The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World*

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  ◆ A drawing of John Smith’s shallop, which was used to map Chesapeake Bay in 1608 and would have been very similar to the Pilgrims’.

  By morning, there were six inches of snow on the ground, and by the time they’d sailed south back to Pamet Harbor in modern Truro, they were so frostbitten and numb that they named the inlet Cold Harbor. Jones decided to explore the northern and largest of the two creeks by land. But after several hours of “marching up and down the steep hills, and deep valleys, which lay half a foot thick with snow,” the master of the Mayflower had had enough. At fifty years old, he was certainly the eldest of the group. some of the Pilgrims wanted to continue, but Jones insisted it was time to make camp under several large pine trees. That night they feasted on six ducks and three geese “with soldiers’ stomachs for we had eaten little all that day.”

  Cold Harbor, it was decided, was too shallow for a permanent settlement. Giving up on any further exploration of the two creeks, they went looking for Corn Hill the next morning. The snow made it difficult to find the stores of buried corn, but after brushing aside the snowdrifts and hacking at the frozen topsoil with their cutlasses, they located not only the original bag of seed but an additional store of ten bushels. For Master Jones, this was just the excuse he needed to return to the warmth of the Mayflower’s cabin. He decided to take the corn, along with several men who were too sick to continue on, back to the ship. Once the corn and the sick men had been loaded aboard the shallop, he set sail for Provincetown Harbor. The shallop would return the next day for the rest of them.

  standish was once again in charge. The next morning, he led the eighteen remaining men on a search for Indians. But after several hours of tramping through the woods and snow, they had found nothing. The Native Americans moved with the seasons—inland in the winter, near the water in the summer—which meant that the Pilgrims, who were staying, for the most part, near the shore, were unlikely to meet many Indians during their explorations of Cape Cod.

  On their way back to the harbor, standish and his men found “a place like a grave, but it was much bigger and longer than any we had yet seen.” There were boards positioned over the grave, suggesting that someone of importance had been buried here. They “resolved to dig it up.”

  They found several additional boards and a mat of woven grass. One of the boards was “finely carved and painted, with three tines ... on the top, like a crown.” This may have been a carving of Poseidon’s trident, suggesting that the board originally came from a ship—most probably the French ship that had wrecked on this coast in 1615. Farther down, they found a new mat wrapped around two bundles, one large and one small.

  They opened the larger bundle first. The contents were covered with a fine, sweet-smelling reddish powder. Along with some bones, they found the skull of a man with “fine yellow hair still on it, and some of the flesh unconsumed.” With the skull was a sailor’s canvas bag containing a knife and sewing needle. Then they turned to the smaller bundle. Inside were the skull and bones of a small child, along with a tiny wooden bow “and some other odd knacks.”

  Was this a castaway from the French ship and his Indian son? Had this particular sailor been embraced by the local Indians and died among them as a person “of some special note”? Or had the Indians killed and buried the sailor “in triumph over him”?

  The Pilgrims had left Holland so that they could live like Englishmen again. But here was evidence that there were others in America who must be taken into account. Otherwise, they might share the fate of this yellow-haired sailor, whose bones and possessions had been left to rot in the sand.

  ◆◆◆ Later that day, just a short distance from Cold Harbor, standish and his men found some Indian houses whose occupants had clearly left in a great hurry. The description of what they found, recorded in a brief book about their first year in America cowritten by William Bradford and Edward Winslow, is so detailed that it remains one of the best first-person accounts of an Indian wigwam, or wetu, that we have:The houses were made with long young sapling trees, bended and both ends stuck into the ground; they were made round, like unto an arbor, and covered down to the ground with thick and well wrought mats, and the door was not over a yard high, made of a mat to open; the chimney was a wide open hole in the top, for which they had a mat to cover it close when they pleased; one might stand and go upright in them, in the midst of them were four little trunches [i.e., Y-shaped stakes] knocked into the ground and small sticks laid over, on which they hung their pots ...; round about the fire they lay on mats, which are their beds. The houses were double matted, for as they were matted without, so were they within, with newer & fairer mats.

  Among the Indians’ clay pots, wooden bowls, and reed baskets was an iron bucket from Europe that was missing a handle. There were several deer heads, one of which was still quite fresh, as well as a piece of broiled herring. As they had done with the graves of the blond-haired sailor and Indian child, the Pilgrims decided to take “some of the best things” with them.

  ◆ A modern-day re-creation of a Wampanoag wetu.

  Looting houses, graves, and storage pits was hardly the way to win the trust of the local inhabitants. To help pay for the damage they’d already done, they decided to leave behind some beads and other tokens for the Indians “in sign of peace.” But it was getting dark. The shallop had returned, and they planned to spend the night back aboard the Mayflower. They had to get going, and in their haste to depart, they neglected to leave the beads and other trade goods. It would have been a small gesture to be sure, but it would have marked their only act of friendship since their arrival in the New World.

