Career has focused on americas relationship with the sea in a aing of notable books, from. Y offshore to abrams eyes second, comprehensive in cover not just a voyage or the first war, all of which have recently been done, but in covering the entire story, allowing us, the readers, to enjoy the true benefits of history, which is the scope, to follow consequences of actions through generations and narratives because what nat does best is to tell a story an adventure story, but in many ways, and unexpected adventure story. Look at the cover. I, of course, love it because it is our painting. The mayflower on her arrival. But what i really love is that even though the book is entitled the mayflower, this cover does not put the mayflower front and center. It does not show a ship tossed by waves. That would be the expected adventure story. Instead, it focuses on this little group of pilgrims leading a ship that has brought them through storms and peril, headed off toward shore on the verge of starting new lives, and its there in the territory of these wideopen territories that the Real Adventure story begins. An adult adventure story dealing with mature themes like the nature of leadership, the with ashment of respect widely varying culture, and then the disintegration of that respect. This, of course, is why the pilgrims are relevant. Its why they matter. Its why this book matters. Because the mayflower tells the story of people facing difficult times, people facing difficult choices without knowing how the story would end. Im very pleased to introduce our author, not philbrick, a man has oncegh his book again started the conversation about the choices that were made by those 17thcentury voices, choices that affect us even now, living in a nation and a world that those mayflower pilgrims could not even begin to imagine. Nat philbrick. [applause] mr. Philbrick thank you. It is a true pleasure to return to plymouth and particularly pilgrim hall. It has been a very interesting month and a half going around the country talking about the book, but it really does seem like a homecoming to be not only by therim hall, but painting. For me, the thing about the painting is, as it is on the doesnt that look a lot like a whaleboat with that guy up front . For me, it was a great continuity. Like a lot of americans, i first learned about the pilgrims in elementary school. I think it was third grade, and it was thanksgiving time, and it the pilgrim unit. The teacher divided us in half, half of us indians, half of us pilgrims i wanted to be an indian, but she made me a pilgrim and we learned about the story of how in 1620, the mayflower sailed across the ocean, came to cape cod and then plymouth harbor, came to the were greeted by the native americans, and a year later celebrated the first thanksgiving. That was pretty much all i would learn about the pilgrims throughout my education, not only in high school but in college. About 20 years ago, i moved to nantucket island, and i became fascinated with the place. Having grown up in the Maritime Center of the world, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, i was a little overwhelmed having all this water around, and i was also overwhelmed because one of my favorite books in the world was moby dick, and i had stepped into the pages of my favorite novel. The more i learned about it, the more i realized that if i was ever going to write a book about the history of nantucket, i had to put it in the context of new england. If i was going to do that, i had to begin with the pilgrims, that story i assumed i already knew. I began to look into 17thcentury new england, and the more i looked into the story, the more almost indignant i became because what i learned in third grade did not do justice to the complexity and the real relevance of what happened in 17thcentury new england because the story of the pilgrims does not begin with the first thanksgiving. That is just the beginning of an intergenerational story that is truly epic in scope because yes, there was the first thanksgiving, and for the next 54 years, there was a remarkable thing in Plymouth Colony there was peaceful coexistence between the indians and the english in plymouth, and given the subsequent history of america, that is truly remarkable. But in 1675, 55 years after the sailing of the main power, war came to Plymouth Colony. The the sachem of wampanoags who agree the led his peopleon in a war against the sons and grandsons of the pilgrims, known today as king philips war. It is a conflict about which Many Americans know almost nothing. For me, it is what makes the story of the pilgrims all the more relevant. In just 14 months, what had been this remarkable bicultural total saw a war of annihilation in which there were military defeats and victories, and it looked like the english might be driven to the sea during the first year of the conflict. Almost half the towns of new england were burned and abandoned. There was true fear the english would be driven to the sea, but the war became a war not of military victories and defeats, but a war of attrition. In the spring of 1676, the indians were unable to plant their corn crops. In that summer, they began to starve. The resistance collapsed, and the english, who had the mother country to provide them with provisions and weapons, were able to outlast, and then philip was taken and killed, thus ending king philips war. This was no victory for the english because for decades to come, they would be paying for this conflict. The war was by no means over for the next century. There would be indian conflict after indian conflict throughout new england. Worst of all, from the standpoint of Plymouth Colony, soon after, it would be absorbed by massachusetts bay. In the years after the war, new england, which had been remarkably independent from the mother country throughout the first halfcentury of the 17th century there would be a royal governing royal governor, and that would really end imperial europe because by fighting this war with the native americans that had stood by their side for so long, the children and grandchildren had really destroyed their forefathers way of life. When you take the ark of the story from the mayflower to king philips war, you begin to see that you