Mayflower (18 page)

If they were to have any hope of completing the fort, they needed more provisions. Even though they lived on the edge of one of the world’s great fishing grounds, the Pilgrims were without the skills and the equipment required to take advantage of it. They could, however, look to the fishermen assembled to the east as a possible provisioning source. Winslow headed out in the shallop on an emergency mission to Maine, where he succeeded in securing some desperately needed food.

With the approach of winter, the fort was nearing completion, and Weston’s men had settled at Wessagussett, about twenty-two miles to the north in modern Weymouth. Taking their cue from the Pilgrims, the men at Wessagussett immediately began building a fort of their own. Due to the depredations of Weston’s crew, the Pilgrims’ corn crop had been disastrously insufficient. Wessagussett was in even more desperate need of food. That fall, it was decided, the two settlements would band together in search of provisions and take Wessagussett’s thirty-ton vessel, the
Swan,
on a trading voyage to the south of Cape Cod.

Standish was to lead the expedition, but in November the normally vigorous captain was struck by a debilitating fever. Bradford decided to go in his stead with Squanto as his guide and interpreter. Since his downfall in May, Squanto had done his best to win back the confidence of both Bradford and Massasoit. Winslow claimed that by the time the
Swan
departed from Plymouth, he had secured a “peace” with the Pokanoket sachem. It is difficult to imagine the circumstances under which the disgraced interpreter could have regained Massasoit’s trust. But whatever the sachem’s true disposition toward him may have been, Squanto, at least, was under the impression that all was once again right with the world. It was now safe for him to venture beyond Plymouth.

In order to sail to the south of Cape Cod, they must negotiate the same shoals that had almost wrecked the
Mayflower
two years before. Squanto claimed that he had done just that not once but twice—with the Englishman Thomas Dermer and a Frenchman. But once in the waters off modern Chatham, Bradford was gripped by a sickening sense of déjà vu. They were surrounded by breakers, and the
Swan
’s master “saw no hope of passage.” They bore up and headed for shore, toward what is called today Pleasant Bay but was then known as Manamoyick, where Squanto said they might spend the night. Using their shallop to scout ahead of them, they followed a narrow and crooked channel and soon had the
Swan
safely anchored in the harbor.

That evening Bradford and Squanto went ashore to speak with the local Indians. Only after the Manamoyicks had hidden away most of their goods and provisions were they willing to entertain the two in their wigwams. It took some convincing, but eventually they agreed to trade. Over the next few days, with Squanto’s help, Bradford secured eight hogsheads of corn and beans.

Just before they were about to leave for a second attempt at crossing the breakers, Squanto suddenly fell ill. Bradford described it as an “Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose (which the Indians take for a symptom of death).” Within a few days, Squanto—the Indian whom Bradford valued so highly that he had put the entire plantation at risk rather than see him killed—was dead. Bradford claimed Squanto asked him “to pray for him that he might go to the Englishmen’s God in Heaven; and bequeathed sundry of his things to sundry of his English friends as remembrances of his love.” For Bradford, it was yet another terrible personal and professional loss. With Dorothy, Governor Carver, and now Squanto dead, he must once again regroup and find a way to continue on.

Bradford assumed that his trusted interpreter had died of natural causes. But he may have been the victim of an assassination plot masterminded by Massasoit. Although difficult to document, there were several suspected poisonings of high-ranking Indians in New England during the seventeenth century. That Squanto, who had survived the infectious streets of London, should suddenly fall prey to disease on Cape Cod is highly unlikely. Massasoit’s supposed reconciliation with the interpreter may have been only a ruse. Years later, his son was accused of ordering the secret execution of yet another Indian interpreter.

Squanto might have been guilty of clandestinely following his own agenda, but he had the diplomatic instincts of a leader. Sachem-like, he had attempted to outwit and outmaneuver his more powerful rivals. He had put Bradford in a most difficult and dangerous position, and yet to the end, the Plymouth governor insisted that the interpreter had been “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.”

It remained to be seen whether Massasoit still held Squanto’s machinations against the Pilgrims. A year ago, there had been nothing but trust and friendship between Plymouth and the Pokanokets. Now there was uncertainty and lingering bitterness.

