Plymouth Colony: Narratives of English Settlement and Native Resistance from the Mayflower to King Philip's War (LOA #337)

by Lisa Brooks (Editor), Kelly Wisecup (Editor)

Overview

Four centuries after the Mayflower's arrival, a landmark collection of firsthand accounts charting the history of the English newcomers and their fateful encounters with the region's Native peoples

For centuries the story of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower has been told and retold—the landing at Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving, and the decades that followed, as the colonists struggled to build an enduring and righteous community in the New World wilderness. But the place where the Plymouth colonists settled was no wilderness: it was Patuxet, in the ancestral homeland of the Wampanoag people, a long-inhabited region of fruitful and sustainable agriculture and well-traveled trade routes, a civilization with deep historical memories and cultural traditions. And while many Americans have sought comfort in the reassuring story of peaceful cross-cultural relations embodied in the myth of the first Thanksgiving, far fewer are aware of the complex history of diplomacy, exchange, and conflict between the Plymouth colonists and Native peoples. Now, Plymouth Colony brings together for the first time fascinating first-hand narratives written by English settlers—Mourt's Relation, the classic account of the colony's first year; Governor William Bradford's masterful Of Plimouth Plantation; Edward Winslow's Good News from New England; the heterodox Thomas Morton's irreverent challenge to Puritanism, New English Canaan; and Mary Rowlandson's landmark "captivity narrative" The Sovereignty and Goodness of God—with a selection of carefully chosen documents (deeds, patents, letters, speeches) that illuminate the intricacies of Anglo-Native encounters, the complex role of Christian Indians, and the legacy of Massasoit, Weetamoo, Metacom ("King Philip"), and other Wampanoag leaders who faced the ongoing incursion into their lands of settlers from across the sea. The interactions of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag culminated in the horrors of King Philip's War, a conflict that may have killed seven percent of the total population, Anglo and Native, of New England. While the war led to the end of Plymouth's existence as a separate colony in 1692, it did not extinguish the Wampanoag people, who still live in their ancestral homeland in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781598536737
Publisher:	Library of America
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Pages:	1300
Sales rank:	631,856
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Lisa Brooks, Professor of English and American Studies, Amherst College, is the author of The Common Pot: The Recovery of Native Space in the Northeast (2008) and Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War (2018), which won the Bancroft Prize.


Kelly Wisecup, Associate Professor of English at Northwestern University, is the author of Medical Encounters: Knowledge and Identity in Early American Literatures (2013) and editor of "Good News from New England" by Edward Winslow: A Scholarly Edition (2014).

Table of Contents

Introduction Lisa Brooks Kelly Wisecup xv

Voyages and Captivities

James Rosier: A True Relation

A Voyage to the Wabanaki Homelands: 1605 3

Samuel de Champlain: Chart of Port Saint Louis 35

A Map of Patuxet: 1605

Captain John Smith: A Description of New England

A Voyage to "New England": 1614 37

Thomas Dermer to Samuel Purchas

The Effects of an Epidemic: 1619 90

Ferdinando Gorges: from A Briefe Narration

Native Captives and Colonial Ventures: 1605-20 96

Plymouth Plantation in Patuxet

Edward Winslow and William Bradford: A Relation or Journall

Founding Plymouth Colony: 1620-21 113

Edward Winslow: Good News from New England

The Colonists and the Native Peoples: 1621-23 183

Phenehas Pratt: A Declaration of the Affairs

Fleeing the Wessagusset Settlement: 1623 244

William Bradford: Of Plimoth Plantation

A History of Plymouth Colony: 1620-46 255

Transnational Diplomacy: Councils and Deeds between Indigenous Leaders and Settlers from Plymouth Colony

