The Dredge Cycle

The Purpose of Stories, 2

I’ve had an amal­gam of texts at a rolling boil in the back of my head lately. They all deal with a spe­cial cul­tural dis­tinc­tion between between Taker (colo­nial) and Leaver (indige­nous) cul­tures: the strange insis­tance on his­tory over stories.

Three Shouts of "Huzzah!"

A stom­ach bug this week afforded me time to fin­ish Mayflower. The epi­logue, where Philbrick draws most of his con­clu­sions, is a fat ham­mer to the chest. And while there are many ideas worth dwelling on in there, one ques­tion has me absolutely enthralled: How did Meta­com (aka Philip) go from the most hunted man in New Eng­land in the late 17^th cen­tury to a mytho­log­i­cal proto-​​​​American freedom-​​​​fighter in the early-​​​​19^th? Philbrick, under­stand­ably, rushes through the inter­ven­ing 150 years, and left me pon­der­ing. As I said to…

So Many Questions

Almost done with Mayflower. Help­ing me: I know a tremen­dous amount more about the region and the 17^th cen­tury than when I started. Not help­ing me: the absence of infor­ma­tion about the area I’m most inter­ested in. This morn­ing I’m look­ing for a map (or five) of tribal lands in 1605 (and 1620, 1650, 1675, 1690). I just want to know the names of what and who the hell I’m look­ing for. This absence of acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion may be a core moti­va­tion of my book, but…

Central Questions

It doesn’t take a his­tory PhD to fig­ure Meta­com declared war on the Eng­lish in 1675 to fight the now English-​​​​favoring bal­ance of regional power. Power was land, reli­gion, guns and fol­low­ers. Let’s take that for given. There was, of course, another huge, com­plex fac­tor in the mix: Indigenous-​​​​English rela­tions. And as much as that had to do with the foun­da­tions of Amer­i­can racism, it was also wrapped up in ques­tions of debt. Accord­ing to Philbrick, the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­cans  –  the chil­dren of the Ply­mouth colonists, and…

Another Exploratory Question

Deeper dis­patches from Mayflower: Of the behav­iors the Pil­grims (and their Boston-​​​​area spin­offs, the Puri­tans) became known for, I’m start­ing to won­der which was more dan­ger­ous: their ratio­nal­i­sa­tions (the Pequot War of 1634  –  1638 was a nec­es­sary blood­bath to ensure Indian Coun­try didn’t unite against them), or their obliv­i­ous­ness (launch­ing a raid and killing Mass­a­chu­sett war­riors in the early 1620s would have no effect on Indige­nous trade and rela­tions.) Also just as inter­est­ing, at least to me, is the rev­e­la­tion that from the remains of the…

“Is this Plymouth? We’ve just come from Plymouth!”

Grow­ing up in Mass., inevitably you study Ply­mouth Plan­ta­tion. It’s just part of the pro­gram. If you were among the lucky, you were actu­ally taken there. Of course, if you were taken there, you prob­a­bly had no idea you were so lucky. The day passes: you imag­ine your boxy-​​​​hatted cul­tural fore­bears descend­ing their ship, ham­mered entirely of doves’ wings, and water­proofed with the sweat of angels, so 350 years later, you could daw­dle for your bagged lunch. In the enve­lope of favor­able weather, roped walk­ing bridges, and under the…

Before We Eat

It’s nearly Thanks­giv­ing again, and I’m in Port­land, read­ing Mayflower and Roots of Sur­vival. Last I made this trip, I was read­ing Heart­sick for Coun­try, which was the first I encoun­tered the prac­tice of intro­duc­ing one­self to the Land. That trip, I went run­ning every morn­ing, and had sus­tained con­ver­sa­tions with the area out­side Beaver­ton. All year, I’ve made a prac­tice of intro­duc­ing myself, my intents while vis­it­ing, and say­ing my good­byes for­mally. Though Port­land was plenty nice to me, and Seat­tle a cold bitch,…