EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Background
The coming of the Pilgrims and their establishment of the Plymouth Plantation is one of the great adventures in the American experience. This book is the earliest published account of that adventure, a day-by-day journal written in a simple forceful manner by men who took part in it. The story is familiar[1]—deceptively familiar, in that portions of it have undergone a complex process of transformation and emerge as modern myths in our national folklore. Still it is a story full of glory, and of tragedy, which deserves a wider public.
The glory, as usual, exists mostly in retrospect. The Separatists had already shown the courage of their convictions in defying both Church and State by worshiping in their own way in England. They had finally been driven to take refuge in Holland, the only European nation where they could then enjoy complete religious tolerance. After twelve years of poverty and social isolation in Amsterdam and Leyden, the self-styled “Saints”[2] sought the New World largely as a land of economic opportunity where they hoped to start afresh. Similar motives undoubtedly moved the “Strangers,”[3] the motley group of fellow travelers who joined the party at Plymouth, England, and doubled their numbers. The “Strangers” were loyal to the Church of England, as were the few indentured servants and hired men, who soon comprised a dissident faction. They cared no more for freedom of conscience than did the “merchant adventurers,” a joint stock company of about seventy London businessmen who sponsored the plantation only as a commercial venture likely to yield high profits.
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.
About the Book
Any good book must mean many things to many readers, and this journal offers more than just reflections of past glories and intimations of great tragedy. It is a primary source for American history in that critical period when a beach-head of Anglo culture was established in the New World. In this volume are the earliest accounts of the “Mayflower Compact,” the establishment of a community which has become focal in our national heritage, the signing of this country’s first mutual security pact, and the famous first Thanksgiving. There is no question of the book’s essential authenticity, and most of it has the flavor of having been written on the spot at the time.
This sense of immediacy also enhances the value of the journal as a well written story of true adventure. The protagonists quietly suppressed an impending mutiny, even before they landed. While exploring the unknown wastes of Cape Cod, they conducted archeological excavations before they had a roof over their heads. They were attacked by Indians, and yet persisted, built their homes in a foreign land, and soon traveled freely among the natives. This is high adventure indeed!
Political implications are of some importance too. The passengers on the Mayflower are famous for their founding of “a civil body politic ... to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, [and] offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony.” Within less than a week of their first conversation with an Indian, the Pilgrims signed an enduring peace treaty with Massasoit, a leader of the neighboring Wampanoags. A year later, they enjoyed trading relations and military alliance with many other Indian groups.
The journal may also be viewed as a valuable ethnographic document. Although previous sporadic contacts by explorers and traders had yielded some impressionistic descriptions, the Pilgrims were the first Europeans to be in close and sustained contact with the Indians of southern New England. At first they expected only hostility from the “savages,” but it was not long before they found valuable helpers in Squanto and Samoset, both of whom had learned already some English when they were kidnapped and sold as slaves by English traders. The Pilgrims were obliged to work out a modus vivendi with these “tall and proper men” whose dress seemed outlandish, whose foods were strange, and whose customs were curious enough to deserve description. We are indebted to the authors of this journal for a wealth of information about such patterns during the brief period before they disappeared forever. There are many aspects of the native ways of life of which the Pilgrims were unaware, and others which they treated with only tantalizing brevity, but a wealth of irreplaceable ethnographic data in this volume serves to illuminate our fragmentary understanding of coastal Algonquian cultures.
Just as we can learn much about the Indians from this book, we can also gain rich insights into the character of the Pilgrims themselves. Mention of the threat of mutiny explodes the hoary myth of dedicated unity of purpose among all members of the party. The bravery of the Pilgrims emerges in bold relief, as does their readiness to rob the graves of Indians. In light of this text, their industriousness cannot be doubted. Flashes of humor occur, and their strong sense of being a “chosen people” is clearly manifest in recurrent references to a felicitous “divine providence.”
“Human interest” is not lacking either. We can imagine the chagrin of William Bradford unwittingly caught up in a deer snare, just as we can sympathize with the consternation created when a prankish boy fired his father’s musket in a ship’s cabin where open kegs of gunpowder lay about. It is easy to feel for the “old [Indian] woman whom we judged to be no less than a hundred years old” who wept because “she was deprived of the comfort of her children in her old age” when Capt. Hunt kidnapped her three sons. And how his playmates must have envied the boy who was lost on Cape Cod, and was returned by the Nauset Indians, “behung with beads”!
Within this brief but diverse book there is also a pervasive mystery, for no one knows who wrote it. The book has become known as Mourt’s Relation, but it is not the unitary effort of a single man. Five of the ten “chapters” have bylines, and Mourt’s contribution is almost the briefest of the ten. The mystery deepens when we confess not knowing much about the man named Mourt. Perhaps the most fruitful way to approach the problem is through a discussion of the several components of the book.
