A "Wonderful Plague" and a New Found Golgotha: The Mystery Behind the Great Dying of 1616-1619
With the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620 reports began to reach King James I of England regarding the state of the inhabitants on the coast of New England. These reports pointed out the desolate nature of the landscape and related tales from the native inhabitants that spoke of a great plague which had only recently visited them and had so utterly decimated their once healthy and vibrant communities by bringing death and disease. The indigenous peoples themselves had named this mysterious curse of death and suffering, “The Great Dying”. King James I--renowned for his staunch Puritanism and not exactly sympathetic to the sufferings of native peoples whom he considered to be ungodly heathens--wrote of the reports that he had received, and rather happily related that, “Within these late years, there hath by God’s Visitation reigned a Wonderful Plague that has caused the utter devastation, destruction and depopulation of these lands.” The lands that the King of...