Television and the Actuality of the Pilgrams

Sarah Vowell was able to make significant connection to the past and near present. The connections made the reading easier to follow, and also more interesting. She shows how a the American history is of the first thanksgiving has a censorship like screen over it. 


To think back to my childhood many cartoons holiday specials had incorrect facts about Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims and Native Americans would always be friendly with one and other, but as I got older I wondered where did all of the Native Americans went.


When the Europeans met the Native Americans they spread disease. Nine out of ten of the Native Americans died. Just to imagine the severity of this, there are about three hundred million Americans today, and if ninety percent died that means that two hundred and seventy million died leaving about three milling people left in the united states.


When Vowell explains how television shows, like the Brady bunch or Happy Days made errors on facts, like that the Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to a feast, but they got correct fact on the hardships the pilgrims went through during their first winter in New England.


Vowell went to a replica of the Mayflower II wither her nephew. The people didn’t break their character and showed how hardy the time was even to her young nephew. Her personal experience made it apparent to me how difficult the situation was for not only the Native Americans, but also the Pilgrims.
On page 18 in A Wordy Shipmate “When Greg asks them if they know what to do Peter answers ‘Yeah, attack the fort.’ When Greg and their mother point out that these are friendly Indians, so there won’t be an attack, Bobby asks, ‘Then what do you need Indians for?’ ”


“ ‘Bobby, the Indians were friendly at first,’ Says Mr. Brady. ‘They didn’t start fighting until their land was taken away.’ ” The land we walk on in New England and in the rest of the United States was taken by the Natives that lived here before the Europeans, and I can understand where all of the Native Americans went that I sought for when I was younger.