preview

Mayflower Book Report

Decent Essays

Nathaniel Philbrick was an author who wrote many books about voyages at sea. His interest in writing so often about historical adventures on the ocean can only be because he himself, in 1978, was the first intercollegiate All-American sailor for Brown University. His book “Mayflower,” being one of his bestsellers, is an interesting book that not only presents the over told story of the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in the year 1620, but it also digs deep into the many struggles they faced after finally reaching the New World. In his book, Philbrick charts out the experiences of the Pilgrims as they were on their search for the New World. He begins by highlighting the main motive behind such a dangerous voyage. The Pilgrims simply wanted religious freedom. In order to free themselves from the Catholic Church, they sailed to Leiden, Holland first. Here they enjoyed religious freedom for a little while; however, they soon realized that their children were becoming very Dutch. In order to still have the same religious rights, but also still be legitimately …show more content…

Along with their struggle to build up their village, the Native Americans around them were threatening them, and a couple of times they had been attacked. Thankfully though, none of the Pilgrims died due to the Indians surprise midnight raids; however, another enemy was taking the lives of many in the village. Sickness and disease had taken its toll on the Pilgrims. Many never recovered well from the long voyage, and others were dying because of the cold and wet winter weather. At this time, the Pilgrims had lost over half of the amount of people they had set out with. In order to hide how weak they were becoming from the Native Americans, the Pilgrims buried their dead loved ones secretly in the middle of the night. They did this so well that it was never documented that the Indians knew of their great

Get Access