Jody – Grand Sachem of Peace

Massasoit (also known as Woosamequin, Oosamequin, Ousamequin) was a Native American who was born somewhere between 1580 and 1582 in Montaup, a Pokanoket village at the site of today’s Warren and Bristol, Rhode Island. He was born into the Wampanoag tribe of the Algonquin peoples in southern New England. Wampanoag means “eastern people”. His village residence was near an abundant spring of water that still bears his name today. The Wampanoag were a horticultural people who supplemented their agriculture with hunting and fishing. Their villages were concentrated near the Atlantic coast during the summer. During the winter the Wampanoag moved inland and separated into winter hunting camps of extended families. The Wampanoag were organized as a confederacy with lesser sachems and sagamores under the authority of a Grand Sachem.

In 1600 the Wampanoag had as many as 12,000 members with 40 villages divided between 8,000 on the mainland and 4,000 on the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  Three epidemics that were brought over by English fishermen swept across New England between 1614 and 1620 and were especially devastating to the Wampanoag. Mortality in many villages reached 100 percent. By late 1620, fewer than 2,000 Wampanoag had survived. The island Wampanoag had been protected somewhat by their isolation from the mainland and still had 3,000 remaining members. Massasoit was the current Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Federation with the allegiance of seven lesser Wampanoag sachems when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. The Native Americans were aware of the Pilgrims when they landed but chose initially to avoid contact.

In March of 1621, an Abenaki sachem from Maine named Samoset was hunting in Massachusetts when he entered the site of the deserted Wampanoag village of Patuxet only to find the Pilgrims there. He exclaimed in English, which he had learned from English fishermen, – “Welcome Englishmen!” He announced that he was the envoy of Massasoit, “the greatest commander of the country”. Samoset found the Pilgrims in poor shape. They were huddled in crude shelters- cold and sick and slowly starving to death. Samoset spent the night and left in the morning. He returned soon after with another fellow tribesman by the name of Squanto. Squanto had an even better command of the English language and by a strange coincidence had grown up in the village of Patuxet. He was the only survivor of an epidemic that had struck his village while he was away. Squanto decided that the Pilgrims were now his people. With great kindness and patience, Squanto taught the Pilgrims the skills they needed to survive in their new colony.

Samoset and Squanto both served as intermediaries between the Pilgrims and Massasoit. The previous ten years had been hard on the Wampanoag. Between the devastation of illness and the northern war parties sweeping down upon them in their weakened state, Massasoit was concerned for his people. The Narragansett, in particular, had suffered relatively little from the epidemics because of their isolated villages on the islands of Narragansett Bay and they had emerged as the most powerful tribe in the area. Massasoit hoped his tribe and the Pilgrims could benefit each other in their struggles. Owing to past grievances, some Wampanoag wanted to drive the English from New England. But Massasoit pursued the path of peace because he understood that revenge would never yield the allies they needed. He believed that a peace treaty would extend the hand of friendship to the Pilgrims. The leaders of the Pilgrims understood that cooperation with the Wampanoag was the only way they were going to survive as well. Both sides sought a limited and fair treaty with enforceable terms. They agreed to honor each other’s existence and support each other if attacked.

Massasoit, accompanied by Samoset, visited Plymouth and signed the Peace Treaty of 1621 with Governor Carter on March 22nd. Contained in the peace treaty were a few essential and enforceable conditions: (1) Wampanoag and Pilgrims vowed not to injure each other, and if it occurred the leader of one group would surrender the instigator to the other for punishment. (2) Wampanoag and Pilgrims would not steal from one another. (3) If either party was engaged in an unjust war, the other party would aid them. (4) All the Wampanoag tribes would honor the peace treaty. Historically, the Peace Treaty of 1621 is the essence of today’s NATO.

The friendship and cooperation of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag continued and in the fall of 1621 the Pilgrims invited Massasoit to celebrate their first harvest with them- the First Thanksgiving. Massasoit and 90 of his men brought five deer and the feasting lasted for three days. According to English sources, Massasoit prevented the failure of Plymouth Colony and the almost certain starvation the Pilgrims faced during the early years of the colony’s establishment. For nearly forty years the Wampanoag and the English of Massachusetts Bay Colony maintained the peace until Massasoit’s death. Massasoit is still remember today as a humane and honest man who never violated his word and constantly endeavored to instill his love of peace in his own people.

Jody – Captain of the Mayflower

Christopher Jones was born in 1570 in Harwich, Essex, England to parents Christopher and Sybil Jones. His father was a seafaring master captain of many ships. Young Christopher was trained from childhood to carry on the family tradition. He went through the full sea training of the time, shipping out as cabin boy by the age of twelve. When his father died, he was bequeathed a ship called the Marie Fortune. He became a merchant seaman and a master of ships. In those days the skipper of a naval ship carried the rank of captain. The skipper of a merchant ship was called a master.

