Hardships of the First American Settlers

William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (1650-51)

Just looking at the title the reader might immediately understand the main topic of the document, thanks to the key words “First American Settlers”: the text is probably about the Pilgrim Fathers who arrived in America in 1620 on the Mayflower, a ship that brought to America about one hundred separatists who wanted to create a colony in the New World where they could freely practice their religion.

Furthermore, the word “hardships” (that means “adversities”) suggests the reader the colonists' difficult situation after their arrival in Massachusetts; indeed they left England in September and arrived in America in November and, after that, they had to get through a hard and cold Winter completely on their own, far from their native land.

As regards the layout, the document is written in prose and, being part of a journal, it isn't arranged into paragraphs, but it is characterised by a unique main paragraph that is made up by twenty lines.

The writer begins his description of the colonists' experience from the very first lines of the text: after having arrived in the New World, the pilgrims had no one to welcome them or to give them succour, no houses or towns to repair and nobody to refresh their weather beaten bodies. Differently from the local people of Malta that, as related in the Scriptures, helped Saint Paul after a shipwreck, these savage barbarians didn't show any mercy to the English separatists and “were readier to fill their sides of arrows than otherwise” (lines 6-7).

In addition, it was Winter (the colonists on the Mayflower arrived in America in November 1620) and they had to get through all the difficulties brought by such a cold and sharp season; besides the narrator tells the reader about the sharpness and violence of Winters in America, that are also “subject to cruel and nerce storms” (lines 8-9), an additional adversity the pilgrims had to face.

Moreover, these men had to live in a desolate and wild place, full of “wild beasts and wild men” (line 11), and they couldn't even go to the top of the mount Pisgah (like Moses did to get a better view of the promised land of Israel) to feed their hopes with the view of a country that is not only wild and savage.

Also, during their first Summer the New World looked like a savage, desolate and wild place and the pilgrims felt desolate looking at the mighty Ocean that separated them from the civil world.

The narrator concludes this part of the text mentioning the only thing that sustained the colonists during their first months in America: “the Spirit of God and His grace” (lines 19-20).

On a connotative level, the reader might notice how the use of frequent negations helps the writer to underline the negativity of the situation the first colonists had to face: “no friends” (line 1), “nor inns”, “no houses” (line 2), “no small kindness” (line 5), “neither” (line 12).

This rhetorical expedient highlights the strong contrast between the local people's culture and the pilgrims' one, a contrast that is also underlined by the use of different adjectives referred to the two worlds; indeed the native people are described as “savage barbarians” (line 6) and “wild men” (line 11), their land is “wild”, “hideous”, “desolate”, “wild” and their first American Winter is “sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and nerce storms” (line 8).

In this way, the writer creates a separation between the New World and the Civil World, a separation that is also physically realized by the Atlantic Ocean.

As regards the biblical references (the shipwreck of Saint Paul and Moses on the mount Pisgah), they perfectly reflect the pilgrims' beliefs about spiritual salvation thanks to God's grace, that are clearly expressed at the last lines of the text: “What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and Hid grace?”.