William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation differs from William Byrd’s The History of the Dividing Line in the cases of purpose, tone, and style. The main purpose of Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation is to show how the colonists in Plymouth colony were struggling and dying due to the lack of food, and how the Native Americans in the area came and helped them. Natives like Squanto “directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish and to procure other commodities” (Bradford, 33). The lessons taught by the Natives saved the colonists and they formed a mutual friendship, as evidenced by the first Thanksgiving. Bradford was trying to show how the colonists were suffering and dying, but survived with the help of the Natives. Byrd, on the other hand, showed that the Virginians …show more content…
just tried to make peace with the Natives so in the long run, they could take their land. The peace would be strengthened by the intermarriage between the groups, saying “the poor Indians would have had less reason to complain that the English took away their land if they had received it by was of a portion with their daughters” (Byrd, 53). Bradford’s purpose was to show how the Indians helped, while Byrd’s purpose was to show how they took away from the Indians. The tone of the two accounts shows the different purposes. The tone in Bradford’s piece is more sad and pitiful in the beginning, especially when he is describing the death and the almost hopelessness of the colony. Later, the tone grows to a happier mood as the Indians help out and the colonists and the Indians can join together to celebrate the good harvest, or the “First Thanksgiving” (Bradford, 33). Byrd on the other hand has a more arrogant tone throughout his account. He describes the Natives as “infidels” (Byrd, 53), and mocks the French for being involved with them. The style also has the differences that purpose and tone do.
Bradford uses more bible and religious references, as in the one to Deuteronomy on page 31. Bradford also describes more about the people around him, highlighting the suffering of the colonists, and singling out specific people who are important in these dealings. Byrd uses more brutish words, like before mentioned “infidel” (Byrd, 53), as well as “gentiles” (Byrd, 52). “Gentiles” is one of the only religious descriptions he uses, with this one being in a bad light. He focuses on the wanted peace with the Indians and their religion. He calls their religion of that with nature, saying it’s pretty much a basic belief, further being against the Native Americans. Byrd definitely uses more offensive language, calling the French “squeamish” (Byrd, 53) and makes fun of them. While Bradford highlights the positives of the Plymouth colonist’s relationship with the Native Americans, Byrd shows how he doesn’t care too much about them. Bradford has a sad tone at the start and then a positive one, while Byrd is arrogant, throughout. Bradford says more positive, religious things, while Byrd stays negative and offensive in his
work.
Nathaniel Philbrick opens his book by drawing a direct line from the early Pilgrim’s arrival on Plymouth rock to the building of America. He goes on to say, “Instead of the story we already know, it becomes the story we need to know.” Many of us growing up, myself included romanticize about the pilgrims in the light of the first Thanksgiving and we think about the Indians sitting down with the Pilgrims to take part of the Thanksgiving meal. Next, we believe the myth that everyone lived happily ever after.
