Weaker Vessels

Building on the success of her first book, Diverse Gashes author Donna A Watkins now focuses her investigative talents on the less-studied population of women and children who lived in Plymouth Colony in her new work, Weaker Vessels. In this distinctive and compelling volume she sheds a new light on these less fortunate members of Pilgrim society, thus permitting us a glimpse into the pressure and ordeals which they experienced during the seventeenth century in America.

The majority of extant literature about the Pilgrims reveals a propensity to disregard or belittle these vital members of society, even though they, too, shared in the everyday struggles and challenges that were presented to them as they established their place in the New World. The author's aim is to rectify these omissions by presenting a case for remembrance of these exceptional individuals.

Once again drawing her inspiration from tenacious research centered on an extensive array of court records, transcriptions, books, diaries, journals, and first-person accounts, Watkins carefully presents us with an impartial look at these neglected, yet essential, members of Plymouth. Their lives are examined in a nonjudgmental way within the context of the culture in which they lived, even given the unmistakable biases of the men who produced the laws and inflicted the punishments for various crimes and indiscretions committed in the colony. The reader is left to decide whether the punishment fits the crime, and what might have been the true motivation of those involved in the judicial process.

General laws and standards of the colony are examined with considerable insight, as are the intricacies and nuances of daily life in Plymouth. The details of courtship, marriage and divorce are scrutinized and explained, revealing some surprising aspects that may bewilder the modern reader. Domestic and civil violence are elucidated in their sometimes gruesome detail, as are the facts about children in servitude, unusual deaths in the colony, the consequences of "unnecessary talking," and the results of "unclean acts." Notable women of the colony are finally given their due in brief biographies, as are the seldom mentioned gerontological aspects of growing old in Plymouth society.

The time is right to call out these casualties of history, and in this timely and powerful book Donna Watkins presents us with an eloquent chronicle of their lives, a story that is long overdue.