Quotes from Nathaniel Philbrick

No longer mindful of the debt they owed the Pokanokets, without whom their parents would never have endured their first year in America, some of the Pilgrims' children were less willing to treat Native leaders with the tolerance and respect their parents had once afforded Massasoit.

Thomas Paine was so inspired by the heroism displayed at Fort Mifflin that he published an open letter to William Howe: 'You are fighting for what you can never obtain and we are defending what we never mean to part with.

The act of self-expression—through writing a journal or letters—often enables a survivor to distance himself from his fears.

The future is never more important than to a people on the verge of a cataclysm.

The Pilgrims' descendants have proven to be, if nothing else, fruitful. In 2002 it was estimated that there were approximately 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers in the United States, which represents roughly 10 percent of the total U.S. population.

The sperm whales' network of female-based family units resembled, to a remarkable extent, the community the whalemen had left back home on Nantucket. In both societies the males were itinerants. In their dedication to killing sperm whales the Nantucketers had developed a system of social relationships that mimicked those of their prey.

Over the next hundred years, more gold would be extracted from a single mine in the Black Hills (an estimated $1 billion) than from any other mine in the continental United States.

Soon after, Tom, all of twenty years old, became the only soldier in the Civil War to win two Medals of Honor. In

Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust; Fear not the things thou suffer must; For, whom he loves he doth chastise, And then all tears wipes from their eyes. William Bradford Plymouth Colony Governor

Without Massasoit's help, the Pilgrims would never have survived the first year, and they remained steadfast supporters of the sachem to the very end. For his part, Massasoit realized almost from the start that his own fortunes were linked to those of the English.

have nothing but sympathy for John Adams. I, for one, can't stand sitting on a beach—an activity (if you can call it that) to which many people devote their entire vacations.

a space of time is a great breeder of myths.

When an enlisted man sees his commanding officer lose his head entirely…," Private Taylor wrote, "it would…demoralize anyone taught to breathe, almost, at the word of command.

In 1836, the Lydia, a Nantucket whaleship, was struck and sunk by a sperm whale, as was the Two Generals a few years later.

Hindsight has a way of corrupting people's memories, inviting them to view a past event not as it actually occurred but as they wished it had occurred given the ultimate result.

In a letter to Benjamin Franklin he described how the explosion of the Augusta created a cloud like none other he had ever seen: "a thick smoke rising like a pillar and spreading from the top like a tree." It did not become the symbol of a new and terrible age of destruction for another 168 years, but in the fall of 1777 the skyline of Philadelphia was darkened by the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

This is also the story of two British generals. The first, Thomas Gage, was saddled with the impossible task of implementing his government's unnecessarily punitive response to the Boston Tea Party in December 1773.

Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

They were too focused on their own inner lives to appreciate the subtleties of character that might have alerted them to the true motives of those who did not share in their beliefs. Time and time again during their preparations to sail for America, the Pilgrims demonstrated an extraordinary talent for getting duped.

In the years after the War of Independence, historian paid scant attention to the Siege of Fort Mifflin, primarily because, Martin believed 'there was no Washington, Putnam, or Wayne there.' 'Had there been,' he conjecture, 'the affair would have been extolled to the skies.' As Martin and the five hundred defenders of Fort Mifflin had learned first-hard, 'great men get great priase, little men nothing.

Atrocities were expected in both European and Native conflicts. And yet, the English had to admit that compared to what was typical of European wars, the Indians had conducted themselves with surprising restraint.

For all they had suffered during those first terrible winters in America, their best years were behind them, in Leiden. Never again would they know the same rapturous sense of divine fellowship that had first launched them on this quest.

How much of assumed national and personal character comes from the fact that we have never truly known need to the point of having our character tested? Willing conscientious objectors underwent controlled starvation and confirmed how quickly it impacts the initiative and generosity we like to think of as American characteristics.

Philip's local squabble with Plymouth Colony had mutated into a regionwide war that, on a percentage basis, had done nearly as much as the plagues of 1616–19 to decimate New England's Native population.