A history of the Pilgrims that neither idolizes nor demonizes them

While attending graduate school in Boston, I would sometimes venture with my wife to the bustling town of Plymouth. We would stroll past the rock, admire the replica of the Mayflower bobbing in the harbor, view the cramped cabin where the compact was signed, and stand before renderings of earnest Pilgrims and friendly American Indians gathered around a Thanksgiving table. Then we would hike up Burial Hill to tour the tombstones dating back nearly four centuries. Markers indicated the time of starvation that took the lives of the majority of the 102 settlers that first winter. The theological rigor and sheer human courage that drove them across the ocean imprinted themselves on our minds.

At the same time, I knew of alternative accounts of the actual history of Plymouth and the Pilgrims who first settled there in 1620. Those accounts of­fered a grim story not only of ruthless repression of freedom of religion but also of invasion, epidemics, violence, treachery, kidnapping, broken treaties, and the enslavement of hundreds of Wampanoag people who had inhabited the region for centuries.

John G. Turner’s erudite study incorporates elements of both of these scenarios—and adds at least two new ones. First, he highlights the role of irony, ambiguity, complexity, and unintended consequences in the Pilgrim experience. In Turner’s telling, noble aspirations and ignoble behavior continually mix to form shadows where there is light (and light where there is darkness).