Seeds of Change: The Mayflower, Part I
Today in Seeds of Change we talked about the Mayflower, the Wampanoag, and other happenings on the east coast of what is now the United States in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There are so many fascinating aspects of this history that we didn’t have time to get into, so I’ll include notes for additional learning opportunities here.
We read some short sections of this book, History Smashers: The Mayflower to the kids. This book is entertaining and does a pretty good job of being accurate. It suffers a bit from the same sort of problems most historical books and textbooks written for kids do- the author presents many details as fact when they’re actually not. James Loewen writes about this problem in Lies My Teacher Told Me, saying, “Presenting a controversy seems somehow radical. It invites students to come to their own conclusions. Textbook authors don’t let that happen. They see their job as presenting “facts” for children to “learn,” not encouraging them to think for themselves.” We spent some time in class highlighting these controversies.
The Mayflower passengers were headed toward the territory of the Wampanoag people, so we wanted to highlight Wampanoag history as the foundation for the Mayflower story. This page offers a great overview of the Wampanoag in 1620 and includes the video below which is also good (although I did sort of roll my eyes at the convo between the Mayflower ladies washing their clothes on the shore- the acting is kind of Sarah Miller-y from Addams Family Values and also they’re far too clean! These ladies had spent the last two+ months in the same clothes in a five-foot tall lower-level of a heaving ship with a hundred other passengers. I think they would have been pretty gross.).
From the article linked above: “In the 1600s, there were as many as 40,000 people in the 67 villages that made up the Wampanoag People. These villages covered the territory along the east coast. Their people had been living on this part of Turtle Island for more than 12,000 years. Skilled hunters, gatherers, farmers, and fishers during spring and summer, the Wampanoag moved inland to more protected shelter during the colder months of the year. The Wampanoag had a reciprocal relationship with nature and believed that as long as they gave thanks to the bountiful world, it would give back to them.”
America has embraced the origin myth of the Mayflower as the first “settlers” of the US. But they were far from the first Europeans to make contact with the Wampanoag and other Indigenous people on the east coast. Portuguese, English, and Norse fisherman had been working the coastline of North America since the 1500s and in the case of the Norse, hundreds of years before that. “In 1578, an observer noted 100 Spanish sails, 20–30 Basque whalers, ≈150 French and Breton fishing ships, and 50 English sails along the coast of Newfoundland. English traders and fishermen had daily contact with Indigenous persons but lived on ships or in segregated enclaves on land where salt-dried codfish stations (favored by the English) were built along Massachusetts Bay.” (source here).
I made my first FlipaClip (it looks like nothing and took me two hours, ha!) to illustrate the European settlements that popped up after Columbus’ landing in 1492 and before the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620. Most of these settlements failed within the first year, but you can see there were a whole lot of attempts. I marked places on the map that were listed as settlements on this list.
This map doesn’t differentiate from settlements that failed (most of them) and the few that didn’t. We didn’t cover it in this class, but it’s worth reading this short history of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. This map also doesn’t show the many, many ships and non-permanent visitors to the shores of the east coast. But all of these European visitors had brought with them diseases, and rats with their own diseases, and acts that were absolutely devastating to the Indigenous people living here. In 1525, a Portuguese man named Estavao Gomes captured 58 Natives from New England and attempted to sell them into slavery in Spain. He was not the only guy who kidnapped and enslaved Indigenous people in this time.
The years just before the Mayflower arrival, 1616-1619, are known as “The Great Dying” in Wampanoag history. European fisherman and fur traders brought disease to the east coast of North America that is estimated to have killed between 90-95% of the native population there. Historians disagree about what disease is responsible for this- some say smallpox, flu, or influenza, others say bubonic plague. I just read this fascinating article from 2010 that theorizes that it was actually leptospirosis combined with Weil syndrome, which came from rat urine from European rats, which contaminated water reservoirs and which affected the native populations so acutely because they used the water to bathe and steam themselves (the Europeans rarely bathed), and they went barefoot in contaminated mud and waters. The symptoms of the disease, including high fevers and nosebleeds are more consistent with leptospirosis than plague or flu. Just putting this out there in case you want to introduce your kids to the field of paleomicrobiology, an “emerging field of research at the intersection of microbiology and evolution, history and anthropology.” Anyway, here’s short video about the plague of disease that swept through the Indigenous population in 1616-1619. It does show bones of human skeletons, so you might want to preview it before showing it to sensitive viewers.
The Wampanoag knew the Europeans brought disease with them, and they knew they had kidnapped and enslaved members of their tribes and neighboring tribes, so they were rightfully wary of them. But they also needed allies and people to trade with. The Wampanoags had been hit hard by the plague, but the neighboring Narragansett tribe had not, and so they were in danger of being overtaken by that tribe. So they made the strategic decision to help the passengers of the Mayflower. This meeting of two cultures will be the subject of our class next week.
Now that we have talked about where the Mayflower is heading, and what life was like for the Wampanoag in 1620, we moved our discussion back to the voyage of the Mayflower. Helen read a bit from History Smashers: The Mayflower to explain why the Separatists were looking to flee England, and why the other people on the ship were leaving. James Loewen writes that “Pilgrims numbered only 35 of the 102 settlers aboard the Mayflower; the rest were ordinary folk seeking their fortunes in the new Virginia colony.” We also spoke a bit more about their trip across the Atlantic- leaky boats, storms, and repeated delays. This short article lays out the timeline for the trip, which was actually way longer than the 66 days most textbooks claim.
I made another FlipaClip! This shows the information in the article linked just above- the month and a half the Mayflower passengers spent on the boat before leaving England. They rode the Speedwell from The Netherlands to Southampton, where they met Mayflower, but they had to stop for a week there because the Speedwell was leaking. Then both ships started off again, but then the Speedwell started leaking again, so they had to stop in Dartmouth for repairs for about another week. Then they started off again. They had made it 300 miles into the ocean when the Speedwell was leaking so much they had to turn around and come back to Plymouth, England. They decided to abandon the Speedwell, cram everyone and all their stuff into the Mayflower, and just take one ship across the ocean. Some people gave up at this point because they had spent so much time on a boat already and gotten nowhere. Also, it was considered pretty risky to take one boat instead of two.
The journey must have been hard, but its very important to remember that at the same time, ships are bringing enslaved people kidnapped from their homes in Africa across the Atlantic to what will become the United States for the first time, and the conditions on these slave ships were far, far worse. We’ll be talking about this history in the coming weeks.
Lastly, we have an action item and an extension opportunity for our class next week.
Sign this petition. “The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the very tribe that welcomed the Pilgrims in the 1600s, is at risk of losing what is left of their homelands due to a determination made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Mashpee Wampanoag, the People of the First Light, have occupied the same region for over 12,000 years and have faced diminishment of their homelands since colonization. The latest decision is a blow to Tribal sovereignty and undermines the future and sustainability of the tribal nation. The Tribe is asking Congress to protect its reservation lands and has put forth the "Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act (HR.312)." We are asking for signatures in support of this legislation.”
Make some hardtack. If you’re into this idea, make the main food that sustained the passengers of the Mayflower on their journey. It’s a really easy recipe. My plan is to make some after class and then let it sit out for a week and try it on camera during our next Seeds of Change class. If you want to make some too and wait a week to eat it we can all try our hardtack together next week!