Without Squanto to guide them, the Pilgrims must look to Hobbamock—a warrior of unfailing loyalty to both Massasoit and Miles Standish. Negotiation and cunning had had their day. In the perilous months ahead, a brutal darkness would fall across New England.

P
LYMOUTH BY THE WINTER OF
1623 was a place of exceptional discipline, a community where shared religious beliefs and family ties had united the Leideners from the start and where two years of strong leadership on the part of William Bradford had convinced even the Strangers that it was in their best interests to work together. Some twenty miles to the north, at Wessagussett, an entirely different community had come into being.

Wessagussett was more like early Jamestown—a group of unattached men with relatively little in common. In the beginning, their energies were directed toward building a fort. But once that was completed, they were unprepared to face the rigors of a hard New England winter. As in Jamestown, a state of almost unaccountable languor quickly descended on the inhabitants. Suffering from a deadly combination of malnutrition and despair, the colonists appeared powerless to adapt to the demands of the New World.

It was quite possible, the Pilgrims insisted, for Weston’s men to survive. Even without corn and migratory birds, there were still shellfish (including oysters, which were not available at Plymouth) along the water’s edge at Wessagussett. There were also groundnuts, fleshy potatolike tubers that grew in clusters beneath the ground. Rather than give up, they must strive to feed themselves.

But to seek food required them to leave the safety of their fortress, and unlike Plymouth, where the closest Indian village was fifteen miles away, Wessagussett was set right beside a Massachusett settlement. Not only was the threat of attack greater, but there was also an even more powerful form of temptation. The Indians possessed stores of corn that they were saving for the spring. Why spend the day rooting for clams in the cold mud when there was so much corn for the taking?

In February, John Sanders, the settlement’s leader, wrote to Governor Bradford, asking if it was right to steal a few hogsheads of corn, especially if they promised to reimburse the Indians once they’d grown their own corn in the summer. This was, of course, almost exactly what the Pilgrims had done two years before, but Bradford urged them to leave the corn alone, “for it might so exasperate the Indians…[that] all of us might smart for it.”

In desperation, Sanders sailed to the east in hopes of securing some provisions from a fishing outpost on the island of Monhegan. He left his plantation in a state of misery and disorder. One morning they found a man dead in the tidal flats, waist deep in muck and apparently too feeble to extract himself. As the sufferings of Weston’s men increased, the Indians, who were already resentful of the English interlopers, began to harass them unmercifully. They scoffed at their weakness and even snatched from their hands what few clams and groundnuts they had been able to gather. Some of the English resorted to trading their clothes for food until they were reduced to naked, trembling skeletons of wretchedness; others contracted themselves out as servants to the Indians; one man, according to Winslow, willingly
became
an Indian.

About this time, Miles Standish traveled to Manomet, just fifteen miles to the south of Plymouth, to pick up some of the corn Bradford had secured during his trading voyage with Squanto. Standish was being entertained by sachem Canacum when two Massachusett Indians arrived with word from sachem Obtakiest at Wessagussett.

One of the Indians was a warrior of immense pride named Wituwamat, who bragged of having once killed several French sailors. Wituwamat possessed an ornately carved knife that he had taken from one of his victims. Soon after his arrival, he presented the knife to Canacum and began “a long speech in an audacious manner.” Without the assistance of an interpreter, Standish was not sure what Wituwamat was saying, but he did know that once the Indian had completed his speech, he—not Standish—became Canacum’s favored guest and Wituwamat’s “entertainment much exceeded the captain’s.”

Standish was not the sort to overlook a social slight. Where Bradford was willing to give even a potential traitor the benefit of the doubt, Standish was quick to take offense. He objected vehemently to his treatment by Canacum and chastised the two Massachusett Indians for their refusal to pay him the proper respect.

In an attempt to pacify the captain, Canacum insisted that Standish invite his three English compatriots, who were then loading the shallop with corn, to join them beside the fire. But Standish would have none of it. He stormed out of the wigwam and resolved to spend the night with his men at the temporary rendezvous they had built beside the shallop.

