When veteran journalist/historian Nathaniel Philbrick began researching the story of the Pilgrims, he had no intention of "debunking the myths" surrounding this most mythical of American stories.
"I was just curious," he said by phone from the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Ore., during a tour to promote his book, "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War."
A 20-year-resident of Nantucket Island, Philbrick has written six other books, all expressions of his love of the sea.
Philbrick thought it was odd that so much has been written about the history of the Founding Fathers and so little about the Pilgrims. "I thought, 'my goodness, this is a story that needs to be told,' yet the origins of American settlement have not been looked at in a serious or even a popular way. It has been easier to accept the Pilgrims as pious, generous people who celebrated the first Thanksgiving. It is such a profound disconnect."
He also believes that the Pilgrims "didn't come to America for religious freedom — they wanted to do what they thought was right, and that didn't include being a tolerant society."
Oddly enough, even Philbrick's publisher, Viking, realizes the historical importance of his book, as demonstrated by the full-page newspaper ads that currently promote "Mayflower."
"I did not set out to tear apart people's heroes," said Philbrick. "But the first 55 years of peaceful co-existence between Pilgrims and the Wampanoags blew apart with King Phillip's War."
The best-known Pilgrim is undoubtedly William Bradford, who served as governor of the Plimouth colony for 30 years. "He was not an empire builder," said Philbrick. "He just wanted to transfer his congregation from Holland to the New World."
It is Bradford's book-length manuscript, "Of Plimouth Plantation," that illustrates many of his views and traces the history of the region. Bradford's wife had somehow slipped over the side of the Mayflower and drowned — but Bradford left this shocking story out of his history. Their voyage in a 180-ton vessel that bounced on the ocean for two months was hideous.
The "Saints" and "strangers," as Bradford called the inhabitants of the Mayflower, "were not trained in any way for this undertaking," Philbrick said. "They knew nothing about where they were headed, and then they were 200 miles off course. Half of them died the first winter, but the struggle gave them a common bond. They emerged as a very tightly knit community. This is a survival story from the beginning."
Philbrick blames the mythical elements of the story on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the 19th-century poet who wrote "The Courtship of Miles Standish." "He created this wonderfully attractive picture of these people, tinged with romance and piety. Longfellow was the ultimate publicist for the Pilgrims. Then the Civil War occurred during Lincoln's presidency, and he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday — freezing Longfellow's image."
The author concedes that a similarity exists between his work and the down-to-earth, popular narrative history written by David McCullough, the author of "John Adams" and "1776," both best-sellers. "I'm trying to provide a narrative that does justice to the latest historical research while making it accessible beyond specialists of history. It's not easy to do that. We shouldn't hide behind our heroes. We should look at them with open eyes."
What surprised Philbrick most was the discovery that "a level of violence was such a part of life. Only a few years after the Pilgrims' arrival in the New World, Miles Standish led a commando-style raid north of the settlement and returned with the head of an enemy. He was encouraged to do so by Massasoit. This story is pretty dark."
When asked why the so-called "strangers," such as Standish and John Alden, have been better remembered than the Pilgrims, Philbrick said, "Because the strangers were the most interesting. Bradford called the Billington family 'the most profane family on the Mayflower.'
"John Robinson, the preacher, who never made it to America, thought Standish should have converted the people instead of killing them in a raid. If Robinson had come to America, he might have kept the element of violence down."
And the Mayflower Compact? Philbrick does not consider it to be the major emblem of democracy in America. "It was a simple document saying, 'we promise to do what our elected leaders tell us to do.' It was symbolic of the literary culture Americans would become — a people who would write down their beliefs on paper and then sign it."
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com