In “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War,” author Nathaniel Philbrick writes about the Mayflower voyage and first Pilgrim settlement in New England, and the war fought years later between the Puritans and Indians known as King Philip’s War. In a 2006 episode of “Conversations On The Coast with Jim Foster” originating in San Francisco, California, Foster interviews Philbrick. Click here for a nineteen-minute recording of the conversation.

Philbrick recounts how Samoset met the Pilgrims after they survived a disastrous winter and arranged a meeting in March of 1621 with the Pokanoket Massasoit Ousamequin in which they struck a treaty of mutual aide.

Philbrick recounts how the first “Thanksgiving” was never like that depicted in his books growing up. In 1623, Myles Standish (above, right) led a small group of Plymouth settlers in what has come to be known as The Massacre at Wessagusset. Standish beheaded Wituwamat and prominently displayed the gruesome trophy as a warning to other Natives.

Philbrick praises Governor Bradford (above) for his leadership among the Pilgrims that led them to grow in numbers, eventually leading to the King Philip War in 1675. The War ended in 1676 when Metacomet (King Philip) was killed by Benjamin Church and a Praying Indian named Alderman in the Miery Swamp at Mount Hope in today’s Bristol, RI.