I recently made the goal to read one holiday book for each month of the year. For November, it was important to me that I read both a Native American colonial era book and a Pilgrim book. I'll tell you right off, it's a lot easier to find Native American historical fiction that it is anything having to do with pilgrims. Revolutionary War books? Sure. Salem Witch Trials? Absolutely. But there's little on Plymouth or Jamestown and you have to reach back to the nineties or early 2000's to find it.
I credit political change. We're living in an era where rebellion is a virtue, so the revolution plays nicely, and the Salem Witch Trials have a built-in victimization narrative. But pilgrims are associated with colonialism and racism. I think it's unfair to center that guilt on the early colonial era. There were certainly massacres and persecutions of Indians during the witch trial and revolutionary periods. Any point up through the end of the nineteenth century, really. And is not the theme of religious freedom inherent in pilgrim narratives an important one for our day?
After a few weeks of searching, I finally found The Mayflower Bride by Kimberley Woodhouse, which is, from what I can tell, the only pilgrim novel to be published in the past ten years for any age group-adult, YA, or middle grade. There are some picture books. I think the stage of my life where I remember the cultural history of Thanksgiving being discussed the most was early elementary school (I'm a millennial, so that lands in the early 2000's). Is that because Thanksgiving fiction peaked around the turn of the millennium or because young children are usually the ones being introduced to holidays?
It's called The Mayflower Bride and not The Plymouth Bride for a reason. Expect to spend most of the book on the boat. Mary Elizabeth is a shy, humble Separatist (Pilgrim) girl who sets out for the New World in a spirit of apprehension. She's already lost her mother and she knows both the voyage and the destination will jeopardize the lives of her remaining family, but she puts her trust in the Lord.
William is a street kid turned carpenter with no background in religion, but he keeps his roots a secret as he gains an interest in both Christianity and Mary Elizabeth. I love that these two desires come independently. Lots of Christian romance featuring a believer and a non-believer has the non-believer changing themselves to, at least initially, win favor with a lover. That rings both problematic and inauthentic from a conversion standpoint, though of course their are real-life people who change religions that way. I was pleased to see William come to his faith independently.
The moralizing is constant, both in Mary Elizabeth's and William's POV, and in comments from side characters. Lots of prayers, lots of quoting specific bible verses. Sometimes it felt a bit heavy handed, even compared to other religious historical fiction I've read, but I reminded myself that they were, after all, religious refugees. So really, the moralizing is honest to the time period and to skimp on it would dishonor the people it portrays.
I came out of this book with an increased respect for the Pilgrims. I had a few ancestors aboard the Mayflower but didn't know much more than their names. One of them, Elizabeth Tilley, had a quick cameo and I was sad to learn that she became orphaned during the voyage at age thirteen. The constant threat of loss is very present. There romance is subtle, not just physically but emotionally, too. Mary Elizabeth is a shy, modest character who blushes at any mention of her romance with William by a third party, so there's not a lot of overt affection. But again, this could also be a consequence of the time period.
Weetamoo: Heart of the Pocasetts by Patricia Clark Smith is part of the Royal Diaries series I adored as an elementary schooler. It takes place about a generation after the first Thanksgiving. Most of the titles in the epistolary series feature princesses who came from an eras and cultures where they could keep diaries. But Weetamoo, the girl who grew up to be a sachem (chief) of the Wompanoag people, couldn't read or write, which brings me to my favorite part of this book: the structure.
The "diary" element is a series of stream of consciousness narratives, presented as Weetamoo meditating on her life in quiet times when she goes to sit in nature and be apart from the rest of her village. These narratives are interspersed by birchbark drawings Weetamoo makes of objects and animals from her everyday life, elders' oral tales, and prayers to her favorite goddess, Squant. Weetamoo's tale takes place about a generation after the first Thanksgiving. I was floored by the structure in just the first few pages. An epistolary novel with a protagonist who can't read or write!
White people (called the Coat-men) are around, but Weetamoo's mostly isolated from them. The story opens with corn harvesting and a great fall feast, which reads as a nice nod to the Thanksgiving vibe. Sometimes the slice of life stuff gets boring and I was itching for her to have more interactions with the Coat-man instead of reading more "Dear diary, today I ground corn again" type stuff. But I remind myself that I'm no longer the target age for the book. I remember reading the other Royal Diaries books when I was nine years old and being fascinated by the day-to-day details of exotic cultures, so I think it's fitting. I read this one first before listening to Mayflower Bride on audible and some of the historical details check out. Weetamoo talks about Native people being hurt when Pilgrims steal corn out of "abandoned" food storage pits when the pits' owners have migrated away to a winter village. Mayflower Bride shows the desperation and heavy death tolls of named characters leading up to the corn robbery.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a spiritual narrative here, too. Weetamoo undertakes a coming of age ritual where she fasts and sits apart from her village for two straight days. She enters a dream state and has a visions, both a peaceful one of Squant and an ominous one where she sees her adult self marked for death as a leader of an uprising against the Coat-men.
My favorite passage is one where she reflects on the pros and cons of modernization and what that would mean for her tribe's spirituality and oral culture.
One thing is plain to me. I do not want iron kettles or glass beads or anything to do with this reading-the-marks business, not if it means living in square Coat-man towns and not being in the care of our Creator and Squant and Mother Corn and all the rest of the Beings who quicken our world.
This is the other thing I have been thinking about the Coat-man's writing. If we do learn it, it might make us lazy...what if, whenever we waned a story, we could just reach out and read it from a paper, instead of waiting for the right time and place and the right storyteller to tell it to us?
-pg. 93 and 94
I don't know if I would've been so moved by the significance of this passage as a young reader, but as a college student who's studied folklore, I was floored. The two books complement each other nicely and provide a fuller picture of what was going on in New England in the early seventeenth century. Together, The Mayflower Bride and Weetamoo formed the perfect pair of contrasting religious freedom reads for the Thanksgiving week.
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