  ◆◆◆ The explorers learned of some good news once back aboard the Mayflower. A son named Peregrine had been born to susanna and William White. But a death was soon to follow the baby’s birth. Edward Thompson, the Whites’ servant, died on Monday, December 4.

  since Truro’s Pamet Harbor was not going to serve their needs, they needed to find another settlement site. The pilot, Robert Coppin, had a rather hazy memory of a “good harbor” with a “great navigable river” about twenty-five miles across Cape Cod Bay. The reference to a large river suggests that Coppin was thinking of the Charles River and the future site of Boston. After much discussion, it was decided to pick up where they had left off and follow the shoreline of the Cape south, then west, and eventually north. Under no circumstances were they to venture beyond the harbor described by Coppin, which he called Thievish Harbor, since an Indian had stolen one of his company’s harpoons when he was there several years earlier. For the Pilgrims, who had so far stolen a good deal of corn and Native artifacts, Thievish Harbor might be just the place to settle.

  The shallop set out from the Mayflower once more on Wednesday, December 6. The Mayflower’s two pilots, Robert Coppin and John Clark, had replaced Master Jones and were accompanied by the master gunner and three sailors. The Pilgrims were represented by Bradford, Carver, standish, Winslow, John Tilley and his brother Edward, John Howland, Richard Warren, stephen Hopkins, and Hopkins’s servant, Edward Doty—less than half the number of the previous expedition. Illness and freezing temperatures—it was now in the low twenties, if not colder—had already taken a considerable toll.

  Almost as soon as they set sail, the salt spray froze on their coats—“as if they had been glazed,” Bradford wrote. They sailed south into Wellfleet Bay, about fifteen miles beyond Truro. On the shore they saw a dozen or so Indians working around a large dark object that they later discovered was a pilot whale, a small, black whale around twenty feet long. The Indians were cutting the whale’s blubber into long strips when they saw the shallop approaching and fled.

  Once ashore, the Pilgrims built themselves a barricade and a large fire, and as night descended, they noticed the smoke from another fire about four miles away. The next day was spent looking for a possible settlement site, with some of them taking to the shallop while others remained on land. Once again, they found plenty of graves and abandoned wigw
ams, but no people and no suitable places to anchor a large ship. They decided to sail for Thievish Harbor the following day.

  Toward nightfall, the shore party met with those in the shallop at a tidal creek known today as Herring River. As they had done the previous night, they built themselves a circular barricade of tree trunks and branches, with a small opening where they stationed several guards. Around midnight, the silence was broken by “a great hideous cry.” The watchmen shouted out, “Arm! Arm!” several muskets were fired, and all was silent once again. One of the sailors said he’d heard wolves make a similar noise in Newfoundland. This seemed to comfort them, and they went back to sleep.

  About 5 A.M. they began to rouse themselves. Most of them were armed with matchlocks—muskets equipped with long-burning wicks that were used to light the gunpowder. They were not the most reliable weapons, particularly in the wet and cold, since it was difficult to keep the powder dry. several men decided to fire off their guns, just to make sure they were still working.

  After prayer, they began to prepare themselves for breakfast and the long journey ahead. In the predawn twilight, some of the men carried their weapons and armor down to the shallop. Laying them beside the boat, they returned to the camp for breakfast. It was then they heard another “great and strange cry.”

  One of the men burst out of the trees and came running for the barricade, screaming, “They are men—Indians, Indians!” suddenly the air was filled with arrows. Every man reached for his gun. They dipped their matches into the embers of the fire, and with their matches lit, began to blast away. But standish ordered them “not to shoot, till we could take aim.” He didn’t know how many Indians were out there in the woods, and they might need every shot.

  In the meantime, those who had left their muskets beside the shallop sprinted back to get them. The Indians soon had them trapped behind the boat. standish and those guarding the entrance to the barricade called out to make sure they were unhurt. “Well, well, everyone,” they shouted. “Be of good courage!” Three of them at the boat fired their muskets, but the others were without a way to light their matches. One of the men in the barricade picked up a burning log from the fire and ran with it to the shallop, an act of bravery that, according to Bradford, “did not a little discourage our enemies.” For their part, the Indians’ war cries were a particularly potent psychological weapon that the Pilgrims would never forget, later transcribing them as “Woath! Woach! Ha! Ha! Hach! Woach!”

  They estimated that there were at least thirty Indians, “although some thought that they were many more yet in the dark of the morning.” As the French explorer samuel Champlain had discovered fourteen years earlier on the south coast of Cape Cod, the Indians’ bows and arrows were fearsome weapons. Made from a five-and-a-half-foot piece of solid hickory, maple, ash, or witch hazel, a Native bow was so powerful that one of Champlain’s men was skewered by an arrow that had already passed through his dog—making a gruesome shish kebab of the French sailor and his pet.

  The feathered arrows were over a yard long, and each warrior kept as many as fifty of them in a quiver made from dried reeds. With his quiver slung over his left shoulder and with the hair on the right side of his head cut short so as not to interfere with the bowstring, a Native warrior was capable of firing arrows much faster than a musket-equipped Englishman could fire bullets. Indeed, it was possible for a skilled bowman to have as many as five arrows in the air at once, and the Pilgrims were forced to take shelter as best they could.

