Mourt's Relation

Summary

Mourt’s Relation, printed in London in 1622, is the earliest published journal of the Plymouth plantation. It is usually so called from the preface signed “G. Mourt,” almost certainly George Morton, who commended the book to English readers. The journal itself is the work of William Bradford and Edward Winslow. It covers the first year: the landing at Cape Cod, the explorations, the Compact, the first winter, the first meetings with Samoset and Tisquantum, the visit to Massasoyt, and the letter of 11 December 1621 in which Winslow describes the harvest gathering later remembered as the first Thanksgiving. That letter must be read in its own words. After the harvest was in, “our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together.” They killed enough fowl to serve the company almost a week. “Many of the Indians coming amongst us,” Winslow writes, “and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoyt, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted,” and who in turn “killed five deer” for the governor, the captain, and others. The next sentence thanks God: “we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” He adds, “We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us, very loving and ready to pleasure us.” The passage is a primary source for a particular feast in 1621, not a later legend, and it should be set beside Bradford’s account of the same peace and beside Winslow’s later Good Newes. The hosted text follows Alexander Young’s 1841 Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, a complete public-domain reprint whose typography is modernized from the 1622 quarto. It is not the 1963 Heath modernization, which this library does not use. Young’s notes and the Internet Archive’s OCR have left residual debris in some paragraphs; the verified quotations on this page are taken only from spans that have been checked against the harvest letter and the Compact wording. Henry Martyn Dexter’s 1865 edition remains the standard typographic reprint of the original spelling for students who want to see the quarto more closely. The Compact paragraph here may be compared with Bradford’s original-spelling text in Of Plymouth Plantation and with the library’s Mayflower Compact page.

Top Lessons

• Read the harvest letter as a 1621 report

  Winslow describes a particular gathering after the crop was in, with named guests and a stated number of deer. It is a primary source for that event, not a later legend of a national holiday.

• The covenant of peace has a sequel

  The same letter calls the Indians faithful in their covenant of peace. That sentence should be taught, and it should be read next to Winslow’s later Good Newes, which records strain as well as kindness.

• Know the edition in your hands

  This page uses Young’s 1841 typography, not a 1963 modernization, and not every paragraph of the scan is equally clean. The quotations here are taken only from spans that have been checked.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The harvest letter contrasts earlier want with present plenty, but the Relation is not primarily a medical narrative. Bradford’s history gives a fuller account of the first winter’s deaths.