There was no definite property line in the early New England colony, causing animals roaming freely to become an issue between the two societies. The Indians were ultimately unprepared for the European’s livestock to wonder into their property without any boundaries. The animals would not only walk into their land but eat their resources and grass along the way. Destruction that the livestock caused to the Native American’s land led to a distinct boundary line between them and the Europeans, creating further tension rather than assimilation. Cattle were trapped into Indian hunting traps, causing both a problem to the Indians hunting rituals as well as the Europeans livestock supply. These issues among land division ultimately led to the acceleration of land expansion by the colonists during the 1660’s and early 1670’s. Before King Phillip’s War, Plymouth officials approached the Indians at least twenty-three times to purchase land. The author argues that previous mutual consideration for both the society’s needs was diminished at this point and the selling of the land would eliminate the Indian’s independence. Whenever livestock was involved, the colonists ignored Indian’s property rights
In Jamestown, the settlers had to deal with the Powhatan Indians. The relationships with them were unstable. John Smith, whom was the leader of Jamestown, was captured by these Indians while he was on a little trip with some of his men. As he left two of his men, he came back to find them dead and himself surrounded by two hundred members of the tribe, finding himself being captured. “Six or seven weeks those barbarians kept him prisoner…” 87). After this event, the relationship only grew worse and there was constant fighting between the settlers and Indians. The Indians practiced many methods in capturing settlers such as “scalping” and other dreadful techniques. The settlers did many negative practices also which is the reason they fought so many wars and battles against each other. Later on, the Indians killed the English for their weapons that were rare to them. In contrast to the Plymouth colony, these settlers dealt with the Pequot Indians and the relations were much more peaceful for a certain time frame. At one point, one Indian was brave enough to approach them and spoke to them (in broken English). He taught them the ways of the land, and developed a peace with the man. The settlers from the Plymouth colony learned many ways to grow food from these Indians. “He directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish and to procure other commodities, and was also their
Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the Pilgrims, beginning with them breaking away from the Church of England, emigrating to Holland, and eventually to America on the Mayflower. He talks about the relationship they had with the "Strangers" or nonbelievers that accompanied them on their adventure. He tells stories about disease, death, deception, and depression. I had never thought about it, but you know some of those people had to be suffering from depression. He tells of joys but mostly of hardships and as he describes some of the first meetings with the Native Americans. His description of the first Thanksgiving is not the same as the pictures I have seen all of my life.
As a young child many of us are raised to be familiar with the Pocahontas and John Smith story. Whether it was in a Disney movie or at a school play that one first learned of Jamestown, students want to believe that this romantic relationship really did occur. As one ages, one becomes aware of the dichotomy between fact and fiction. This is brilliantly explained in David A. Price's, Love and Hate in Jamestown. Price describes a more robust account of events that really did take place in the poorly run, miserable, yet evolving settlement of Jamestown, Virginia; and engulfs and edifies the story marketed by Disney and others for young audiences. Price reveals countless facts from original documents about the history of Jamestown and other fledgling colonies, John Smith, and Smith's relationship with Pocahontas. He develops a more compelling read than does the typical high school text book and writes intriguingly which propels the reader, to continue on to the successive chapters in the early history of Virginia.
In this book, Kupperman is telling a well-known event in remarkable detail. She intentionally uses last three chapters of the nine to tell the Jamestown’s history. The first six are in relation to how Jamestown came to be. The first chapter deals with political, national and religious conflicts during this period and how it motivated the English to venture West. The second is titled,” Adventurers, Opportunities, and Improvisation.” The highlight of this chapter is the story of John Smith, and how his precious experience enabled him to save ”the Jamestown colony from certain ruin.” (51) He is just an example of the “many whose first experiences along these lines were Africa or the eastern Mediterranean later turned their acquired skills to American ventures.” (43) Chapter three discusses the European and Native American interaction before and during this period. “North America’s people had had extensive and intimate experience of Europeans long before colonies was thought of, and through this experience they had come to understand much about the different kind of people across the sea.” (73) This exchange of information happened because a lot of Europeans lived among the Natives (not as colonist or settlers), and Natives were brought back to Europe. The people in Europe were very fascinated with these new people and their culture. Chapter four analyzes this fascination. It starts off talking about Thomas Trevilian, an author of “an elaborate commonplace book,” that showed “the English public was keenly interested in the world and in understanding how to categorize the knowledge about all the new things, people, and cultures of which specimens and descriptions were now available to them.
The main focus of Breen's essay the focus is on the fact that colonists in Virginia were driven and motivated to come to the New World, predominantly for monetary reasons. Virginia's soil was found to be unusually well suited for growing tobacco, which is why it drove such a variety of people to migrate there. The colonists, though said to be religious, were extremely individualistic, selfish, as well as primarily drawn in by the economic opportunity in Virginia. These attitudes and ideals are what consequently resulted in numerous military defeats and massacres. They avoided their military obligations, thus naming them the vulnerable “poorly defended white settlements.” These settlements were very easy for the Indians to take advantage of, as Breen writes.
