August 31

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (2006)
By Nathaniel Philbrick

Living in southern New England, one is aware of many references to American history going all the way back to the pilgrims.  Buried in the Little Neck cemetery in nearby Riverside, for example, are Elizabeth Howland, a Mayflower passenger, and Thomas Willett, the first mayor of New York City back in the 1660s.

Nathaniel Philbrick has written a very good historical documentary on the pilgrims.  Their initial voyage was delayed several months, causing them to cross the Atlantic into the late fall months, and as a result half of their small number died of illness.  Once in New England, the pilgrims owed much of their survival to Squanto, a native American of the Patuxet tribe, who had been kidnapped a few years earlier by an English explorer, and sold into slavery in Spain.   Squanto managed to escape and returned to his home, having learned some English in the process.  During Squanto's absence, nearly all of his tribe had succumbed to an epidemic, reducing the native American population in the area, and rendering Squanto's cooperation with the pilgrims helpful to both sides.

Initially, the pilgrims worked tirelessly to establish good relations with the local 'Indians' and their leader Massasoit, whose help they needed to survive in their new land.   The next generation of Europeans coming to the new world, however, had lived there long enough to have become self-sufficient and, as a result, were not as committed to good relations, alienating the Indians and resulting in a string of horrible wars and near annihilation.

While Mayflower is hardly the familiar story of the first Thanksgiving, it's an important lesson in our nation's history, and explains why there is a forever stain on the newcomers who stole the land from its original peoples.