Michael: The story of the First Thanksgiving is a lie. Kevin: Whoa, okay. Starting strong today, Michael. A lie? Michael: Not a malicious lie, maybe, but a comforting one. It’s the highlight reel of a movie that actually has a very, very dark ending. And today, we’re watching the whole film. Kevin: I’m picturing my second-grade classroom right now. The paper-hat Pilgrims, the hand-turkeys… you’re telling me that’s all just propaganda? What are we missing? Michael: We’re missing the other 55 years. That’s what Nathaniel Philbrick argues in his incredible book, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. Philbrick is a master of narrative history—he won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea—and here, he’s not just retelling the Pilgrim story. He’s connecting that feel-good Thanksgiving dinner in 1621 to one of the most brutal, devastating wars in American history, which erupted in 1675. Kevin: Fifty-five years. That’s a whole lifetime back then. So the story doesn’t end with turkey and newfound friendship. Michael: It doesn’t even really begin there. Philbrick’s whole point is that to understand America, you have to look at the full, complicated, and often violent picture. He says it’s not the story we already know, but "the story we need to know."

Michael: And to see that full picture, Philbrick starts us with a powerful image: two ships, not one. Everyone knows the Mayflower. Kevin: Of course. 1620, religious freedom, Plymouth Rock, the whole deal. It’s practically the opening scene of the movie of America. Michael: Exactly. But Philbrick contrasts the Mayflower with another ship that sailed from New England just 56 years later. It was called the Seaflower. Kevin: Never heard of it. What was its story? Michael: Its cargo wasn't hopeful families seeking religious freedom. It was 180 Native American men, women, and children, captured at the end of King Philip's War, shackled and bound for the Caribbean to be sold into perpetual slavery. And the man who signed off on their condemnation? Josiah Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth Colony… and the son of an original Mayflower passenger. Kevin: Hold on. The Pilgrims' children were in the business of selling slaves? That… that completely shatters the entire wholesome image. That’s not in the Thanksgiving pageant. Michael: And that’s the central tragedy Philbrick lays bare. The two voyages are two sides of the same coin. As he puts it, "one people’s quest for freedom had resulted in the conquest and enslavement of another." The story of the Mayflower and the story of the Seaflower are inseparable. Kevin: So how do we get from a shared feast to a slave ship in just one generation? The traditional story is one of cooperation. The Wampanoag, led by their sachem Massasoit, helped the struggling Pilgrims survive that first brutal winter. Michael: They absolutely did. But Philbrick is clear about the reason for that cooperation. It wasn't born out of some enlightened, kumbaya moment. It was an alliance of pure desperation and mutual weakness. Kevin: What do you mean, weakness? Michael: Well, the Pilgrims were in a terrible state. They arrived late in the season, ill-equipped, and nearly half of them died that first winter. They were starving and vulnerable. But the Wampanoag were also in a crisis. Just a few years before the Pilgrims arrived, a virgin soil epidemic—probably the plague, brought by European fishermen—had swept through the region. Kevin: I’ve heard about this, but I don’t think I ever grasped the scale. Michael: The scale was apocalyptic. Philbrick describes entire villages wiped out, with skeletons left unburied in their homes. The Wampanoag confederation, which Massasoit led, may have lost up to 90 percent of its population. Their fighting force was decimated, and their powerful rivals, the Narragansetts to the west, were largely untouched by the plague and were now threatening to dominate them. Kevin: Wow. So Massasoit sees these strange, pale-faced people wash up on his shore, and he’s not thinking, 'Great, new friends!' He’s thinking, 'Maybe… new allies?' Michael: Precisely. He sees the Pilgrims and their powerful muskets—what he called their "thunder"—as a potential counterweight to the Narragansetts. He needs them as much as they need him. Kevin: So the First Thanksgiving wasn't a happy multicultural potluck. It was more like two survivors of a shipwreck clinging to the same piece of driftwood, eyeing each other warily. Michael: That is a perfect analogy. It was a strategic alliance, a pragmatic accommodation. And Philbrick argues that this is the crucial context. The peace was real, but it was incredibly fragile. It was based on a temporary balance of power. The moment one side no longer desperately needed the other, the whole arrangement was doomed to fall apart. Kevin: And I’m guessing, based on the existence of the Seaflower, that it did. Michael: It did. In the most violent way imaginable.

