Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience

by Martyn Whittock, James Cameron Stewart (Reading)

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Biography, Historical, Thanksgiving, United States

1 pages, Audio CD

First published August 6, 2019

About the author

I graduated in Politics from Bristol University in 1980, where my degree special studies were in radical Christian politics and theology of the seventeenth century & also the development of the Soviet State.
I taught history for thirty-five years (as Head of History & Director of Humanities Faculty at a number of secondary schools in the UK). Latterly I was curriculum leader for Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural education at a secondary comprehensive school in the UK. During this time I developed an interest in early medieval history (especially Anglo-Saxons and Vikings), as well as continuing my interests in radical Christian millenarianism and also Soviet history.
I have acted as an historical consultant to the National Trust, the BBC and English Heritage. I am a Licensed Lay Minister, in the Church of England, with an active interest in theology.
I retired from teaching in 2016 to devote more time to writing, historical & political commenting & guest blogging.
I am the author or co-author of fifty-three books. These include school history textbooks and adult history books. The latter are written with the aim of making historical themes both engaging and accessible to adult readers.

Reviews

[Shoshana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite honestly, I expected to learn a great deal from this book, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I have done. This properly footnoted history reads like a novel, and it is hard to put down. The reader keeps wanting to see what happens next! This book is simply compelling, and Martyn Whittock is to be commended on taking what could have been a repetitive, dry history and turning it into a tour-de-force. I have been recommending this book to everyone I know who is interested in history.

“Mayflower Lives” tells the history of the founding of Plymouth Colony by a group of Puritan English people by regaling the reader with the interesting, albeit shortened biographies of a number of the people at the founding of the colony. We tend to think of the “Pilgrims” as a collective group, and can easily forget that each was an individual. The biographies range from the elite members of the church, to Native Americans, to women and children. We see those who prospered, those who never fit in, and we see those who died especially during the first winter of 1620-1621.

The only thing I regret about this book was that it wasn’t longer. Although the mix of biographies is stellar, it whetted my appetite for more. I am just greedy, I guess. It is so interesting to read about actual people, not just amorphously faceless “Pilgrims.” In the course of the subjects’ lives we get a good, if somewhat cursory look at the history of the Plymouth Colony in its early years, when its survival was uncertain, to its integration into the later, larger administrative area which came to be called New England. One life, that of Richard More who was about six years old in 1620, carries us to the Salem witch trials of 1692 and beyond.

I heartily recommend this book. It is not a magisterial (read: dry) history of Plymouth Colony, it is an alternate way of looking at that history. The plentiful footnotes (and I am a reader of footnotes) give interesting paths for further reading and research; I have already availed myself of some of them. The lives described in “Mayflower Lives” are worth reading about, as these people and their culture have had such a big effect on American life and culture. If you are at all interested in history, this is a book worthy of your time.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions are my own.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jumping in with both feet into the Thanksgiving of the 2020 Pandemic (See creative celebratory feasts over Zoom), instead of games with family I read and wanted to stay with the theme. This book was perfect for that - a one-at-a-time consideration of the key persons on the boat Mayflower and the fateful voyage she took in the 1620's.

The author does a great job pointing out each (but not all) passengers, using primary sources and then folding in the ones that come from family histories and legend. It was of particular interest to me because I had people on that storied boat.

A fun read for me - I have friends who wouldn't have liked it because of the hard and fast list format. Still, there was a feel for the overall story of Plymouth, as one of the most used sources was Bradford's Plymouth Plantation, as explanations for some of the featured passengers' actions and activities.

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whittock provides a fresh facet to the original people who sailed to North America on the Mayflower. He focuses on their individual stories and how they fit within the broader spectrum of colonization. I thoroughly enjoyed his research. Reading the early Court records was more salacious than a trashy novel. The saddest and most compelling story were the four children who were aboard. They were deemed illegitimate by the court and ripped from their mother and shipped to the New World, unwanted and unloved. Only one would survive the first winter. THe author follows through with the mother's story and what happened to the surviving child. Nothing I have ever read about the Mayflower ever mentioned those four children. Mayflower Lives is a significant contribution to the canon of scholarship concerning the early history of America. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

[Tex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many books about the Pilgrims voyaging over on the Mayflower speak of them as a collective group. The research provided by the author is divided into sections devoted to one of the settlers, whether it be the more well-known Stephen Hopkins, William Brewster, or lesser-mentioned poor little Mary More. From a research point-of-view, this makes it easier for one to flip to the section of interest without having to pick out information of an individual from a narrative. However, this book can also be enjoyed as being read cover-to-cover. At first, I was inclined to flip to the chapters pertaining to my ancestors, but once satisfied learning more about their backstories, went back to the beginning of the book and read it from beginning to end.

