Sample response--do not copy! from my teacher How to: 1) Start by breaking it down: the relationship of natives/pilgrims was both good and bad, so need to address both sides of that relationship. 2) Organize in such a way as to make your transitions easy; for this, I recommend sequential order from the original text. 3) Introduction includes title-author-genre and background info. Respond to the two parts of the relationship. 4) Finally, target the 2nd part of the response. 5) Citing: recall that you’ll include the paragraph number in ( ) w/ a period AFTER the citation.
In William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Bradford uses a first-hand account to tell of the challenges the Pilgrims faced when they first arrived in America. He details various items such as the hard winter, the severe illnesses, and lack of food and shelter as they settled in the new land. One element he spent time sharing was how the Pilgrims established relations with the Native Americans.
Bradford first mentions the “savage barbarians” in paragraph three, when he says the natives “were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than otherwise.” Elsewhere, he also mentioned that the Indians came “skulking” about, standing off a bit and watching with indifference, and would even come into the growing towns to steal tools when the Pilgrims went to meals (par. 6).
However, over time this relationship improved. Samoset, a native who spoke broken English, eventually befriended them and assisted by identifying “the people here, of their names, number and strength, of their situation and distance from this place, and who was chief amongst them” (par. 5). Additionally, he introduced the Pilgrims to Squanto, who spoke better English and who was instrumental in creating a treaty between the two cultures which lasted twenty-four years. In the final analysis, Squanto and Samoset, according to Bradford, were hugely helpful in assisting the Pilgrims with all the things they needed to know in order to survive: growing crops, harvesting, and establishing strong relations with the natives in the area.