Turning Points


The Pilgrims who set out on the Mayflower have a vision of the future that one could argue does and doesn't come to fruition. What are the turning points in their experience? What transitions happen that you think can be learned from?

 

 

Passage from Text

Their escape from England did not go well.  The first captain they hired turned out to be a traitor and a thief who surrendered them to the authorities in the Lincolnshire town of Boston.  P.13

 

Edward Winslow emigrated to New England as one of the pilgrims on the Mayflower and is known for his dealings with the Native Americans and his friendship with Massasoit, "...he agreed to act as Governor Carver's messenger. Clad in armor and with a sword at his side, he went with Squanto to greet the sachem" (p. 97-99)... "on the night of Saturday, July 7, after a solid day of rain, Winslow and Hopkins arrived back at Plymouth. They were wet, weary, footsore, and famished, but they had succeeded in strengthening their settlement's ties with Massasoit and the Indians to the west" (p. 110).

-Ciara Drexler 

 

"Back in January, fourteen-year-old Francis Billington had climbed into a tree near the top of Fort Hill.  Looking inland to the west, he claimed he saw "a great sea".  Like his father, the Billington boy had already developed a reputation as a troublemaker" (p. 110). - Jeff Thorson

 

Oceanus - story bird website link - Alys Mosher "Elizabeth had given birth to a son, appropriately named Oceanus..."page 4 "Taking their cue from Paul's admonition 'come out among them, and be separate,' the separatists were puritans who had determined that the church of England was not a true church of Christ. If they were to remain true to their faith, they must form a church of what were known as visible saints...".page 11-12

-Alys Mosher

 

John Carver "Elizabeth had given birth to a son, appropriately named Oceanus..."page 4 "Taking their cue from Paul's admonition 'come out among them, and be separate,' the separatists were puritans who had determined that the church of England was not a true church of Christ. If they were to remain true to their faith, they must form a church of what were known as visible saints...".page 11-12

-Sara Nordenstrom

 

William Brewster "In an old manor house, just a few decades from being demolished, lived the town's postmaster, William Brewster." (Philbrick p. 10) STORYBIRD

Amy Rockvam

 

"1616 to 1619, what may have been bubonic plague introduced by European fishermen in modern Maine spread south along the Atlantic seaboard to the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay, killing in some cases as many as 90 percent of the region's inhabitant" (pg.48) Storybird

-Kristie Noel

 

Mistakes Were Made"Looting houses, graves, and storage pits was hardly the way to win the trust of the local inhabitants. To help offset the damage they'd already done, they resolved to leave behind some beads and other tokens for the Indians 'in sign of peace' but it was getting dark...In their haste to depart, they neglected to leave the beads and other trade goods" (page 69).

Loretta Pexa

Homecoming "In the Spring of 1619, the English explorer Thomas Dermer sailed south from Maine in a small open boat.  Accompanying Dermer was a Native guide who'd been abducted by Thomas Hunt in 1614.  The Indian's name was Tisquantun, or Squanto, and after five long years in Spain, England, and Newfoundland, he was sailing toward his home at Patuxet, the site of modern Plymouth"(p. 53). 

-Mellissa Nelson

"The term Thanksgiving, first applied in the nineteenth century, was not used by the Pilgrims themselves." (p. 117)

-Rachael Schumer

"It was clear that no matter how it was done in England, Plymouth played by its own, God-ordained rules, and everyone - Separatist or Anglican - was expected to conform." (p. 128)

- Moneque G.

"As Indians on Cape Cod to the east and in Massachusetts to the north continued to be gripped by fear and confusion, a supreme confidence had come to the Pokanokets." (p.157)
-Rena Jensen

"The Pilgrims had been driven by fiercely held spiritual beliefs...The fact remained, however that, as Governor Bradford had complained, the spiritual life of Plymouth had declined...Instead of the afterlife, it was the material rewards of this life that became the focus of the Pilgrims' children and grandchildren"(p. 198).

-Necoe H

"By the 1660's, the English no longer felt that their survival depended on the support of the Indians; instead, many colonists, particularly the the younger ones, saw the Indians as an impediment to their future prosperity." p.201

- Megan Snell

"For days, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Indians gathered at Mount Hope to mourn the passing of Alexander. Then the despair turned to joy as the crowds celebrated Philip's rise to supreme sachem of the Pokanokets." p. 204

- Kristina M

"From the very beginning (Edward) Winslow had shown a talent for getting what he wanted, whether it was the hand of the widow Susanna White just a few weeks after the death of his own wife or winning back the loyalty of Massasoit.  For two and a half decades, he had conducted a kind of shuttle diplomacy between america and England as he spearheaded negotiations with merchants and government official in London.  he was also valued by Massachusetts Bay for his diplomatic savvy, even if some found the peripatetic Pilgrim a little too glib for his own good." (p. 184-185)  

-Amy M

"If ever there was a defensive structure, it was this fort, and now a thousand English soldiers were about to do their best to annihilate a community of more than three thousand Indian men, women, and children, who only asked to be left alone." (p. 272)

-Amy C.

As Church and his two Indian guides approached the jagged rocks and pebble beach of Sakonnet, he saw some of the sachem's Indians fishing in the surf. The Sakonnets, Church realized, had returned home. Perhaps he could convince them to abandon Philip and serve under him. P 312

-Jose Ludens

"For a sachem in the seventeenth century however, Christianity was a tremendously destabilizing influence that threatened the very underpinnings of his tribe's traditions and his own power and prosperity." p.192   

-Teri W

It Was Time to Leave - But on September 6, 1620, the Mayflower set out from Plymouth with what Bradford called "a prosperous wind."  (page 29) - Wendy D.

                      

 

Reference:

Ozgungor, S & Guthrie, J.T. as referenced in Marzano, R. (2010) Teaching inference. Educational Leadership, 67 (7), 80-81.

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