It opens with a dedicatory letter of transmittal “To his much respected friend....” This is a form of profuse and discursive acknowledgment typical of the time. It seems to have been appended by an associate of the settlers, whose concern was “... but the recommendation of the relation itself,” to a distinguished member of the “merchant adventurers” who had sponsored the Mayflower voyage. The dedication is signed R.G., which I assume to be a misprint for the initials of Robert Cushman. The only member of the party at Plymouth with initials R.G. was Richard Gardiner, an undistinguished “Stranger” who stayed only briefly and took little part in the venture. The fact that misprints are frequent throughout the rest of the book suggests the possibility of reference to Cushman, who is a person most likely to have drafted such a letter. As a deacon of the Leyden congregation who also served as their business agent, he was instrumental in securing English permission for removal to the New World, and, after having had to turn back on the unseaworthy Speedwell, he continued negotiations with the “merchant adventurers” while the Mayflower sailed on to Plymouth. Visiting the plantation on the second ship, Fortune, he delivered the patent which confirmed their legal right to settle there, together with a stringent contract from the sponsors, which he finally induced the Pilgrims to sign, after preaching a pointed sermon on “The Dangers of Self-Love.” The manuscript of the relations must have been carried back to England with him on the Fortune in December of 1621.
Appended at the end of the volume is another chapter which I attribute to Cushman. A long exposition of “Reasons and considerations touching the lawfulness of removing out of England into the parts of America,” signed R.C., is a thinly veiled promotional tract organized like a sermon, which cites Scripture to justify the plantation and to persuade others to follow.
Among the prefatory letters is one containing “Certain useful advertisements ...” and signed I.R.. We are told that this letter of advice concerning man’s proper relation with God and with his fellow men was “... written by a discreet friend unto the planters in New England, at their first setting sail from Southampton.”[4] This “unfeigned well-willer” is most likely John Robinson, pastor of the expatriate Separatist congregation in Leyden, and hence understandably solicitous for the welfare of the Pilgrims, and also in a position to proffer such counsel. The letter may have been appended to this book especially to serve as a model of morality for those “Strangers” who might hopefully be induced to emigrate and join the party at Plymouth.
Five “relations” constitute the major portion of the book, and none of these is signed. The first and longest, on “The proceedings of the plantation ...,” begins with the departure from Plymouth, England, and recounts events of the next six months, including the voyage, the signing of the “compact,” the several “discoveries,” the choice of a site and the building there, as well as early contacts with the Indians, culminating in the signing of a peace treaty with Massasoit. A second deals with “A journey to Pokanoket ...” and describes further friendly dealings with the Wampanoag Indians. The next treats “A voyage ... to the Kingdom of Nauset, to seek a boy that had lost himself in the woods....” An account of “A journey to Nemasket ...” shows how the Pilgrims sought to defend their Indian allies against the hostile Narragansets, and “A relation of our voyage to the Massachusets ...” describes the expansion of trade relations to the north.
According to the dedicatory letter, these vivid reports were “... writ by the several actors themselves, after their plain and rude manner.” It is almost certain that the principal author was Edward Winslow, although it is generally believed that William Bradford also had a hand in the effort. Both of these men were among the few who were prominent in the affairs of the plantation, and they two are the only ones of the first party who obviously enjoyed writing. Winslow’s Good News from New England (London, 1624), continued the narrative of the plantation from the time when this volume left off, and is markedly similar in style. In his Good News ..., Winslow mentions descriptions of aspects of Indian culture which were prepared by “... myself and others, in former letters, (which came to the press against my will and knowledge) ...”; I know of no publication other than Mourt’s Relation to which this could refer. Bradford’s manuscript history Of Plymouth Plantation (first published in Boston, 1856) has become the principal source on the Pilgrim experience, although he could hardly be said to claim priority when he “... first began these scribbled writings (which was about the year 1630 and so pieced up at times of leisure afterward).” His treatment of the first year at Plymouth is a curious combination, consisting largely of passages identical with those in Mourt’s Relation, together with discursive classical allusions and philosophic ruminations. Bradford’s style generally tends to be more analytic than descriptive, and the specificity of detail which makes this text such a rich source material for the historian and ethnographer rarely occurs elsewhere in Bradford’s work. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that he may have incorporated in his manuscript the work of others as it had appeared in Mourt’s Relation; he freely adopted material from other sources.
The ensuing “Letter sent from New England ... setting forth ... the worth of that plantation ...,” follows the five narrative relations closely in style, and is signed by E.W.. It is almost certainly Winslow who here sounds vaguely like a twentieth-century Florida real estate agent when he describes the first Thanksgiving as indicating the richness of the land: “I never in my life remember a more seasonable year than we have here enjoyed and if we have once but kine, horses, and sheep, I make no question but men might live as contented here as in any part of the world.” He also includes some very specific suggestions concerning the practical needs of those who might choose to come.
