Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

5 Responses to “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War”

1. swampyankee says:

   May 26, 2010 at 11:12 am

   If Mayflower is as thorough and enjoyable as his last two, readers are in for an extremely excellent read. Through page 50, the trend holds…
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
2. sunkmakicima says:

   May 26, 2010 at 12:29 pm

   Ours doesn’t have a conveniant inter-racial campfire at the Official Prayer.Our GreenCorn festival is not what this country is celebrating evry year……The leader is still missing some facts…our version is diffrent.

   Prayer Day Celebrates A Massacre

   Research compiled, October 19, 1990
   
   by John Westcott and Paul Apidaca
   
   William B. Newell, a Penobscot Indian and ex- chairman of the Anthropology department at the University of Connecticut, says that the first official Prayer Day celebrated the massacre of 700 Indian men, women and children during one of their religious ceremonies. “Prayer Day” was first proclaimed by the Administrator of the then Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men, women and children who were celebrating their annual Green Corn Dance…Prayer Day to them, “in their own house”, Newell stated.

   “Gathered in this place of meeting, they were attacked by mercenaries and English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came into the world were shot down, The rest were burned alive in the building—–The very next day the administrator confirmed a Prayer Day…..For the next 100 years, every Prayer Day ordained by a Administrator was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.”

   In June 1637 John Underhill slaughtered a Pequot village in just the manner described above. Narranganset Indians were used as the mercenaries. Administrator John Endicott of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed the pequot war. A pequot chief of sachem named sassacus warred against the Dutch in 1633 over the death of his father. The Pequot made no honor between the Dutch and the English. The Underhill massacre was witnessed and documented by William Branford and an engraving was made illustrating the massacre.

   The Jamestown Colony may be the source for the tradition of Indians under the leadership of Powhaton joining with early settlers for a dinner and helping persons settlers through the winter. There were no pilgrims or puritans at Jamestown, but. The present Prayer may therefore be a mixture of the tradition of the Jamestown dinner and the commemoration of the Pequot massacre.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
3. Brenda H. Reed says:

   May 26, 2010 at 1:27 pm

   Contrary to the myth that Philbrick puts into the world, the landing of the Mayflower was not the beginning of the United States — that honor would go to the Lost Colony in North Carolina and to the settlement of Jamestowne in 1607 by some very courageous individuals, long before the Mayflower set sail. Likewise it has been documented that the first Prayer did not take place with the Pilgrims; it took place around 1607 along the James River (then called Fluvanna River) in what became the Colony of Virginia. The site for that first Prayer is believed to be on the property of what is known as the Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, just up river from the Jamestowne Settlement. I despise to reflect what additional myths are being perpetuated by these yucky past inaccurancies and flights of fantasy.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
4. N. Ladd says:

   May 26, 2010 at 3:31 pm

   Not to be considered historically right. Information quoted as fact when it has not been proven to be so.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
5. MGLavin says:

   May 26, 2010 at 3:54 pm

   I usually like past non-fiction but this was just too wordy; a timeline would have worked just as well.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5