Chicago Tribune (Sunday)

A touch of historical irony

Some see perverse poetry of the coronaviru­s sinkingMay­flower events on 400th anniversar­y of arrival

- By Allen G. Breed

The year 2020was supposed to be a big one for the Pilgrims. Dozens of events — from art exhibits and festivals to lectures and a maritime regatta featuring theMayflow­er II, a full-scale replica refitted over the past three years at a cost of more than $11 million — were planned to mark the 400th anniversar­y of the religious separatist­s’ arrival at whatwe nowknowas Plymouth, Massachuse­tts.

Butmany of those activities have been postponed or canceled due to the coronaviru­s pandemic.

And historian Elizabeth Fenn finds a certain perverse poetry in that.

“The irony obviously runs quite deep,” says Fenn, a history professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied disease in Colonial America. “Novel infections did MOST of the dirty work of colonizati­on.”

Disease introduced by traders and settlers — either by happenstan­ce or intention — played a significan­t role in the “conquest” of Native people. And that inconvenie­nt fact, well known to the Natives’ descendant­s, is contrary to the traditiona­l narrative of the “NewWorld.”

That narrative has been attacked in recent months, as statues of Pilgrim predecesso­rs Christophe­r Columbus, Spanish conquistad­or Don Juan de Onate and other “colonizers” have been toppled and defaced. The counternar­rative sees people like the Pilgrims not as rugged pioneers and adventurer­s, but as part of a slow-motion genocide.

“The Mayflower came and the settlers came, and they’re considered FOUNDERS,” says historian and journalist Paula Peters, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. “But in fact, theywere takers.”

Plymouth wasn’t the first or

the largest or most successful of the English settlement­s. But it has taken an outsize place in the American story.

“Regardless of anything that came before or after, Plymouth is the ‘once upon a time’ to the story of the United States — the symbolic, if not literal, birthplace of our Nation,” declares the website for Plimoth Plantation, a reconstruc­ted Pilgrim settlement and living history exhibit.

But the 102 passengers aboard the Mayflower — equal numbers “saints” and “strangers”— did not cross the Atlantic to establish a democratic society. Whenthey set sail from Plymouth, England, on Sept. 16, 1620, they were escaping religious persecutio­n — and looking for a place where they could prosper.

After more than two months at sea, the Pilgrims landed at the place the Wampanoags called Patuxet, meaning “at the little falls.” When they disembarke­d from the leaky, fetid carrack, they stepped foot on a land already cleared by death’s scythe.

In the years preceding the Pilgrims’ arrival, theNative inhabitant­s of southern New England had been ravaged by what some scientists refer to as a “virgin soil”

epidemic. The unidentifi­ed disease, perhaps introduced by European fishermen who plied the waters from Maine to Narraganse­tt Bay, burned through village after village, killing up to 90% of some tribes.

“I passed along the coast where I found some ancient (Native) plantation­s not long since populous, now utterly void; in other places a remnant remains, but not free of sickness,” Capt. Thomas Dermer wrote in a 1619 letter to a friend in London.

Dermer’s guide was Tsquantum — the Native interprete­r better knownas Squanto, whohad been among 20Wampanoa­gs kidnapped by English explorers in 1614 and sold into slavery.

Dermerwrot­e that“my savage’s country” was once home to roughly 2,000 souls.

“All dead,” he said. “Portions of coastal New England that had once been as densely populated as western Europe were suddenly empty of people, with only the whitened bones of the dead to indicate that a thriving community had once existed along these shores,” Nathaniel Philbrick wrote in his 2006 bestseller, “Mayflower.”

Most American children grow up with the feel-good story of the Pilgrims: How Pokanoket sachem Massasoit extended the hand of friendship to the English settlers, helping them survive their first winter on these shores, and later joining them for the first Thanksgivi­ng feast.

But there is a darker side to that tale, as related by Mayflower passenger EdwardWins­lowin his 1624 tract, “Good Newes From NewEngland.”

According toWinslow, Tsquantum spread a rumor that the Pilgrims kept barrels of plague buried in their storehouse, “which, at our pleasure, we could send forth towhat place or people we would, and destroy them therewith.”

According to Winslow, the interprete­r used the threat of plague to strengthen his own position among his people. If true, the Pilgrims were all too willing to play along.

WhenHobbam­ock, oneofMassa­soit’s warriors, asked if they did indeed have such a weapon, one settler replied: “No, but the God of the English had it in store, and could send it at his pleasure to the destructio­n of his and our enemies.”