This book, rather than painting the legendary picture of a saintly person stepping foot on the mythological Plymouth Rock, helps one realize the Pilgrims were regular people, some with more scandalous lives than one would originally think. It was certainly an enjoyable read, and can be enjoyed from a researcher’s perspective or as a book solely to be enjoyed for entertainment.

#MayflowerLives #NetGalley

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saints, strangers, sinners, and servants. A fine collection of mini-biographies of selected original Mayflower passengers.

Whittock's 2019 "Mayflower Lives" is a nice and easy little bit of "pop" history ("pop" in the sense of being a popular broader survey). This collection of 16 mini-bios of Mayflower passengers isn't comprehensive nor authoritative on the Pilgrims, the Plymouth Colony, nor even the Mayflower voyage itself. But that's ok -- instead it provides a lovely little overview of several elements of all that and more through quick little biosof Mary Chilton (the first woman to set foot on shore), William Brewster (leader of the Plymouth Colony), Christopher Jones (Captain of the Mayflower), and Mary More (a 4 year old girl cruelly abandoned with her three siblings on the voyage--only one survived), among several others.

The positives are that we get good little bite-sized slices of history but it's never so dense as to bore the reader or bury them in minutiae. The negatives are that it's NOT comprehensive or authoritative so feels like important context is frequently missing. This, coupled with the fact that Whittock often relays the same information in separate character sketches rather than present each as largely independent (difficult since they're all on the same ship, but not impossible), means that the book often feels far less substantial than it could or should be. That Whittock has written some 90+ books with rarely a consistent theme amongst them lends credence to this "wavetops" approach to his writing.

All that being said, "Mayflower Lives" remains an easily digestible bit of colonial history presented in a novel way.

[Chelsea Grieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised by how much I liked this book. The writer's choice to focus in depth each chapter on a particular life while tying them to other people created a unique foundation that brought history and storytelling together. It was never boring, but always educational. He also made sure to include Native Americans while acknowledging how terribly they were treated and not painting the pilgrims as perfect or even in the right as history books often do. This isn't meant to glorify colonialism; it is meant to understand the context and the world the pilgrims existed within. A fresh perspective with a fresh style!

[John]

Good example of how a popular account can introduce a wider readership to truths rather than facile stereotypes about the first encounters between natives and colonists. I doubt, given the current lack of commemoration for the sesquicentennial, and the 2020 U.S. disrepute into which the Mayflower's hundred-plus Saints (after all, the Puritans as separatists were indeed asylum seekers) and the half who were lesser-known secular Strangers (economic migrants in our parlance) have fallen, that many who revile these "genocidal" settlers know that only 50% survived their untimely November landing.

They'd aimed for the Hudson River, as part of the northern domain claimed by the Adventurers Guild whose Jamestown mission hadn't fared so well. They never meant to establish an outpost so far up the Atlantic seaboard, let alone so late in the autumn. By the turkey-less, no cranberry feast in 1621, only four adult women were there to help, all married. Most females, and many elderly and children, had perished the previous winter. The fabled Compact sworn to and signed by the men folk had been wisely secured by William Brewster onboard ship before disembarkation, to ensure order, not anarchy.

Whittock treats fourteen people, some famous, some not, who comprised arguably a more diverse mix than simplified summarizers of these controversial events may expect. We get "Squanto," Brewster, Standish, Bradford. But also couples mythologicized for love or condemned for adultery or infidelity; rogues such as Stephen Hopkins: a man sentenced to death for bestiality; a teenaged girl supposedly the first to alight onto the Rock; and workaday types destined to farm, and if needed, to fight to live.

He could have explained a few points explicitly. Such as how my direct ancestor Hopkins was able to interpret Algonquin. It's because he picked it up in Jamestown after he landed as an indentured hire in 1609. And since that language family stretched, fortuitously, from the Chesapeake to the watersheds of the St. Lawrence River. Enabling Hopkins to eke out communication with the Wampanoag up north.

