere the same, and either remoue their dwelling or giue ouer house-keeping.”
21 Bradford, Relation, pp. 21–22.
22 Printed text, “Othus.” Dr. Dexter suggested the reading, clams, as is certainly correct. This part of the MS., therefore was manifestly written in the secretarial or decadent Court Hand of the period, which was in this case misread by the compositor.
23 Relation, p. 58 (second Relation, written not by Bradford but evidently by Winslow).
24 That is, Patuxet or Plymouth.
25 Bradford, Relation, p. 23.
26 Ibid., pp. 24, 25.
27 Ibid., pp. 26, 27.
28 Ibid., p. 29.
29 Bradford, Relation, pp. 31, 32.
30 Relation, pp. 60. 61 (section by Edward Winslow).
31 Edward Winslow, Good Newes, 1624, p. 4.
32 Ibid., pp. 39, 40.
33 Advertisements, London, 1631, pp. 18, 19.Google Scholar
34 John Pory says that the palisade about the plantation in 1622 was “2700 foote in compasse” (John Pory's Lost Description, 1918, p. 42).
35 Text, meu.
36 Wood, William, New Englands Prospect, London, 1636, p. 11.Google Scholar
37 One may most conveniently consult the so-called Codex Nuttall for comparison. Here, together with an excellent facsimile of the codex, one finds discriminating suggestions by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall upon the significance of dress and colors among the Aztecs.
38 The word “I” suggests that one person wrote this narrative, and the word “Squanto,” instead of Tisquantum. a line or two below indicates that that person was William Bradford.
39 Bradford, Relation, pp. 35–38.
40 Probably not as they liked, but according to their rank or standing in the tribe. Bradford, Relation, p. 34.
41 Relation, pp. 44–46 (section by Winslow).
42 By this last statement it might appear that the Indians worshipped the sun under this name; but Winslow says that no man had ever seen Kiehtan.
43 Edward Winslow, Good Newes, pp. 52, 53.
44 Morton, Thomas, New English Canaan, Amsterdam, 1637, pp. 45–50.Google Scholar
45 Edward Winslow, Good Newes, p. 55.
46 One is reminded of the frequent references by classical authors to the fact that Kronos or Saturn, the reputed father of Zeus or Jupiter, ruled in the West; and that he is said to have required human sacrifices in his worship.