The recent epidemic had deci

“The Mayflower came and the settlers came, and they’re considered FOUNDERS. But in fact, they were takers.” — historian and journalist Paula Peters, a member of theMashpee Wampanoag Tribe

mated the Pokanoket, but had largely spared their chief rivals, theNarraga­nsett. Some historians have suggested that Massasoit helped the Pilgrims, not of out kindness, but necessity.

Whether formed out of pity, fear or pragmatism, the alliance between Massasoit’s people and Plymouth did not last long.

Within 55 years of the Pilgrims’ arrival, his son Metacomet — betterknow­nas KingPhilip— was rallying the region’s tribes to push the English back across the sea. And Gov. Josiah Winslow, Edward’s son, dispatched soldiers into the forests and swamps to hunt them down.

In an article in last winter’s

Historical Journal of Massachuse­tts, Dr. John Booss of the Yale University School of Medicine argued that the “exquisite timing” of the Pilgrims’ arrival in thewake of a deadly epidemic was one of the key factors in the colony’s success.

“We are left with a tragic and paradoxica­l conclusion: Lethality in one population proved to be the means of survival for another group,” Boosswrote. “Without the intercessi­on of a highly lethal, geographic­ally focused and time specific epidemic among the Wampanoag, the history of the Pilgrims, New England, and the mythos of America might have been very different.”

But there is heated debate in the field over just how big a role disease played in the European domination of the continent.

In his groundbrea­king 1972 book, “The Columbian Exchange,” Alfred Crosby argued that the introducti­on of European germs among the “biological­ly defenseles­s Indians” brought about the collapse of the Aztec and Incan empires. His later writings helped cement the “virgin soil thesis” in academic and popular culture.

“It was their germs, not these imperialis­ts themselves, for all of their brutality and callousnes­s, that were chiefly responsibl­e for sweeping aside indigenes and opening theNeo-Europes to demographi­c takeover,” Crosbywrot­e.

Paul Kelton thinks focusing too much on disease is giving the colonizers a pass.

In a paper for the June edition of The Journal of American History, Kelton and co-author Tai S. Edwards argue that through war, legal maneuverin­g and debt peonage, “the colonizers bear responsibi­lity for creating conditions that made natives vulnerable to infection, increased mortality, and hindered population recovery.”

“Let’s not give disease exclusive agency in allowing Europeans to take over,” Kelton said in a recent interview. “In certain circumstan­ces, it allowed them to establish beachheads. It worked synergisti­cally with other aspects of colonialis­m. But, end of the day, there are human beings that are making decisions. And why are these decisions being made? Europeans seeing something they want and using whatever means they can to get it.”

Even biological­warfare.

In the spring of 1763, Delaware, Shawnee and Mingowarri­ors laid siege to Fort Pitt, the site of present-day Pittsburgh. When Delaware emissaries tried unsuccessf­ully to convince the English to surrender and leave, English trader and militia captainWil­liam Trent sent them away with two blankets and a silk handkerchi­ef fromthe fort’s smallpox infirmary.

“I hope it will have the desired effect,” Trent wrote in his diary.

Since smallpox was already

present before the siege, Fenn and others think it is unlikely that Trent’s “gift” had the desired effect. But Fenn says it is hard to overstate the role disease played in the conquest ofNorth America.

In August, Native descendant­s from all over New England and beyond were set to converge on Plymouth — to dance and drum around a ceremonial fire, march through the town, and make offerings of tobacco and sage in homage to Massasoit and King Philip. The Ancestors March was listed as a “signature event” on the Plymouth 400 calendar.

“We were looking forward to it so we could actually speak our truth,” says Troy Currence, a powwow or medicine man from the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe of Cape Cod. “That we’re still here. We’re not a destroyed people.”

Sadly, the coronaviru­s — which has disproport­ionately impacted Native communitie­s across the country— has also put these plans on hold until at least next spring. Meanwhile, they are sharing their history online.

Currence takes thepandemi­cas a sign that the country, and the world, are in need of a correction.

“Eventually, if you don’t take care of Mother Earth and live in balance,” he says, “the natural law is always going to win.”

 ?? DAVID GOLDMAN/AP ?? The Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620, is docked last month in Plymouth, Mass., after undergoing extensive renovation­s.
DAVID GOLDMAN/AP The Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower that brought the Pilgrims to America in 1620, is docked last month in Plymouth, Mass., after undergoing extensive renovation­s.
 ?? LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ?? A reproducti­on of a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris titled ”First Thanksgivi­ng” was made between 1900 and 1920. The traditiona­l story of the Pilgrims features a much darker and sinister side.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS A reproducti­on of a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris titled ”First Thanksgivi­ng” was made between 1900 and 1920. The traditiona­l story of the Pilgrims features a much darker and sinister side.

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