Kevin: So how did it unravel? Fifty-five years is a long time for a fragile peace to hold. What were the cracks that finally broke the dam? Michael: Philbrick argues it was fundamentally a generational shift. The first generation—Governor William Bradford for the Pilgrims and Sachem Massasoit for the Wampanoag—they remembered the desperation. They had looked each other in the eye when both of their peoples were on the brink of annihilation. They had a personal relationship built on that shared experience. Kevin: But their sons didn't have that context. Michael: Exactly. They inherited power, not perspective. On the English side, you have Josiah Winslow, son of a Mayflower passenger. He’s arrogant, ambitious, and sees the Native Americans not as partners, but as subjects, or worse, as obstacles to expansion. On the Wampanoag side, you have Massasoit’s son, Wamsutta, and after he dies, his brother Metacom, who the English call Philip. Kevin: King Philip. Michael: The very same. And Philip inherits a world that is shrinking by the day. He sees his people’s land being sold off, their culture being eroded, and their sovereignty being ignored by a new generation of English leaders who have no memory of the debt they owed his father. Kevin: It sounds like a classic story of children who inherit a successful family business but have no idea of the struggle it took to build it. They just see the assets. Michael: That's a great way to put it. And the first major crack appears with the death of Philip's older brother, Alexander—or Wamsutta, to use his Wampanoag name. The Plymouth authorities hear rumors that he's plotting with the Narragansetts. So what does Josiah Winslow do? Kevin: He invites him for a chat? A diplomatic mission? Michael: He takes ten armed men on horseback, surrounds Alexander's hunting lodge, seizes his party's guns, and essentially kidnaps the sovereign leader of the Wampanoag at gunpoint. Kevin: That’s not diplomacy. That's a special ops raid. Michael: It was a profound humiliation. Winslow drags Alexander back towards Plymouth. But on the way, Alexander falls violently ill and dies shortly after being allowed to return home. The English claimed it was a fever. The Wampanoag were convinced he was poisoned. Kevin: I mean, can you blame them? The circumstances are, to say the least, highly suspicious. I'm surprised the war didn't start right then and there. Michael: Philip, now the new sachem, was furious. But he was also pragmatic. He knew he wasn't ready for a full-scale war. The English population had exploded, while his own people were still recovering. So for the next decade, he plays a difficult game. He's trying to hold his world together. Kevin: What did that look like? Michael: It looked like constant pressure. Philbrick details how the English legal system was relentlessly encroaching. If an Indian's dog barked too loudly, he could be hauled into a Plymouth court. And then there was the land. The English hunger for land was insatiable. Philbrick cites the court records: in the 1650s, there were 14 Indian land deeds registered. In the ten years leading up to the war, from 1665 to 1675, there were 76. Kevin: That’s a five-fold increase. They were being squeezed out of their own homeland, piece by piece. Michael: And Philip was forced to sign off on many of these sales, often under duress, just to keep the peace and get access to English goods his people now depended on. He was being bled dry, and his own warriors were starting to see him as weak. He was losing control. Kevin: So what was the final straw? What lit the fuse? Michael: The death of a man named John Sassamon. Sassamon was a fascinating figure—a "Praying Indian," a Christian convert who could read and write English. He had served as an interpreter for Philip, but he was also a spy for the English. In early 1675, he went to Governor Winslow and told him that Philip was preparing for war. Kevin: A whistleblower. Michael: Or a traitor, depending on your perspective. A few weeks later, Sassamon’s body was found under the ice of a frozen pond. The English declared it murder. They arrested three of Philip’s senior counselors, including a man named Tobias. Kevin: And I'm guessing the trial wasn't exactly a model of justice. Michael: It was a complete sham. The jury was all English, of course. The key witness was a man who claimed to have seen the murder from a hill half a mile away—an impossible feat. And yet, based on this flimsy testimony, all three men were found guilty and sentenced to hang. Kevin: That’s not justice, that’s a political execution. Michael: For Philip and the Wampanoag, it was the ultimate violation. The English had just executed three of their leaders based on a rigged trial. It was a declaration that Wampanoag sovereignty meant nothing. There was no going back. Within weeks, young Wampanoag warriors, no longer listening to Philip, attacked the English settlement of Swansea. The war had begun.

Kevin: It’s just staggering. It wasn't one thing, it was everything. A slow-motion land grab, a generational breakdown of trust, constant humiliation, and finally, a rigged trial. It makes the war feel... well, inevitable. Michael: And that’s Philbrick’s great achievement in Mayflower. He shows that King Philip's War wasn't some random, savage outburst. It was the logical, tragic conclusion to a story that began 55 years earlier. The seeds of the Seaflower were planted the day the Mayflower arrived. The conflict was baked in from the start. Kevin: And the cost was immense. You mentioned it was bloodier than the Civil War? Michael: In terms of the percentage of the population killed, yes. It was more than twice as bloody as the American Civil War and at least seven times more lethal than the American Revolution. Dozens of English towns were destroyed; the colonial economy was shattered. But for the Native people of New England, it was an utter catastrophe. Entire tribes were wiped off the map. Thousands were killed, and thousands more, like those on the Seaflower, were sold into slavery. It effectively ended the Native American presence as a political force in southern New England. Kevin: It completely reframes that whole Thanksgiving narrative. It’s not just an incomplete story; it’s a profoundly misleading one. It makes you wonder what other origin stories we tell ourselves are just the happy first chapter of a much darker book. Michael: And that's the power of history like this. It’s uncomfortable. It challenges our national myths. But it forces us to confront the complex, often brutal, truths that are woven into the fabric of the nation. It’s not about assigning blame from our modern perch; it’s about understanding the human choices, the fears, and the ambitions that led to this tragedy. Kevin: It really does feel like the story we need to know. For anyone who wants to understand the complicated, and often contradictory, roots of America, this book feels absolutely essential. Michael: It’s a reminder that history is never simple, and peace is never guaranteed. It has to be constantly renewed, with respect and understanding—something the second generation of leaders, on both sides, tragically forgot. Kevin: A powerful and necessary lesson. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does this change how you view the Thanksgiving story? Does it make you think differently about America's origins? Find us on our socials and join the conversation. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.