And what was Mourt’s contribution to the book which has been linked with his name by historians, librarians, and bibliographers since Prince[5] first invented the convenient title, Mourt’s Relation, as a substitute for the cumbersome original? A brief foreword, or introduction, “To the reader,” is all that we must credit to the signer, one G. Mourt. It may have been he who was responsible for bringing to press this collection of papers, “... hoping of a cheerful proceeding, both of adventurers and planters.” He explicitly denied authorship of the narratives: “These relations coming to my hand from my both known and faithful friends, on whose writings I do much rely, I thought it not amiss to make them more general....” But scholars still do not know who he was!
It is suggested that he had at some time been associated with the authors of the relations, whom he called “my both known and faithful friends.” It is also suggested that he had long hoped to emigrate to the New World, “... as myself then much desired, and shortly hope to effect, if the Lord will, the putting to of my shoulder in this hopeful business.” These criteria clearly apply to Robert Cushman, who, as we have seen, was a person who might appropriately have introduced such a book.
The specifications also apply to another member of the Leyden congregation who was active in negotiating with the “merchant adventurers” until he did sail to Plymouth, on the first ship bound for the plantation after the book was printed. If no more than the initials had been given in the signature to the introduction—as was the case in every other portion of the volume—there would be little hesitation to identify the author as George Morton.
As it is, however, one must attempt to account for the discrepancy in name if he suggests that it may have been Morton who wrote it. It is easy to suggest that the use of “Mourt” for “Morton” could have been merely another of the many misprints in the book. At least as plausible, however, is the suggestion that it may have been a pseudonym. It is not difficult to imagine why there might have been some attempt to conceal the fact if Morton had been intimately involved in the preparation and promulgation of the book. A printer might have been reluctant to “publish” a document written by Separatists unless it carried an introduction by an apparently disinterested party. In a period of strict royal control of the press in England, William Brewster of the Leyden congregation had already incurred the wrath of King James by printing an outspoken opposition tract, Perth Assembly (Leyden, 1619), so that any writings by his friends and associates might logically also be suspect. Furthermore, the fact that Mourt’s Relation is essentially a promotional effort is clearly implied in the phrasing of the original title, describing the “safe arrival” of the “English planters,” and “their joyful building of, and comfortable planting themselves in the now well defended town of New Plymouth.” In such an effort to excite more prospective settlers, it would have been sound public relations to minimize the degree of identification between the plantation and the “Saints,” who were popularly scorned as heretics and criminals.
Another possibility must be mentioned. I am only half-joking when I suggest that at least this portion of Mourt’s Relation may actually have been written by someone named G. Mourt, of whom we know nothing else. One of the delights of historical research is the fact that one always raises more questions than he can answer. The mystery remains.
Mourt’s Relation is clearly a book which offers different meanings to every reader. I hope that this edition may reach a broad audience and increase popular understanding of a neglected portion of the American experience.
A Note on This Edition
My intention is to provide the contemporary reader with an appreciation of this exciting book as it was received by an eager and curious public when it was first published almost three and a half centuries ago. In keeping with this aim, the entire text is included here, in the order of the original.[6] So that the authors may speak forcefully and directly to the reader of today, I have introduced only uniform spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing, structural niceties which were of no concern to authors or printers until late in the eighteenth century. The eloquent English language of the period is familiar to us all, through the King James version of the Bible or the works of Shakespeare, and I have scrupulously left each word intact. The text, then, is reproduced verbatim, including marginalia, chapter headings, and running heads, altered only by the use of modern orthography for the sake of clarity.
I have deliberately avoided distracting the reader from the original text, by introducing a minimum of footnotes. Some annotation seems indispensable for understanding the work of another age, but this edition does not bear the tender burden of scholarly disquisition. Modern equivalents are given for archaic words and place-names, and I have offered brief explanations of a few outdated allusions. Dates are retained as in the original, so that ten days must be added to any date given in the text in order to fit it into the modern Gregorian calendar, which was not adopted by England and her colonies until 1752.
In the exacting task of collating this text with the original, I was helped by my friend and colleague, Anna Mae Cooper. We worked in the John Carter Brown Library where Thomas R. Adams kindly put excellent facilities at our disposal, including the library’s copy of the first edition of the book, as well as the Smith and Champlain maps. Lucille Hanna first introduced me to the excitement of history, and J. L. Giddings pointed out the ethnographic value of Mourt’s Relation. Miss Rose T. Briggs, Director of Pilgrim Hall, shared her enthusiasm and broad knowledge of the Pilgrims. E. Lawrence Couter, David Freeman, Arthur G. Pyle, Muriel Stefani, and the entire staff of Plimoth Plantation were helpful in many ways, and the corporation generously provided the photographs. The title page, ornamental letters and top-page designs are reproduced from a copy of the original, now in possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society. Mrs. N. Mac Donald typed from a difficult manuscript.
An adventure such as this rightfully belongs to all who would chase rainbows!
DWIGHT B. HEATH
Brown University
Providence, R. I.