Hearing gunfire, some 90 Native American warriors from the
Wampanoag tribe followed their chief Massasoit to investigate the happenings at
the settlement established one year before by white-skinned separatist Pilgrims
from England.
On a star-crossed journey funded by the Company of Merchant
Adventurers, the Pilgrims left port and overcrowded on the leaky Mayflower. After more than two months at
sea, they arrived in North America as winter was setting in. The would-be
colonists stayed aboard the ship for weeks, sending out small expeditions for
food until at last locating a suitable site chosen for its defensibility and
readiness as it had recently been abandoned by Native Americans with land cleared
for cultivation. It was not enough to stave off malnutrition and disease, which
ravaged the passengers.
By next spring, the Pilgrim population had been cut in half,
yet they were determined to establish a new home. Providence seemed to smile
upon them when, on March 16, a Native American named Samoset walked into the
middle of the colony and declared in English, “Welcome, Englishmen!” He had
picked up a fair bit of their language from trappers and told them that the
village they now lived in had before been wiped out from smallpox. It was
within the realm led by Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Two years before, Massasoit
had slaughtered English explorers who trespassed and rescued Tisquantum, who
had been kidnapped and taken to Europe as a slave for five years.
The Pilgrims called the former slave “Squanto,” and he
seemed to adopt the troubled settlers, training them in effective agricultural
methods for the frigid Northeast. With the successful corn crop that fall, the
Pilgrims decided to hold a traditional harvest festival. Four men were sent
fowling, collecting a week’s worth of game for a feast. The other 49 surviving
Pilgrims readied a Thanksgiving.
As the surviving account of Edward Winslow reads, “At which
time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, and many of the Indians
[came] amongst us…” Setting off gunfire for pleasure along with hoots and singing
brought Massasoit and his Native American warriors to investigate. When a stray
shot struck one of the warriors, Massasoit interpreted it as a declaration of
war. Only a handful of Pilgrims managed to survive the battle, fleeing into the
woods and hiding along the coast until the Fortune
arrived from England.
The Fortune
brought 37 more settlers although few supplies as they expected to find a
thriving community. Instead, they were met by bedraggled Pilgrims who saw no choice
but to return to England, despite the Merchant Adventurers already accusing
them of defaulting on the colony’s loan. The humiliated Pilgrims told
ever-increasingly terrifying tales of the dangers of settling in “land God has
truly forsaken.”
Although future English settlers avoided the area, there was
still a strong drive for colonization to the south around the successful
Jamestown and in sparser fur-trapping communities to the northwest. Other
nations founded more successful colonies toward the cursed land, including New
Sweden and New Netherlands. The Dutch conquered New Sweden in 1655, expanding
their holdings south as well as at last pushing northward to dominate lands the
Pilgrims had fled. The northern settlements were able to lend support during a
blockade of New Amsterdam by English warships, driving the English away when
their supplies ran low. Upon the Glorious Revolution of 1688, tensions in North
America declined between growing Virginia and New Amsterdam until
over-harvesting of furs prompted competition and several small wars along the
borders. Finally in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain conquered New Amsterdam and
absorbed it into complete holdings over North America north of Mexico. The
dominion would last until broken up revolutions in the nineteenth century.
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