Standish’s indignant furor appears to have blinded him to the fact that something of far more consequence than a social rebuff had occurred at Manomet. Only in hindsight did Standish see the interchange between Wituwamat and Canacum as the first indication that the Indians in the region were conspiring against them. For, as it turned out, he and Wituwamat were destined to meet again.

While Standish was at Manomet, word reached Plymouth that Massasoit was gravely ill. Bradford decided he must send an emissary—not only to attend to Massasoit, but to make contact with the crew of a Dutch vessel that had reportedly been driven ashore, almost to the door of the sachem’s wigwam. Since Winslow had already visited Massasoit and could speak Dutch, he was chosen for the expedition to Pokanoket.

Winslow was accompanied by Hobbamock and John Hamden, a gentleman from London who was wintering with the Pilgrims, and about midway in their forty-mile journey, they received word from some Indians that Massasoit was dead. “This news struck us blank,” Winslow wrote. The Indians also said that the Dutch had succeeded in refloating their vessel and had already left Pokanoket.

Hobbamock was the most profoundly affected by the unsubstantiated news of the sachem’s passing, and he insisted that they return immediately to Plymouth. But Winslow was not so sure. If Massasoit was dead, then Corbitant, who lived just to the east of Pokanoket, would in all likelihood succeed him. Even though he was, in Winslow’s words, “a most hollowhearted friend toward us,” it might be in their best interests to stop at Corbitant’s village and pay their respects. Given that less than a year ago both Winslow and Hobbamock had been part of an expedition sent to kill Corbitant (who had reportedly murdered Squanto), it was an extremely hazardous proposition. But after some reflection, all of them thought it worth the risk.

As they made their way to Corbitant’s village, Hobbamock could not contain his sorrow over the loss of Massasoit. “My loving sachem, my loving sachem!” he cried. “Many have I known, but never any like thee.” He said that with Massasoit’s death he feared Plymouth “had not a faithful friend left among the Indians.” He then proceeded to deliver a eulogy that still stands as a remarkably timeless description of an ideal leader:

Corbitant, they soon discovered, was not at home. He was still at Pokanoket, his wife said; she wasn’t sure whether or not Massasoit was still alive. Winslow hired a runner to go to Pokanoket to get the latest news. Just a half hour before sunset, the messenger returned with word that the sachem “was not yet dead, though there was no hope we should find him living.” Winslow resolved to set out immediately for Pokanoket.

It was still dark when they arrived at Massasoit’s village. His wigwam was so jammed with people that they had difficulty making their way to the sachem’s side. Several powwows hovered over him, “making such a hellish noise, as it distempered us that were well,” Winslow wrote. Massasoit’s arms, legs, and thighs were being worked over by half a dozen women, who chafed his skin “to keep heat in him.” During a lull, Winslow requested that Massasoit be informed that “his friends, the English, were come to see him.”

The sachem was unable to see, but he could still hear. He weakly asked which one of the English was present. The Indians said Winslow’s name as “Winsnow,” and Massasoit responded, “Keen Winsnow?” or “Are you Winslow?” The Pilgrim answered, “Ahhee,” or yes. Massasoit’s response: “Matta neen wonckanet namen, Winsnow!” or “O Winslow, I shall never see thee again.”

Winslow explained that Governor Bradford had wished he could be there but pressing business had required him to remain at Plymouth. In his stead, he had come with some medicines and foods “most likely to do [the sachem] good in this his extremity.” Massasoit had eaten nothing in a very long time, and Winslow attempted to feed him some fruit preserves, administered on the tip of a knife. Once the sweetened fruit had dissolved in Massasoit’s mouth, he swallowed—for the first time in two days.

Winslow began to examine the interior of the sachem’s mouth. It was “exceedingly furred,” and his tongue was so swollen that it was little wonder he had been unable to eat anything. After scraping the “corruption” from his mouth and tongue, Winslow fed him more of the preserves.

Massasoit may have been suffering from typhus, probably brought to the village by the recently departed Dutch traders. Spread by infected lice, typhus was known as “pestilential fever” in the seventeenth century and was most common in winter and spring. Typhus thrived in the crowded, unsanitary conditions typical of an Indian or, for that matter, English village of the time, and there were also several other Pokanokets suffering from the disease. According to a modern description of typhus, symptoms include “fever and chills, vomiting, constipation or diarrhea, muscle ache and delirium or stupor. The tongue is first coated with a white fur, which then turns brown. The body develops small red eruptions which may bleed.” In severe cases, the mortality rate can reach 70 percent.

