American History Tellers — The Mayflower: Cutthroats (Episode 4)

Host: Lindsey Graham
Date: November 26, 2025
Podcast: American History Tellers (Wondery)

Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This episode, “Cutthroats,” delves into the critical years following the landing of the Mayflower, highlighting how early decisions, desperate struggles for survival, violent confrontations, and growing divisions shaped the fate of both Plymouth Colony and the native populations. Host Lindsey Graham takes listeners through the escalation of tension, starvation, betrayal, and violence that defined the Plymouth settlers’ attempts to survive—and ultimately dominate—a new world, as well as the enduring legacy and myth-making around the Pilgrims in American memory.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Starvation, Strain, and Divided Priorities

[00:00–04:10]

• The settlers, suffering chronic food shortages, are ordered by Governor William Bradford to build a fort for defense rather than tend desperately needed crops.
  • Many colonists question the wisdom of focusing on fortifications over food production, given the threat of starvation.
  • Bradford insists the fort is vital due to rumors of "Indian war parties."
• The arrival of new, less disciplined English settlers (backed by financial sponsor Thomas Weston) strains already meager resources and causes tension with local tribes due to their reckless behavior.
  • The newcomers, described as "rude fellows," lack the religious cohesion of the original Pilgrims.
• Pilgrims’ shipment of goods back to England is seized by pirates, deepening the colony’s debts and their reliance on their investors, the Merchant Adventurers.

2. Native Alliances, Betrayals, and the Loss of Squanto

[04:10–09:30]

• In May 1622, Wampanoag leader Massasoit demands Squanto's execution after he is discovered manipulating both Pilgrims and natives for his own advantage.
  • Bradford refuses, jeopardizing Pilgrim-Wampanoag relations.
• The death of Squanto in late 1622 (possibly from typhus) removes a crucial intermediary just as relations with various tribes grow tense.

3. Hunger in Wessagusset & Escalating Desperation

[09:30–12:00]

• Weston's colony at Wessagusset, established 20 miles north of Plymouth, fares even worse due to poor preparation and lack of discipline.
  • Colonists resort to trading their clothes and bedding for food, some even selling themselves as servants.
  • Stealing from Native corn stores, the English further escalate tension with local tribes, risking collective punishment.

4. The Plot Against the English and the Preemptive Strike

[12:00–21:30]

• Massasoit falls gravely ill. Edward Winslow nurses him back to health, restoring the alliance.
  • Massasoit warns Winslow of an imminent plot by the Massachusetts tribe to eradicate both Plymouth and Wessagusset due to ongoing provocations.

Quote:
"Now I see the English are my friends and love me, and whilst I live, I will never forget this kindness they have shown me." — Massasoit, as relayed by Edward Winslow [15:40]

• The Massachusetts tribe’s plans come to light thanks to desperate settler Phineas Pratt’s trek to Plymouth.
  • "I saw one man dead before me and another at my right hand and another at my left dead for want of food." — Phineas Pratt [18:40]
• Bradford empowers military leader Miles Standish to act. Standish orchestrates a lethal preemptive attack.
  • Standish lures Wampanoag leaders Wetoomat and Pecksuat into a home under pretense of a meal, then murders them.
  • Pilgrims mount Wetoomat’s head on a pike at Plymouth as a warning.

Quote:
"Yesterday, Pecksuat bragged of his own strength and stature… today I see you are big enough to lay him on the ground." — Hobbamak to Standish [22:44]

5. Aftermath & Transformation

[21:30–28:44]

• Violence scares area tribes and devastates local Native communities; many sachems die in the years following, enabling Massasoit’s rise in the regional power vacuum.
• Reverend John Robinson, the colony’s spiritual leader still in Holland, condemns the killings:
  • "How happy a thing it had been if you had converted some before you had killed any… It is a thing more glorious in men's eyes than pleasing in God's, to be a terror to poor, barbarous people." — Robinson in letter to Bradford [26:10]
• Pilgrims end collective farming in favor of individual plots, boosting harvests and ending starvation.

