Bufnagle: the Podcast

Ep 165: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: The Pilgrims, Part 2 — Massasoit and the Situation in New England on Arrival

November 23, 2023 Bufnagle Season 1 Episode 165
Bufnagle: the Podcast
Ep 165: Bufnagle Classic Re-drop: The Pilgrims, Part 2 — Massasoit and the Situation in New England on Arrival
Show Notes

In this re-drop of a classic episode from late 2022, Harry and Rafe take up where they left off in Episode 164: the Pilgrims have arrived at Cape Cod, but what awaited them?

 

The North American landscape was anything but a blank slate.  Countless local tribes were living on the continent and with them were their cultures, their customs, and their politics.  Throw in more than a century of Europeans interacting with the natives and a very recent epidemic that had completely wiped out some communities, and the Pilgrims were stepping into a world completely different, yet in some ways very similar, to the one they had left.

 

Enter Massasoit and his tribe, the Pokanokets, who had been ravaged by disease and were under the thumb of neighboring sachems; they sought to regain their glory and alliance with the English might be just the thing that they needed.  Toss in Epenow and Squanto, and some misunderstandings and happenstance, and what comes out is a true story as intricate and complicated as any fiction.