know, when i was a teenager in my pinnacle teenage years in the 1960s and 1970s, i began to look at the pilgrims as irrelevant to america, as a kind of stereotype with buckles on their shoes that people trotted out for thanksgiving. This is not the case. Context,put it in those first 56 years, the story is vital to showing what america would become. American history begins in the popular view with the voyage of the mayflower, but then there really is not much until 150 years later with the american revolution, the founding fathers. Well before the founding fathers, there were things happening that would determine things happening. For whatever reason, the pilgrims had become part of the founding myth of america. We need a beginning, and i think we owe it to ourselves to honor that beginning and see it as it was rather than terms of the legends and myths that have been passed to us from another age. I would like to begin by reading reflections from my book from the first chapter. The first chapter is entitled they knew they were pilgrims, and this is a quote from william greatrd in one of the books of American History and literature. Bradford was the true rock upon which Plymouth Colony would be built. Without his leadership, the settlement would never have been a success. The pilgrims never referred to themselves as the pilgrims. This comes from a phrase bradford uses of plymouth plantation, and it is as good a term as any to refer to them, i think, given the complexity of what was beneath that label. For 65 days, the mayflower had blundered her way through storms and headwinds. Her bottom, a shaggy pelt of seaweed and barnacles, her leaky deck leaking water onto the passengers heads. There were 104 passengers if you count the two dogs. I was recently contacted by a reader who was a massive owner who said they had to bring a towel wherever they take the dog, and when she read the opening of mayflower, she felt a vital connection to the pilgrims and Plymouth Colony. Most of their provisions and equipment were beneath them in a whole, the primary storage vessel beneath them in the whohull. Between decks was more of a crawlspace than a place to live, made even more claustrophobic by the passengers attempts to provide themselves with some privacy. A series of thinwhile cabins had been built, creating a cabin creating a war and of rooms a series of thinwalled cabins had been built, creating en of rooms. They were nearly 10 weeks into a voice that was supposed to be completed during the balmy days of summer. They had started late. It was now november and winter was coming on. They had long since run out of firewood and were reaching the slimy bottoms of their water cakes. Of even greater concern, they were down to their last kegs of beer. Due to the notoriously bad quality of Drinking Water beer was considered essential to a healthy diet. Sure enough, with the rationing , bleeding gums, loosening teeth, and owl smellingbreath foul breath, in the times of scurvy. If they did not reach land soon, many more would follow. They had set sail with three pregnant mothers. These are the true heroes of the mayflower. Elizabeth had given birth to a son, appropriately named us, and susanna and mary were well along in their pregnancies. A wave exploded on the old ships topside, straining a structural timber until it cracked like a chicken bone. The mayflowers master had considered turning back to england, but jones had to give his passengers their due. They knew next to nothing about the sea or the savage coast for which they were bound, but their resolve was unshakable. Despite all they had suffered agonizing delays, seasickness, cold, and the scorn and ridicule of the sailors they had done everything in their power to help the carpenter repair the fractured dreams. They had brought the screw jack, mechanical device to lift beams for building in the new world. With its help, the mayflower was sound enough to move on, and on they would go. The motivating force behind this voyage came from a group of religious enthusiasts we refer to as puritan separatists, who hollandd in exile in for more than a decade. They believed the church of england was not a holy church, they must separate from it and worship god as they felt god intended. Unfortunately, this was illegal in england at the time, so they had gone to holland. But things did not necessarily turn out the way they wanted. They had been there 10 years. Their congregation had grown wonderfully under the guidance of their pastor, but the pilgrims were forced to work lowland, backbreaking jobs because they were foreigners, and their health was suffering. They would work literally in a dust, often with their children by their side. A treaty with spain was about to go up, and there was a fear that war may come to holland, but their biggest concern was that the children were becoming dutch. Despite the fact that they had left england, these people were usually proud of their english ancestry, and they wanted to reconnect with it, but they cannot go home. What to do . Go to the new world, transplant the congregation wholesale into america where they could reconnect with their english ancestry but be free of the meddlesome rules of king james and his bishops. Sounds like a great concept. Unfortunately, like many great concepts, it would prove very difficult to implement. The pilgrims knew each other wonderfully well, but they had trouble relating to those outside of their circle. They became the objects of them as a group of religious radicals who wanted to go 3000 miles across the to the new world. Thomas weston would be a merchant from london, who would tell them everything they wanted to hear. He had sympathy for their religious convictions, and he had the contacts to provide them the money they needed, but he proved to be less than they advertised. By the spring of 1620, he had not yet come up with a ship. The provisioning of the expedition was in chaos, and more and more people began to worry that maybe this was not the right thing to do. As more and more people dropped out they would come eventually, but not in this first run this created a problem for the investors who needed to fill up the ship. They began to recruit people in london, people who did not necessarily share the pilgrims