inhabitants of that region. Their failure to do so was part of a pattern of incompetent preparation that directly caused a 50 percent mortality rate in the first winter. The leaders of the Wampanoag tribes had far better in- formation about the English than the Plim- oth colonists had about the tribes. In fact, an adviser to the Massasoit, chief of the Wampa- noag confederacy, had lived several years in London and had intimate knowledge of the goals and vulnerabilities of its colonial ad- venturers. The Native leaders very likely felt sure, almost to the point of overconfidence, that they could handle the alien invaders.
GROPING IN THE COLD
The “intruding ignorance” of the Pilgrims started with a basic failure to learn how to navigate Cape Cod’s waters. Contrary to Bradford’s description, the New England coastline was hardly an unknown wilder- ness. It had been visited regularly by Euro- pean fishermen and explorers for nearly a century. In a two-decade run-up to the Mayflower’s voyage, European expeditions had mapped and visited both sides of Cape
26 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2020
Cod: Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, Martin Pring in 1603, Samuel de Champlain and the French in 1605 and 1606, the major explo- ration of Captain John Smith in 1614 and the ill-fated voyage of Thomas Dermer in 1618, in which Dermer tried unsuccessfully to undo some of the damage done by one of John Smith’s subordinates and received a fatal wound from the Natives of Mar- tha’s Vineyard. French and Dutch ships and three vessels of Smith’s fleet had anchored in Plymouth Harbor itself, which received its name from Captain Smith’s 1616 map of New England. Samuel de Champlain drew a recognizable map of the river mouth. Captain Smith, who paired publication
of his 1616 map with an influential exhor- tation to establish a fishing colony, was eager to return to New England with the Pilgrims but was rudely rebuffed. He complained that when he approached them, he was told that they had his books and didn’t need him. For lack of an experienced leader, the Pilgrims took a fatal misstep at the first moment of their arrival at Cape Cod on November 11. The Mayflower anchored off the tip of the
This map was drawn by French explorer Samuel de Cham- plain during his expeditions down the New England coast in 1605 and 1606. It depicts Plymouth harbor and the then populous Indian village of Patuxet, which was later wiped out by a plague.
COURTESY OF SARIN IMAGES/GRANGER
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