The Wordy ShipKeith

Read from Sunday, December 26th to Wednesday, December 29th.

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell. This was a history book, one that I got as a Christmas present from my girlfriend. Sarah Vowell is an NPR broadcaster and author with a great sense of humor. In this book, she examines the Puritans that founded the great state of Massachusetts (where I'm from). Vowell uses the original documents written by these men as the primary sources, and she tries to paint a different picture of the colony than we tend to imagine.

Vowell follows the voyage of John Winthrop and the Arbella ship that founded Boston. She does not talk about the Mayflower voyage or the Plymouth Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. The main character is John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630. Winthrop imagined the colony to be a 'city upon a hill,' a line repeated many times by leaders of our country as justification for American exceptionalism. Winthrop also kept an extensive journal of those first ten years of the colony. He was a complicated man. Serving off and on as governor, he was considered by some to be too lenient, but at other times a traditional harsh Puritan. He sympathized with Roger Williams, a dissident of the colony that was exiled to Rhode Island, because he taught religious tolerance.

There were many minor theological problems that plagued the colony, such as Anne Hutchinson and her followers. She believed in a more evangelical Christianity, that the spirit dwelled within the believer. She was kicked out as well. Then there was also the Pequot War. Soldiers from the colony massacred an Indian settlement, including women and children. Through it all, the colony survived and flourished, and thankfully the religious fanaticism subsided.

Vowell is a liberal, and she definitely lets her personal viewpoint come across frequently. She is funny and witty, and points out the hypocrisy in many of the old beliefs. However, she is sympathetic to these founders. For all their flaws, they advanced and changed as best as they could, and it could have been worse. They were not all bad people, they were just products of their society at the time. I will definitely read more Sarah Vowell in the future. Three and a half out of five stars.