Changes in the Land by William Cronon depicts the changes in New England brought upon by the European settlers in the 1600s. What was once only occupied by Native Americans, New England’s resources were sustainably consumed by the indigenous people of the land. However, in Cronan’s perspective, the arrival of the settlers brought upon drastic and detrimental consequences that would go on to affect the ecology of New England today. An apparent theme brought up in Changes in the Land is adaptation. Cronan arrays the theme of adaptation by displaying how the natives had to adapt to a sporadically changing lifestyle that the colonists attempted to assimilate into the land and its people.
To understand Jackson’s book and why it was written, however, one must first fully comprehend the context of the time period it was published in and understand what was being done to and about Native Americans in the 19th century. From the Native American point of view, the frontier, which settlers viewed as an economic opportunity, was nothin...
A Declaration in 1622 is a piece of history that will forever be debated. It was written by Edward Waterhouse who was a prominent Virginia official. In a Declaration in 1622, he describes his first-hand accounts of English genocide and the relationship between the Powhatan and settlers. The point of this paper is to claim that Waterhouse’s portrayal is realistic due to his factual perspective of the time period on the contrasting aspects of the Powhatan and settlers. Diving into Edwards historical accounts can show the hardships of the settlers, the varying characteristics of both groups, the importance of tobacco, and the demonization of Native Americans. The characteristics will conclude the factually sound delineation of Edward Waterhouse.
Smith’s and Bradford’s individual descriptions are simply two categories; fiction and nonfiction. Smith’s intention for his audience is that the new land is everything you can wish for without a single fight. Smith starts by describing the content and pleasure that risking your life for getting your own piece of land brings to people. He is luring his audience in by telling that it is a wonderful world of vast food and gratification. Smith wants his audience to be more of the joyful individuals who look for the good in everyt...
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford gives us an insight into the endurance of the early settlers and the kind of pain they went through in order build the foundation of our great nation. They embarked on the new world and developed a colony from the ground up. However, there troubles started long before they even stepped foot on the land. With a strong hold on their religious beliefs, they continued their voyage to the new world even though there were questions about the safety of the vessel. They managed to work hard on the ship and make it to the new world, tired and hungry, only to learn that there was no rest to be found, but even more work.
The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, interacts with many people throughout J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, but probably none have as much impact on him as certain members of his immediate family. The ways Holden acts around or reacts to the various members of his family give the reader a direct view of Holden's philosophy surrounding each member.
Huck Finn learns from the actions of people around him, what kind of a person he is going to be. He is both part of the society and an outlier of society, and as such he is given the opportunity to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong. There are two main groups of characters that help Huck on his journey to moral maturation. The first group consists of Widow Douglas, Miss Watson, and the judge. They portray society and strict adherence to rules laid out by authority. The second group consists of Pap, the King, and the Duke. They represent outliers of society who have chosen to alienate themselves from civilized life and follow no rules. While these characters all extremely important in Huck’s moral development, perhaps the most significant character is Jim, who is both a fatherly figure to Huck as well as his parallel as far as limited power and desire to escape. Even though by the end of the novel, Huck still does not want to be a part of society, he has made a many choices for himself concerning morality. Because Huck is allowed to live a civilized life with the Widow Douglas, he is not alienated like his father, who effectively hates civilization because he cannot be a part of it. He is not treated like a total outsider and does not feel ignorant or left behind. On the other hand, because he does not start out being a true member of the society, he is able to think for himself and dismiss the rules authority figures say are correct. By the end of the novel, Huck is no longer a slave to the rules of authority, nor is he an ignorant outsider who looks out only for himself. This shows Huck’s moral and psychological development, rendering the description of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a picaresq...
I choose to read the book The Dreadful, Smelly Colonies for many reasons. The main reason that I choose to read this book to my students was because it was full of so much important educational information for the students to learn. Since I was doing my learning segment over Colonial America, I knew it would be important to read a book to the students that would teach them new and interesting information to the students. This brings me to the second reason why I choose this book, which is that it is very entertaining and highly engaging for students to listen to. I wanted to present the educational information about Colonial America in a way that the students would be able to understand and would enjoy learning about. This book is extremely