A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; Mourt's Relation: A Relation or Journal of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by Certain English adventurers both merchants and others

MOURT’S RELATION A RELATION OR JOURNAL of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by certain English adventurers both merchants and others.
Edited from the original printing of 1622, with introduction and notes, by Dwight B. Heath
CONSULTING EDITOR: HENRY BAMFORD PARKES
CORINTH BOOKS NEW YORK
DWIGHT B. HEATH has done extensive ethnographic field work among various Indian tribes in Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States, in the course of earning his A.B. at Harvard College and Ph.D. at Yale. As Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, one of his subsidiary interests is ethnohistory, analyzing historical sources from anthropological perspectives.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 62-17660 Copyright © 1963 Dwight B. Heath
THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE SERIES Published by Corinth Books, Inc. 32 West Eighth Street, New York 11, N. Y. Distributed by The Citadel Press 222 Park Avenue South, New York 3, N. Y.
Printed in U.S.A. by NOBLE OFFSET PRINTERS, INC. NEW YORK 3, N. Y.
Some have read the “Mayflower Compact” as the glorious cornerstone of American democracy, but it seems hardly revolutionary in context here where it first appeared in print. The fact that the Pilgrims enjoyed warm relations with some Indians is also much to their credit, but it may reflect the charity of the Indians at least as much as their own benevolence. Still one cannot belittle the achievement of these simple people. They consistently showed resourcefulness in coping with new problems, and courage in the face of danger. The greatest glory of the Pilgrims may well have been the ardent faith and dogged persistence which saw them through great tragedy.
Although there is little talk of tragedy in this volume, we know that more than half of the original party died during the first year at Plymouth. Considering their primitive living conditions, it is a wonder that so many did survive the “general sickness” while wading to and from the shallop, and working hard to develop new skills in the harsh and alien environment of a strenuous New England winter. Another tragedy is only presaged here, in the white man’s facile rationalization of his usurpation of lands which had long been used by Indians. Within the span of a single lifetime, the indigenous peoples were dispossessed, and their way of life did not long survive after the mutually debilitating “King Philip’s War.” The tragedy and the glory of Pilgrims and Indians alike emerge in a careful reading of this journal.