But overall, the right balance of background and foreground to widen our distorted, caricatured, and cartoonish characterization peddled today as an overcorrective to the romanticized depictions of pure unsullied peoples free of any bloodshed, on either side. Or rather many, for no group could be judged apart from the human foibles, internecine struggles for land, desires for control, or justifications for power which drive us all, regardless of complexion, denomination, orientation, or accidents of birth.

Then as now, the lesson I learned from these pages is that our identities carry our hard-won values, our dogged loyalty to inspired varieties, and our inherent limitations as to their truths and our flaws.

[Dianne Alvine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whittock has written a superlative read, where he chronicles the lives of 14 people, including Squanto, a native American, and connects them to other individuals on the Plymouth Plantation in 1620. Because of the authoritarian Church of England, there were people who fled England for Leiden, in the Netherlands. There were also others who fled England for economic reasons. These people were thus referred to as the Saints and the Strangers.

When the opportunity arose, (and this journey was backed by the Adventurers, who the pilgrims would need to repay) these Saints and Strangers were willing to start a new life in a new world. They boarded a ship that eventually sustained a leak and so they waited until November, 1620 to board the Mayflower. This ship had a difficult time dealing with severe storms and so, instead of heading to the Virginia settlement, the Mayflower was forced to go back up the coast where they finally landed at Plymouth. So that was the beginning, all due to religion and politics.

Whittock engages the reader with his research dealing with the various indigenous tribes whose land is being swept up by the English, and what conflicts arise as well as some harmony between these tribes and the pilgrims. He brings to life certain individuals of the Plymouth colony and early American history. The story of the 'More' children, and especially of four year old Mary More, who was brought on board as an indentured servant was heartbreaking to say the least.

When I think about their lives, these courageous people who settled the Plymouth colony, my heart
will remember their faith, and their struggles. There was much sickness and death during that first terrible year. But they had courage in spite of all the pain, and to quote William Bradford, who was one of the passengers on the Mayflower, "Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust. Fear not the things thou suffer must; For, whom he loves he doth chastise, And then all tears wipes from their eyes."

[Gingerholli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good thanksgiving read. Detailed info on mayflower passengers lives.

[montogma25 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Mayflower Lives. While I was taking history classes in college, I took two courses on the American Colonies. However, they did not go into great detail about life on board the Mayflower. It was very interesting to read about the lives of the people who made the voyage and created Plymouth. One of the best aspects of this book was that the author added in the final will and testament of some of the people who made the voyage. This helped the reader to gain a much more personable attachment to the person that the author was writing about. I would give this book a four out of five stars and would recommend this book to any academic library or lover of history books.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I were Martyn Whittock's editor, I would tell him that he has a lot of good content, but Mayflower Lives needs some serious re-working. His biographical concept, wherein he explores the Plymouth experience through 15 parallel lives, makes for a lot of redundancy - sometimes confusing and often annoying. A chronological narrative or even thematic organization would have been more effective, but I recognize the "lives" framework is Whittock's attempt to make a unique contribution to the oeuvre of Mayflower scholarship.

Stylistically, there are problems as well. The early chapters in particular felt very elementary, with extreme overuse of exclamation points, ellipses, and phrases such as "the reader will see." There was also way too much surmising of thoughts and feelings, which felt so out of place in what purports to be an academic study.

Still, I tried to ignore all the annoyances (and there were less of them as the book went on) and gain what I could from the content. As a Mayflower descendant, I was keen to see the names of my ancestors pop up. I also had a greater interest after visiting Plimoth Plantation last summer, where I "met" many of the real characters Whittock spotlights.

So... not a waste of time, but not something I'd recommend to other readers. If you want to learn more about the Pilgrim settlement, read Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower. 3 stars for this one.

[Cyral Neeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am currently reading this book. It is written as a documentary not a story. It is very well researched and provides a lot of historical information. Warning, it is not a page turner because, it is a documentary. It isn't too long, like some historical biographies, so it isn't hard to get through. It provides a realistic view of life in the early years of the American continent and the struggle for survival.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyably readable but still scholarly* book about the Mayflower told through the lives of the saints and Strangers that made up the 1620 voyage and settlement at Plimouth, including Mary Chilton, Miles Standish and Tisquantum.

* If by scholarly, you mean footnotes. There are ALOT of exclamation points!

