Reading Guide for the excerpt from Of Plymouth Plantation
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When did the Pilgrims set sail for the New World? p. 81
When did the Pilgrims arrive in the New World? p. 81
How did the Pilgrims describe their voyage? p. 82-3
What was “this poor people’s present condition”? p. 82-3
Explain the allusion (reference) to the Bible in col. one of p. 83, being sure to
explain what it has to do with the Pilgrims.
6. What was the Pilgrims’ attitude toward the new land and its inhabitants? p. 83,
col. 1
7. Draw the image created by Bradford at the end of the sections entitled “Their Safe
Arrival at Cape Cod.”
8. What was the first order of business according to the bottom of col. one on p. 83?
9. What was the condition of the shallop, and what is a shallop?
10. How were the Pilgrims able to plant corn? p. 83, col. 2
11. Describe what the Pilgrims created for their protection? p. 84, col.2
12. What was the “great and hideous cry” on p. 84, col. 2? p. 84, col. 2 and p. 84,
col. 1.
13. Describe the encounter between the Pilgrims and the Indians from the 2nd ½ of
col. 1, and the 1st ½ of col. 2, p. 85.
14. What happened to the Pilgrims between Dec. 1620 and Feb. 1621? p. 85, col. 2
15. What surprises the Pilgrims about the Indians they meet on March 16? p. 86,
col. 1
16. Who appears to the Pilgrims on or about Mar. 20? p. 86, col. 2
17. What has lasted “this twenty-four years”? p. 86, col. 2
18. In general terms, describe the terms of the agreement on col. 2 of p. 86. Who
does the agreement seem to favor? Why would this be so? (bias)
19. How successful was the Pilgrims’s first crop? p. 87
20. What was the population of game birds like when the Pilgrims first arrived?
Later?
21. What kinds of food did the Pilgrims eat in the New World?
22. What did the Pilgrims say to the friends whom they wrote to back in England?
23. Why did Bradford feel it necessary to write the last phrase of this excerpt, “which
were not feigned but true reports”?