Customer Reviews

Bradford's History "Of Plimoth Plantation" from the Original Manuscript

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The Pilgrims are vastly overrated as colonial forefathers: most of them died within weeks of stepping onto shore, and those that survived largely remained inconsequential, except for two facts. They married into the larger and far more successful Puritan group who arrived 10 years after they did, and they got a better myth built around one of our national holidays. William Bradford's history is a charming, paranoid vision of coming to America and trying to make it here. The Pilgrims' history is largely one of peaceful co-existence with the Indians, except for the year after the first Thanksgiving, when the only Indian in sight was the one whose head decorated the pike outside Plymouth. A great book to debunk a largely false national myth, the true story is far more compellingly bittersweet, especially as Bradford tries to come to grips with the failure of his colony. The turkey incident alone is worth the price of the book (trust me -- it's hysterically grotesque).