  There was one Indian in particular, “a lusty man and no whit less valiant, who was thought to be their captain.” He stood behind a tree within “half a musket shot” of the barricade, peppering them with arrows as the Pilgrims did their best to blast him to bits. The Native leader dodged three different gunshots but, seeing one of the Englishman taking “full aim at him,” wisely decided to retreat. As fragments of bark and wood flew around him, he let out “an extraordinary shriek” and disappeared with his men into the woods. some of the Pilgrims, led no doubt by standish, followed for about a quarter of a mile, then stopped to shoot off their muskets. “This we did,” Bradford wrote, “that they might see we were not afraid of them nor discouraged.” Before they departed in the shallop, they collected a total of eighteen arrows, “some ... headed with brass, others with harts’ horn, and others with eagles’ claws,” for eventual shipment back to England. None of the men had suffered even a scratch. “Thus it pleased God,” Bradford wrote, “to vanquish our enemies and give us deliverance.”

  Despite Bradford’s claims, what became known as the First Encounter could hardly be considered a victory. The Pilgrims could not blast, fight, and kill their way to a permanent settlement in New England. After the First Encounter, it was clear that friends were going to be difficult to find here on Cape Cod.

  It was on to Thievish Harbor.

  ◆◆◆ With the wind out of the southeast, they sailed along the southern edge of Cape Cod Bay. Then the weather got worse. The wind picked up, and with the temperature hovering around freezing, sleet combined with the salt spray of the bay to drench the passengers to the bone. The wind continued to build, and as night came on, the boat became unmanageable in the large waves. All seemed lost, when the pilot, Robert Coppin, cried out, “Be of good cheer, I see the harbor!” By now it was blowing a gale, and in the freezing rain, the visibility was terrible. But Coppin saw something that convinced him they were about to enter Thievish Harbor.

  They were bashing through the rising seas when their mast splintered into three pieces. Once they’d gathered up the broken mast and sail and stowed them away, they took up the oars and started to row. The tide, at least, was with them. But it quickly became clear that instead of the entrance to a harbor, they were steering for a wave-pummeled beach where the huge breakers might destroy their boat and kill them all. Coppin cried out, “Lord be merciful unto us, for my eyes never saw this place before!”

  Just when all seemed lost, the sailor at the steering oar cried out some much-needed words of encouragement, and with the waves bursting against the shallop’s side, they tried to row their way out of danger. “so he bid them be of good cheer,” Bradford wrote, “and row lustily, for there was a fair sound before them, and he doubted not but they should find one place or other where they might ride in safety.”

  The shallop had nearly run into a shallow cove at the end of a thin, sandy peninsula called the Gurnet. Once they rowed the shallop around the tip of the Gurnet, they found themselves in the shelter of what they later discovered was an island.

  In the deepening darkness of the windy night, they discussed what they should do next. some insisted that they remain aboard the shallop in case of Indian attack. But most of them were more fearful of freezing to death, so they went ashore and built a large fire. When at midnight the wind shifted to the northwest and the temperature dropped till “it froze hard,” all were glad that they had decided to come ashore.

  The next day, a saturday, proved to be “a fair, sunshining day.” They now realized that they were on a heavily wooded island and, for the time being, safe from Indian attack. John Clark, one of the Mayflower’s pilots, had been the first to set foot on the island, and from that day forward it was known as Clark’s Island.

  They were on the western edge of a large, wonderfully sheltered bay. Even though they had “so many motives for haste,” they decided to spend the day on the island, “where they might dry their stuff, fix their pieces, and rest themselves.” The shallop needed a mast, and they undoubtedly cut down as straight and sturdy a tree as they could find and fashioned it into a new spar. The following day was a sunday, and as Bradford recorded, “on the sabbath day we rested.”

  They spent Monday exploring the harbor that was to become their new home. They tested the water’s depth and found it deep enough for ships the size of the Mayflower. They went on land, but nowhere in either Of Plymouth Plantation or Mourt’s Relation, the book Bradford and Winslow wrote after their first year i
n America, is there any mention of a Pilgrim stepping on a rock.

  Like Cape Cod to the southeast, the shore of Plymouth Bay is nondescript and sandy. But at the foot of a high hill, just to the north of a brook, was a rock that must have been impossible to miss. More than twice as big as the mangled chunk of stone that is called Plymouth Rock today, this two-hundred-ton granite boulder stood above the low shoreline. But did the Pilgrims use it as a landing place?

  ◆ A photograph from the nineteenth century that shows the sandy and rocky coast where the Pilgrims first arrived.

  At half tide and above, a small boat could have sailed right up alongside the rock. For these explorers, who were suffering from chills and coughs after several weeks of wading up and down the frigid tidal flats of Cape Cod, using the rock as a landing point must have been difficult to resist. But if they did use it as their first stepping-stone onto the banks of Plymouth Harbor, Bradford never made note of the historic event. That would be left to later generations of mythmakers.

  They marched across the shores of Plymouth “and found divers cornfields and little running brooks, a place (as they supposed) fit for situation.” Best of all, despite the signs of farming, they found no evidence of any recent Indian settlements. The next day they boarded the shallop and sailed for the Mayflower with the good news.