6. Commercial Success and Changing Plymouth (1626–1630s)

[30:41–33:30]

• Death of John Robinson in Holland removes a moderating influence. Religious intolerance in the colony increases.
  • Expulsions and beatings for dissenters; Plymouth’s investors, dismayed by the Pilgrims’ hard-heartedness, sever ties.
• Bradford and other leaders assume the colony’s debt, gaining a monopoly over the fur trade.
• Discovery that wampum can serve as currency brings commercial success via the beaver trade, finally lifting Plymouth out of debt.

7. Disintegration of the Original Community

[33:30–36:28]

• Boston is founded in 1630; the rapid expansion of New England draws settlers away from Plymouth.
  • Even stalwarts like Winslow and Standish move away for “material gain,” reflecting the fading of the Pilgrims’ “tight-knit, godly community.”
• Bradford laments the dissolution of the community:
  • "Thus was this poor church left like an ancient mother grown old and forsaken of her children, she that had made many rich became herself poor." — Bradford [36:19]

8. Long-term Consequences and The Mythic Legacy

[36:28–End]

• The Pilgrims' religious experiment is overshadowed by their commercial and agricultural successors.
• Native populations dwindle; the English-Wampanoag alliance collapses.
  • King Philip’s War (1675) devastates the region, with the highest per-capita death rate of any American war.
  • At least 3,000 Indians killed, 1,000 enslaved—a legacy rooted in the collision and conquest begun by the Pilgrims.
• Bradford’s manuscript, "Of Plymouth Plantation," survives multiple historical vicissitudes, ultimately helping enshrine the Pilgrims within the American foundational myth.
  • Abraham Lincoln uses the Pilgrim narrative to establish Thanksgiving nationally during the Civil War, unifying a fractured nation with the story of courage and cooperation.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You’re far more likely to die of starvation than an Indian’s arrow.” — Colonist’s lament, opening vignette [01:35]
• “How happy a thing it had been if you had converted some before you had killed any. Besides, where blood has begun to be shed, it is seldom staunched.” — Rev. John Robinson to Bradford [26:10]
• "As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shown unto many." — William Bradford [31:14]
• “Thus was this poor church left like an ancient mother grown old and forsaken of her children, she that had made many rich became herself poor.” — Bradford on Plymouth’s decline [36:19]

Timestamps of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–04:10 | Introduction, food crisis, decision to build fort | | 04:10–09:30 | Arrival of Weston's settlers, strain, loss of Squanto | | 09:30–12:00 | Wessagusset colony's plight, relations worsen | | 12:00–16:54 | Massasoit’s illness, Winslow’s intervention | | 18:24–25:00 | Plot against settlers, Standish's attack, aftermath | | 30:41–33:30 | Robinson’s death, rise of commerce and wampum | | 33:30–36:28 | Disintegration of Plymouth’s original vision | | 36:28–End | King Philip’s War, Thanksgiving myth, Bradford’s legacy |

Tone and Style

Lindsey Graham’s narration maintains a vivid, immersive, and reflective tone, using second-person vignettes and historical detail to draw listeners into the moral struggles, harrowing choices, and everyday realities faced by the Pilgrims and their neighbors. The episode walks a line between honoring perseverance and exposing the violence, opportunism, and mythmaking at the heart of the Plymouth story.

Conclusion

“Cutthroats” reveals Plymouth’s evolution from fragile settlement wracked by hunger and internal division to a society willing to unleash pre-emptive violence for self-preservation—then to a commercial enterprise whose religious vision is steadily eroded by material pursuit and expansion. The episode reflects on how the legend of the Pilgrims ultimately became a cornerstone of American identity, obscuring the tragic consequences for Native Americans and the messy, often brutal complexity beneath the myth.

Next Episode Teaser

In the next episode, Lindsey Graham will speak with historian David Silverman to explore the Mayflower story from the Wampanoag perspective: “the troubled history of Thanksgiving.”

American History Tellers — An immersive journey through the tangled foundation of the American story.