Within a half hour of receiving his first taste of Winslow’s fruit preserves, Massasoit had improved to the extent that his sight had begun to return. Winslow had brought several bottles of medicines, but they had broken along the way. He asked Massasoit if he could send a messenger to get some more from the surgeon back in Plymouth, as well as a couple of chickens, so that he might cook up a broth. This was readily agreed to, and by 2
A.M.
a runner was on his way with a letter from Winslow.

The next day, Massasoit was well enough to ask Winslow to shoot a duck and make an English pottage similar to what he had sampled at Plymouth. Fearing that his stomach was not yet ready for meat, Winslow insisted that he first try a more easily digested pottage of greens and herbs. Neither Winslow nor John Hamden had any experience in making such a concoction, however, and after much hunting about they were able to find only a few strawberry leaves and a sassafras root. They boiled the two together, and after straining the results through Winslow’s handkerchief and combining it with some roasted corn, they fed the mixture to Massasoit. He drank at least a pint of the broth and soon had his first bowel movement in five days.

Before fading off to sleep, the sachem asked Winslow to wash out the mouths of all the others who were sick in the village, “saying they were good folk.” Reluctantly the Pilgrim envoy went about the work of scraping the mouths of all who desired it, a duty he admitted to finding “much offensive to me, not being accustomed with such poisonous savors.” This was a form of diplomacy that went far beyond the usual exchange of pleasantries and gifts.

That afternoon Winslow shot a duck and prepared to feed Massasoit the promised pottage. By this time, the sachem had improved remarkably. “Never did I see a man so low…recover in that measure in so short a time,” Winslow wrote. The duck’s meat was quite fatty, and Winslow said it was important to skim the grease from the top of the broth, but Massasoit was now ravenous and insisted on making “a gross meal of it”—gobbling down the duck, fat and all. An hour later, he was vomiting so violently that he began to bleed from the nose.

For the next four hours the blood poured from his nose, and Winslow began to fear that this might be the end. But eventually the bleeding stopped, and the sachem slept for close to eight hours. When he awoke, he was feeling so much better that he asked that the two chickens, which had just arrived from Plymouth, be kept as breeding stock rather than cooked for his benefit.

All the while, Indians from as many as a hundred miles away continued to arrive at Pokanoket. Before Winslow’s appearance, many of those in attendance had commented on the absence of the English and suggested that they cared little about Massasoit’s welfare. With this remarkable recovery, everything had changed. “Now I see the English are my friends and love me,” Massasoit announced to the assembled multitude; “and whilst I live, I will never forget this kindness they have showed me.”

Before their departure, Massasoit took Hobbamock aside and had some words with the trusted pniese. Not until the following day, after they had spent the night with Corbitant, who now declared himself to be one of the Pilgrims’ staunchest allies, did Hobbamock reveal the subject of his conversation with Massasoit.

Plymouth, the sachem claimed, was in great danger. Pushed to the limit of their endurance by Weston’s men at Wessagussett, the Massachusetts had decided they must wipe out the settlement. But to attack Wessagussett would surely incite the wrath of the Pilgrims, who would feel compelled to revenge the deaths of their countrymen. The only solution, the Massachusetts had determined, was to launch raids on both English settlements. But the Massachusetts had just forty warriors; if they were to attack Wessagussett and Plymouth simultaneously, they needed help. Massasoit claimed that they had succeeded in gaining the support of half a dozen villages on Cape Cod as well as the Indians at Manomet and Martha’s Vineyard. An assault was imminent, Massasoit insisted, and the only option the Pilgrims had was “to kill the men of Massachusetts, who were the authors of this intended mischief.” If the Pilgrims waited until after the Indians had attacked Wessagussett, it would be too late. By then the regionwide Native force would have been assembled, and the “multitude of adversaries” would overwhelm them. They must act “without delay to take away the principals, and then the plot would cease.”