English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

11/10/05: British-Indigenous Encounter in New England

 

 

  1. Backgrounds and context.

 

    1. Preconceptions about the New England colonies. 

 

 

                                                              i.      That it was the first encounter between the English and the native peoples of that part of North America.

 

                                                            ii.      That colonial New England is the origin of (U.S.) American culture.

 

                                                          iii.      That the settlers peacefully cohabited with the indigenous people, as symbolized by The First Thanksgiving.

 

                                                          iv.      That the settlers were all religious zealots—Puritans—who viewed the natives as devils.

 

 

    1. The reality is more complicated—and more interesting

 

                                                              i.      Prior contact between Native Americans and Europeans in the Massachusetts Bay region. 

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      “Our Pilgrim Forefathers” as 19th c. creation.  [Gallery of images at Pilgrim Hall Museum]

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      So what was the relationship between the English colonists of New Plymouth and the Wampanoag?

 

 

  1. A Relation or Journal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth in New England, by certain English adventurers both merchants and others (aka Mourt’s Relation).  London, 1622.

 

    1. Authorship and design. 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      Edward Winslow, Good Newes from New England (1624)

 

Figure 1.  Portrait of Edward Winslow (London 1651).  From Pilgrim Hall Museum.

 

                                                            ii.      William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (1856)

 

Figure 2.  First page of Of Plymouth Plantation manuscript.

 

    1. New England as spiritual testing ground: Lest the Lord leave us “swallowed up in one danger or another”. 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. The Mayflower Compact. 

 

 

 

 

    1. Discoveries. 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      Discovery #1:

 

 

                                                            ii.      Discovery #2:

 

 

                                                          iii.      Discovery #3:

 

 

 

3.      Claims, Evidence, and Warrants.

 

 

Evidence/Quotation

Claim

“we concluded…if we could find any of the people, and come to parley with them, we would give them the kettle again, and satisfy them for their corn” (22)

 

 

Heath: “Another tragedy is only presaged here, in the white man’s facile rationalization of his usurpation of lands which had long been used by Indians” (viii).

 

  1. A warrant EXPLAINS the logical relationship between the evidence and the claim.  It does not merely repeat the claim, but focuses, refines, and clarifies it.

 

 

  1. An example

 

 

  1. Your turn:  For homework, write a 1-2 page analysis of any brief passage from Mourt’s Relation.  Your analysis should be written according to the C-E-W formula we’ve been working on today.  Your explanation/warrant should extend and/or develop your claim beyond any initial superficialities.  Push yourself to “drill down” into the language of the quotation.

 

 

Conclusion: 

 

 

Next time:  Finish Mourt’s Relation.