point of view. They would become referred to as the strangers, and this created a division aboard the mayflower almost from the beginning. And this is a troublesome thing because their whole worldview is based on drawing a line between themselves and the rest of the world. Sharethey were going to space with these strangers. Just before their departure from holland, John Robinson would write them a very important letter in which he would urge them not to prejudge these strangers, to try to make it work, because the future success of the settlement depended on that. That would have a huge impact on making things eventually work. Leaveyflower would terribly late. They were supposed to go early in the season so they would arrive with plenty of time to build structures for winter came on, but it was september before the mayflower finally left england. It would be a miserable voyage. Storm after storm after storm. The mayflower would average in the neighborhood of 1. 5 miles an hour as it made its way across the atlantic. It would take more than two months, and they were headed not for new england but for the hudson river. They could have been our first new yorkers, but they were 200 miles off course, and they came across what we now refer to as the backside of cape cod. Intendedh of their destination, but there were no trustworthy charts of new england at the time. Poligrip on can tellift, which i you from experience is still a frightening piece of water. Aint going to the hudson river. We are going to cape cod. I need to get these people off my ship and get myself back to england. Now callfor what we brownstown harbor. Becauseates an uproar the strangers, who are roughly half the passengers, realized their Legal Paperwork does not apply to a settlement this far north. They realize that the passengers aboard the mayflower are about to become americas first illegal immigrants. [laughter] if this is the case, why do we follow them . Why should we go with them . They say you guys can do what you want to do. We are going to do our own thing. This might mean the end of the settlement, if they divide this early on. This is a pivotal moment. What do they do . They do a remarkable thing. They put pen to paper, and borrowing many of the words from John Robinsons farewell letter, they draft what we now refer to as the mayflower compact. Given the future course of American History, it is tempting to see the mayflower compact as the u. S. Constitution in utero, and it is not that, but it is still an extraordinary document. Both sides, what would be called saints and strangers, agree to listen to their duly elected leaders, and this is civil government. This really is the First Step Towards the ultimate success of Plymouth Colony. They arrived finally after having drafted the mayflower contract the mayflower compact, and now they have a big question what do we have before us . They know nothing about the coast upon which they have arrived. Their biggest concern is what about the native people . Whats going to happen . I would like to now read from chapter three, into the void, which begins with the other side of the story. Explanation the pilgrims would refer to them. S the pocono can we refer to them today as the wampanoag, a seam a term that seems to have been coined a couple of decades after their arrival. Thet 60 miles southwest of harbor with the most powerful native leader in the region, he was in the prime of his life, about 35, strong and imposing, with the quiet dignity that was expected of the sachem. Despite his vigor and equity, he presided over a people who had been devastated by the disease. During the three years the pilgrims had been organizing for their village to america, they hit what had been referred to as a virgin soil epidemic, a contagion against which they have no antibodies. From 1616 to 1619, what may have been bubonic plague introduced by fishermen in modern maine spread south to the Eastern Shore of narragansett bay, killing in some cases as many as 90 of the regions inhabitants. So many died so quickly there was no one left to bury the dead. England of coastal new that had once been as populous as western europe were suddenly empty of people with only the bones of the dead to indicate a Thriving Community had once existed along these shores. In addition to disease, what had been called civil dissensions erected in the region. Native groups that have been uneasy neighbors in the best of times struggle to create a new order amid the hunted vacancy of new england. Area they occupied at the head of narragansett bay had been particularly hardhit. Before the plague, they had numbered about 12,000, enabling about 3000 fighting men. Reduced to a been few hundred warriors after the plague. Just recently, mesozoic wasted by disease and now under the thumb of a powerful and proud enemy, they were in a desperate struggle to maintain their existence as a people, but the station had his allies the massachusetts to the north. Were at a decided disadvantage, but this did not prevent the station the fromon the sechem attending to use his allies. A small bird is called sachem because of its princely command over other birds that a man put tooften see them flight crows and other larger birds. What he would do is rather than look to the pilgrims, who did many things not to necessarily ingratiate themselves with the local population in those first desperate months, he would say wait a minute, perhaps in alignment with the small group of english people to provide my of parityh a kind relative to the narragansetts, and he would forge an alliance. There were other things at work. Remember squanto . What i learned about squanto, he was the generous interpreter who took the pilgrims by the hand and taught them how to plant corn. Turns out squanto had an agenda of his own from the beginning. Squanto was born right here in plymouth harbor, known as natives. To the he was adopted by an english explorer, made his way back to makee and would eventually his way to london where he learned english. As she was abducted by an english explorer. Abducted by an english explorer. At some point, he began to see this as a possible opportunity. The natives were vulnerable because of the plague, and he sought to become the next sachem. He could s