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Title details for Mayflower Lives by Martyn Whittock - Available

Mayflower Lives

Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience

by Martyn Whittock
James Cameron Stewart
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
Leading into the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock examines the lives of the "saints" (members of the Separatist puritan congregations) and "strangers" (economic migrants) on the original ship. Collectively, these people would become known to history as "the Pilgrims." The story of the Pilgrims has taken on a life of its own as one of our founding national myths-their escape from religious persecution, the dangerous transatlantic journey, that brutal first winter. Throughout the narrative, we meet characters already familiar to us through Thanksgiving folklore-Captain Jones, Myles Standish, and Tisquantum (Squanto)-as well as new ones. There is Mary Chilton, the first woman to set foot on shore, and asylum seeker William Bradford. We meet fur trapper John Howland and little Mary More, who was brought as an indentured servant. Then there is Stephen Hopkins, who had already survived one shipwreck and was the only Mayflower passenger with any prior American experience. Decidedly un-puritanical, he kept a tavern and was frequently chastised for allowing drinking on Sundays. Epic and intimate, Mayflower Lives is a rich and rewarding book that promises to enthrall anyone with an interest in early American history.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 6, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781684573196
      • File size: 345269 KB
      • Duration: 11:59:18

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 13, 2019
      Historian and BBC consultant Whittock (When God Was King) pays homage to the upcoming 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s 1620 voyage with this slightly unfocused group biography. Using as a lens the lives of more than a dozen people associated with the ship, he explores religion, politics, economics, romance and family life, crime, and relations with Native Americans in the Plymouth settlement. Whittock looks at the Pilgrims’ religious faith in chapters on William Bradford and William Brewster. Four-year-old Mary More’s brief existence occasions a discussion of patriarchal norms: convinced that Mary and her three siblings, all under the age of eight, weren’t his biological children, Samuel More sent them off to America as indentured servants—and only one survived. Chapters on Squanto—an Algonquian who was kidnapped, taken to England, and returned before the Pilgrims arrived—and militia commander Myles Standish take up the often contentious relationships between native people and the new arrivals. The book’s organizing principle, one life per chapter, is dispensed with toward the end for a chapter on a love story and one on a variety of social rebels, and a somewhat simplistic conclusion lauds the colonists’ devoutness and courage. Readers looking for an introduction to the Pilgrims will be adequately served; others may come away unsatisfied. Illus. Agent: Robert Dudley, Robert Dudley Agency.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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