Henry F. Howe

“ We have seen how recently peace had been made with the Indians.
The Pilgrims ascribed all these blessings to acts of Providence in their behalf. But Providence has a way of fulfilling its aims through the acts of determined men. Any visitor to Plymouth who reveres the Pilgrims should also honor those representatives of the glorious maritime energies of the Old World whose discoveries and explorations prepared the way for permanent settlement. ”

“ Captain Thomas Dermer may be considered the first of the Plymouth martyrs, who lost his life after saving a New Plymouth that did not yet exist, though the Mayflower was on its way when he died.
It is a strange commentary on the justice of history that the men who had spent their lives on New England colonization had almost no share in the first successful plantation in Massachusetts. We have seen what an outpouring of futile struggle men like Gorges and Smith and Dermer had expended on the failures that set the stage for the Pilgrims. ”

“ The fur trade and the fisheries by which New Plymouth finally paid off its creditors had been painstakingly developed by many hazardous years of experiment by small shipowners of Bristol and Plymouth and other smaller havens in the west of England. Faith in New England ventures, so nearly destroyed by the Sagadahoc failure, had been kept alive and sedulously cultivated by a little group of earnest men around Gorges and John Smith, so that money could be available to finance even the risky trading voyages necessary to keep a foothold on the coast. ”

“ One can imagine what bitterness grew toward the English among Massachusetts Indians after this demonstration of European barbarism.
The quirks of history are at times worthy of the most fantastic fiction. Thomas Hunt’s universally condemned crime happened to produce one result which proved of great advantage to the Pilgrims. Among the twenty wretched Plymouth natives whom Hunt sold at the “Straights of Gibralter” was an Indian named Squanto. Then began a five-year European education which trained Squanto for his irreplaceable services25 to the Pilgrims as their interpreter. ”

“ This Sagadahoc Colony failure was a blow to New England colonization, the effects of20 which lasted for a generation, since the impression of New England as a subarctic area, impractical for settlement, remained in English minds for many years. It needs to be emphasized, however, that despite this setback to English hopes, the loss of fortunes invested in the enterprise, and the breakdown of the Plymouth Company produced by this failure, the enterprise had come much nearer to success than Humphrey Gilbert’s attempted colony in Newfoundland. ”

“ The only hint of provocation is the taking of a canoe back to England.
Had Plymouth been populated by two hundred Indians in 1620 it seems unlikely that the Pilgrims could have survived. The English adventurers transferred their explorations to the coast of Maine, where in 1605 George Waymouth, and in 1606 Martin Pring, made investigations preparatory to the major colonization attempt of the English Plymouth Company at Sagadahoc, the mouth of the Kennebec River. This colony failed after a year through a breakdown in leadership. ”

“ Half the colonists died during the first winter, and the colony was moved across the Bay to a better site at what is now Annapolis, Nova Scotia. Meantime Champlain spent the summers of 1605 and 1606 exploring the New England coast, familiarizing himself with all the shores as far south as Woods Hole in Massachusetts. He wrote a splendid account of these expeditions, which is still good reading; and for the first time produced a good map of the Massachusetts coast, with detail maps of Gloucester, Plymouth, Eastham and Chatham harbors. ”

“ Much was learned about techniques of living in the new country, getting along with Indians, and the need for continuous replacement and supply. These ventures were hazardous: they required courage, teamwork, strong leadership, and personnel of heroic wisdom and tenacity.
After the Sagadahoc failure, the pattern of English activity on the New England coast reverted for five years to the former state of occasional trading and fishing voyages. The only events that touched even remotely on Plymouth history were Cape Cod visits of three men from different areas of activity. ”

“ Beaver, deer, and codfish multiplied unhindered. Smith’s description of Plymouth, “good harbor, good land and no want of anything but industrious people,” was now doubly true of the whole mainland shore of Massachusetts Bay.
These conditions were confirmed by Captain Thomas Dermer in 1619. Dermer had been associated with John Smith and Ferdinando Gorges in an attempted New England voyage in 1615, and was probably familiar with the coast. He was in Newfoundland in 1618 and there became acquainted with Squanto, who had been living in the household of John Slany in England. ”

“ Both French and English built up an increasing fur trade on the Maine coast, especially about the Penobscot and in the Bay of Fundy. Fishermen from all the maritime nations of Europe crowded in increasing numbers to the Newfoundland banks, carrying back apparently inexhaustible supplies of codfish to feed Catholic Europe in the season of Lent. By 1578 as many as 350 fishing vessels were making the transatlantic voyage, usually twice each year. ”

“ The chief value of Champlain’s little map, aside from confirming the locality, is its evidences of very extensive Indian houses and cornfields occupying much of the slopes above the shore all the way around from the Eel River area through Plymouth and Kingston to the shores of Duxbury Bay.
The expedition left Plymouth on July 19 and sailed around the shores of Cape Cod Bay before rounding the Cape and arriving the next day at Nauset Harbor in Eastham. During19 several days’ stay there, a French sailor was killed by the Indians in a scuffle over a kettle. ”

“ This canoe went back on shore to give notice to their fellow inhabitants, who caused columns of smoke to rise on our account. We saw eighteen or twenty savages, who came to the shore and began to dance.” Was this a reminiscence of dancing to the guitar for Pring’s sailor, perhaps? “Our canoe landed in order to give them some bagatelles, at which they were greatly pleased. ”