[Sandy D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This popular account of some of the immigrants' lives who came over to current day Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620 seems well-researched and well-intentioned, but the writing style was not to my taste - it took me out of the narrative too much, and/or was overly religious and laudatory, peppered with exclamations. You may enjoy it more than I did, however, and there were a lot of interesting insights into who lived and died in the first few years of their colony, how the Strangers and Separatists got along, and how their religion compared to that held by those English that settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the following years.

I did appreciate the attention paid to gender roles, marriage, and sexuality!

[Laura Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book mostly because I am a Mayflower descendent. The author chose to relate the story of a few members of the Mayflower and how they shaped the New World. It is a remarkable story of hardship and courage that we are the beneficiaries. He writes of Miles Standish, Squanto, Mary Chilton who is believed to be the young girl who step of the Mayflower first. There is the story of four young children who were sent to the New World to punish their unfaithful mother. This book is written in a style that makes the history come alive.

[Anne Walters custer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really compelling and readable look at the Pilgrims. Each chapter tells the story of a different Mayflower passenger, but the chapters also build to present a complete historical picture. It's very well told and often reads like a novel. The author does a good job of noting you can't judge historical figures by contemporary standards, while also noting the failures of the era. The only thing that holds it back from 5 stars is the occasional over speculation of guessing what someone might have felt and minor style quibbles.

[Kenneth Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Facinating historical account here! The detail, historical presentation, and personal/character exploration of the Mayflower pilgrims was instructive and enjoyable to read. This book made me realize how very, very little I knew of the Pilgrims (ie, their relationships, faith, relations with Native Americans, relationship to England and the subsequent colonies, family and marriage challenges, etc.), and led me to view their experience with a greater appreciation of nuance and admiration for their perseverance, faith, sincerity. . . and human nature.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
- strangers
- 'saints'
- sinners
- servants

but ultimately the survivors. This book is an intimate look at certain members of the Mayflower based on documents found.

Pretty similar (90%) to Nathaniel Philbrick book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this to learn more about my ancestors William Bradford, William Brewster, and-I was hoping-their wives. Some really interesting parallels to other religious exoduses, such as with some of their posterity who traveled west in the early years of the LDS church. I read Bradford's writings in an American lit class long ago and it was good to have a refresher about him and read from another perspective.  

[Donna Winters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter focuses on the life of one or more passengers, revealing the remarkable history of the Mayflower and Plymouth Colony. I have read several books on the topic and found Whittock's approach the most digestible for a non-historian. His details are captivating, his research thorough, and his delivery gripping. Even if you've read the story by other authors, read this one. It has become one of my favorites.

[Rebecca van den Ham · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an ancestor of John Howland, I was very pleased to discover that he got a whole chapter to himself! He did other stuff besides falling off the ship...
I enjoyed getting to know better the eclectic cast of characters that peopled Plymouth.
The style is very readable, though sometimes a little repetetive.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I receive a copy from NetGalley for review. I found this to be very informative and well written. The stories outlined remained interesting and it was a thorough investigation of the lives of the people we have read about in history.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent way to present history! Each chapter focuses on an individual member of the Mayflower which makes each chapter like a mini biography. While discussing an individual, Whittock includes many historical details about the time and the place. I highly recommend this book!

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My recommendations:

More research
No exclamation points (these drove me nuts)
Separate chapters about life, clothing, marriage, etc. instead of being included in the biography
Several more edits
A separate bibliography

[Jason Gewirtz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable and informative look at the Plymouth pilgrims. A few too many exclamation points for my taste, but the stories were well told and format of looking into 15 specific people was a clever way to set the stage.

[Debbie Cowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping for more insight into the lives of my progenitors, John and Priscilla Alden, but this was still well worth reading. I felt the author was fair and even-handed in his portrayal of the various Mayflower Lives. Very good overview.

[Jessica Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book! Each chapter was dedicated to the life of a particular pilgrim. The specific detail was well written and researched and I found the book very interesting! Now I'll have to listen to one on King Phillips war and the Salem Witch trials!

[Marianne Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a marvelous work of history and personalities. Mr. Whittock made each character so recent and personal to me. As he tied their stories together, he painted a rich picture of an old ship filled with "Pilgrams" of which, I've only heard about my whole life.

[Gig Wailgum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and illuminating histories of a select group of people on the Mayflower. Each chapter reads like a college lecture on a particular pilgrim or none pilgrim. A great read for this time of year - November.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to learn more about individual members who arrived on the Mayflower.