Grizzly @ Adams

Every time I teach William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation I get the same complaint: it’s dull. But it’s not! Once you get used to Bradford’s Puritan “plain style,” his account of the Plymouth colony’s early years is more fun than Disneyland. Yes, it reveals the early colonists to be every bit as bigoted and theocratic as the Puritan stereotype would suggest, but it also shows them to be dedicated, gutsy, and at least occasionally funny. I would recommend paying special attention to the account of the sailor with the “lusty, able body” (on page 248); the beautiful and moving description of just how vulnerable and isolated the colonists felt upon being dropped off by the Mayflower (249-250); the heartbreaking account of the “starving time” (251-252); the hilarious description of John Morton’s rival colony at Merrymount, which ends with Morton being arrested after he proves too drunk to lift his musket (254-258) (remember, sometimes a musket is just a musket); and the explanation of the shocking, just shocking, discovery that there were “so many wicked persons and profane people” in God’s Own Colony (262-263).

A few questions: At the beginning of his book, Bradford tells us he is writing “in a plain style, with singular regard to the simple truth in all things” (247). But is the truth of the Plymouth experiment really simple? And is Bradford’s plain style really so plain? Does it really give us the unvarnished truth, or is the plain style itself a rhetorical device used to make the untrue seem true?

Is Bradford’s History really a history at all? If not, what would you call it?

As examples of some of Bradford’s literary devices, consider the alliteration and internal rhyme that give so much zip to the phrases “to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies” and “fill their sides full of arrows.” Feel the poetic rhythm of “hideous and desolate wilderness” (each of the main words is a dactyl, with one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables: hí-de-ous, dés-o-late, wíl-der-ness). Groove on the anaphora in “wild beasts and wild men.” (The original spelling is “wild beasts and willd men.”) In other words, sense the poetry animating the prose — and the poet’s heart beating inside the sober and orthodox colonial governor.

Oh, yeah — anyone who thinks the U.S. Constitution established a “Christian nation” should be sure to check out the Mayflower Compact (251) to see what the charter of a real Christian polity looks like.

As for the excerpt from John Underhill’s Newes from America, it can be difficult to read — in more ways than one. As far as I know, this book has never been published in a modern edition, and the copy in your coursepack is from a microfilm of the original. The copy quality is poor, the spelling is old-school (“seeing the Fort was to hotte for us, wee devised a way how wee might save ourselves”), and the book uses the “long-s” (which looks like an “f” with the cross-stroke on the left side only).

But the excerpt is also difficult to read because of its horrific content. It begins after the fighting at the Pequot village of Mystic is already underway. The Pequots, mostly women and children, have been caught by surprise in their “palizado” or wooden fortress but are starting to mount an effective defense. The Puritans, led by Underhill and Captain Mason and having taken a few casualties, decide not to force their way into the fort but instead to burn it down. Underhill’s account of the ensuing slaughter can be compared to William Bradford’s account of the same event in Chapter XXVIII of his History.

Both accounts can be compared to this R-rated scene from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911. What would you say are the some of the hallmarks of the language used to describe and justify the Pequot massacre? What about the rhetoric of empire more generally? And what about Michael Moore’s anti-imperialist rhetoric?