Seekonk Deed, 1642 607

Bridgewater Deed, 1649 609

Nonaquaket Deed, 1651 612

"Old Comers" Deeds, 1639-1652 615

Old Dartmouth Deed, 1652 621

Sowams Deed, 1653 622

Wamsutta's Mortgage, 1657 626

Freemen's Deeds, 1659 627

Wamsutta's Protests Over Cattle, 1659-1660 629

Metacom to Governor Thomas Prence, date unknown 632

Exchange Between Awashonks and Governor Thomas Prence, 1671 632

Writings about the Broader Wampanoag and Massachusett Homelands

William Wood: from New England's Prospect

The Landscape and the Native Peoples: 1634 639

Thomas Morton: New English Canaan

An Unorthodox View of Plymouth Colony: 1637 655

Experience Mayhew: from Indian Converts

Christian Wampanoags on Martha's Vineyard: 1632-1712 788

Caleb Cheeshateaumuck to "Honoratissimi Benefactores"

A Wampanoag Scholar Writes to his Benefactors: 1663 804

Thomas Cooper: Traditional Story from Martha's Vineyard 808

Helen Attaquin: How Martha's Vineyard Came to Be 810

Daniel Gookin: from Historical Collections of the Indians in New England

A Colonial Magistrate's View of Native Peoples: 1674 813

King Philip's War or the First Indian War

John Easton: A Relacion of the Indyan Warre

The Origins and Course of the War: January 1675-February 1676 865

John Easton to Josiah Winslow

An Attempt to Protect Wampanoag Lands: May 1675 875

John Brown to Josiah Winslow

Fears of an Indian Uprising: June 1675 878

Thomas Church and Benjamin Church: from Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War (I)

Preparing for Conflict: June 1675 881

Josiah Winslow to Weetamoo and Ben, June 15, 1675

A Message to the Saunkskwa of Pocasset 887

Roger Williams to John Winthrop, Jr., June 25 and 27, 1675

Meeting with Narragansett Leaders 889

John Freeman to Josiah Winslow, July 3, 1675

The Wampanoag Attack on Taunton 895

Thomas Church and Benjamin Church: from Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War (II)

Campaigning against the Wampanoag: Summer 1675 897

William Bradford to John Cotton

Fighting in the Pocasset Swamp: July 1675 906

Testimony of Peter, George, and David

Fleeing from the English: Summer 1675 909

Josiah Winslow and Thomas Hinckley: A Brief Narrative of the Beginning and Progress of the Present Trouble

An Appeal to the United Colonies: September 1675 914

Statement by the Commissioners of the United Colonies

The United Colonies Respond: September 1675 919

Roger Williams to John Leverett, October 11, 1675

A Meeting with Canonchet 921

Examination and Relation of James Quananopohit

A Christian Massachusetts Spy Mission: January 1676 925

Mary Rowlandson: The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

A Colonist's Captivity: February-May 1676 935

Note attributed to James Printer

A Nipmuc Warning to the Colonists: February 1676 986

Thomas Church and Benjamin Church: from Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's War (III)

Hunting Metacom: August 1676 988

Edward Rawson to Josiah Winslow, August 28, 1676

The War Continues 994

Petition of William Wannukhow, Joseph Wannukhow, and John Appamatahqeen

A Plea for Mercy: September 1676 996

Record of a Court Martial Held at Newport

Trying Narragansett Prisoners: August 1676 999

Deeds for Conquered Wampanoag Lands, 1676-1680 1008

Moxus and Other Wabanaki Leaders to John Leverett

War in the Wabanaki Homelands: July 1677 1022

Wampanoag Continuance

William Apess: from Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts

The Struggle for Wampanoag Rights: 1835 1027

William Apess: Eulogy on King Philip

A Tribute to Metacom: 1836 1050

Wamsutta Frank James: Speech at the First National Day of Mourning

A Wampanoag Man's Protest: 1970 1089

Linda Coombs: The Audacity of Assumption

A Native Perspective on Colonization: 2020 1094

Chronology 1105

Note on the Texts 1129

Notes 1140

Index 1229