Christopher Jones married Sara Twitt in 1593. They had one child before she died in May of 1603. Jones married again later that year to Josian Grey Thompson. Together they had eight children. Unfortunately most of Jones’ children did not live to adulthood. Jones and his wife moved from Harwich to Rotherhithe, a city near London on the river Thames. Jones designed and built a large ship, the Josian, which he named for his second wife. The Josian was so well-designed and built that it attracted the attention of the British Navy. Jones’ plans for the Josian were used in the construction of a naval ship by order of King James I.

In 1607, Jones sold the Josian and partnered with three other business investors to purchase the Mayflower as a merchant vessel. Jones was the Master of the Mayflower. The Mayflower was a three story ship, with a top deck, a gun deck and a cargo hold. Piracy was rampant in those days and even merchant ships had to have a gun deck. The first voyage of the Mayflower was to Trondheim, Norway and the voyage turned out to be a disaster. The Mayflower’s cargo was lumber, tar and fish. A bad winter storm struck and Master Jones had to dump several thousand pounds of cargo overboard to avoid sinking in the storm’s high seas. The Mayflower did not sink in the storm but was blown several hundred miles off course, taking the Mayflower several weeks to get back to port.

For the next ten years Master Jones sailed the Mayflower on a regular course to France, where he traded British products going in for French wine and cognac coming out. Employment in the wine and spice trade designated the Mayflower a “sweet ship”. Leakage from the wine casks over many years neutralized the garbage and other refuse the sailors in those days threw into the hold instead of bothering to drop it overboard. Historians have credited the Mayflower’s “sweet ship” qualities with the fact that the Pilgrims lost only one of their numbers by illness on the long, cold, cramped voyage to the New World.

In 1620 Thomas Weston, John Carver and Robert Cushman approached Christopher Jones about hiring him to transport their group of colonists and Separatists to the “northern parts” of the Colony of Virginia in America, near the mouth of the Hudson River. Jones was a well known and highly respected seaman. He knew the Mayflower well from decades of sailing the waters of the North Sea, the most treacherous body of water in the world. Jones knew that if the Mayflower was strong enough to travel the North Sea, she was surely strong enough to cross the Atlantic. The group also hired the Speedwell to undertake the voyage. The Speedwell carried the Separatists, who upon setting sail to the New World re-named themselves Pilgrims, from the Netherlands to England, where they were to meet up with the Mayflower to begin their voyage to the Virginia Colony. But the Speedwell proved to be too leaky and never took the famous voyage. The Mayflower left England for America on September 6, 1620.

With 102 passengers and a crew of 30 for the voyage now having to fit into one ship instead of two it has always been a wonder how Captain Jones managed to accommodate them all. The Mayflower was a merchant ship, not a passenger ship (there was no such thing as a passenger ship in those times). Some passengers slept in the shallop, a large ship’s boat which was stowed on the gun deck. Some passengers paid the ship’s carpenter to build cabins or bunks in the ‘tween decks for their beds or hammocks, cooking pots and clothing. Their other goods were stored in the hold. The cabins were small and often no more than a set of bunk beds with canvas partitions. The single men camped out where they could on the deck. The only place on the ship that was off-limits for the passengers was a 12-foot storage space on the gun deck which held ammunition in case of an attack. During the voyage, one child, Oceanus Hopkins, was born and only two people died.

After a 66-day sea voyage the Mayflower finally approached America’s shores. Due to inclement weather they had arrived much later than planned. The onset of a harsh New England winter was upon them. The Gulf Stream and winds had blown the ship north of its original destination. Instead of landing at the mouth of the Hudson River, Captain Jones, his crew, and the Pilgrims found themselves facing the outerside of Cape Cod. Legally the passengers onboard did not have a right to begin a colony in New England. Their settlement charter was for the Virginia Colony.

The Mayflower’s supplies were nearly depleted and winter was fast approaching. Captain Jones wanted to get the passengers on land as soon as possible. With the shores of Cape Cod in view, Jones had a decision to make. At the time the wind was blowing south and calculations were made that the ship would land at the mouth of the Hudson within a few days. Captain Jones decided to head south. But he and his crew were not familiar with the eastern seaboard south of Cape Cod and the maps they had were useless. For a time, all went well. Then the tides changed, the wind died and the depth of the water plummeted. They had sailed into a dangerous area of ever changing sand bars and shoals, the graveyard of many a shipwreck now known as Pollack Rip, located between Cape Cod and Nantucket Island.

By the end of the first day of sailing south, Captain Jones had another decision to make. If they anchored for the night at the edge of the Rip and a storm broke out, the Mayflower risked becoming shipwrecked on the shoals. Fortunately the wind shifted just enough to push the ship away from the treacherous area. With the wind now blowing north, Jones decided it was best to return to Cape Cod. By the time darkness fell, the Mayflower was drifting along the coast of present day Chatham, Massachusetts. Eventually they anchored in present day Provincetown Harbor. On November 11, 1620, Captain Christopher Jones safely landed the Mayflower and the Pilgrims in America. The Pilgrims called their new home Plimoth or Plimouth (Old English spelling), named after the major port city in Devon, England from which the Mayflower had sailed.