0:00

You're listening to an Airwave

0:02

Media Podcast. Ben

0:04

Franklin's World is a production of

0:07

Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios. Hello,

0:17

and welcome to Ben Franklin's World Revisited, a

0:20

series of classic episodes that bring fresh

0:22

perspective to our latest episodes and add

0:25

deeper connections to our understanding of early

0:27

American history. I'm your

0:29

host, Liz Kovart. This

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week is Thanksgiving week in the United States.

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On Thursday, most of us will sit down

0:35

with friends, family, and other loved ones and

0:38

share a large meal where we will give

0:40

thanks for whatever we're grateful for over the

0:42

last year. Now, in elementary

0:44

school, we're taught to associate this holiday

0:46

and its rituals with the religious separatists,

0:49

or pilgrims, who migrated from England to

0:51

what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts.

0:54

We are taught that at the end of the fall harvest, the

0:56

separatists sat down with their indigenous neighbors to

0:59

share in the bounty that the Wampanoag people

1:01

helped them grow by teaching the separatists

1:03

how to sow and cultivate crops like

1:05

corn in the coastal soils of New England.

1:08

In our last Revisited episode, Episode

1:10

290, we learned about the

1:13

Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples before the colonists'

1:15

arrival in December 1620. In

1:18

this Revisited episode, Episode 291, we

1:21

will investigate the arrival of the Mayflower

1:23

and the indigenous world that the separatists

1:26

arrived in. We will also explore

1:28

how the Wampanoag and Narragansett peoples interacted

1:30

with their new European neighbors and

1:32

how they contended with the English people who

1:34

were determined to settle on their lands. With

1:38

that, let's re-enter the world of

1:40

the Wampanoag, a people who still proudly live

1:42

in present-day Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I

1:44

also wish you and your family a very Happy

1:47

Thanksgiving! In

1:49

late fall 1620, the Wampanoag

1:51

village of Patuxet stood nearly empty.

1:54

Developed over thousands of years, this

1:56

established and thriving community was

1:59

recently devastated. by the epidemic of 1616 to

2:01

1619. The

2:05

Wampanoag would recover, but it

2:07

was a confusing and difficult time, and

2:09

it was into this confusing and difficult time that

2:12

the pilgrims arrived. The

2:15

ship Mayflower left England and set sail for North

2:17

America on September 6, 1620. After

2:20

an ocean crossing of 66 days, the

2:23

ship sailed into what the English would later call Plymouth

2:26

Harbor on December 16, 1620. The

2:30

236-ton Mayflower carried more than 100 passengers, who

2:34

crammed inside its 106-foot-long, 25-foot-wide frame, the

2:38

equivalent of just more than the length

2:40

of two school buses placed end-to-end. For

2:43

comparison, the 30-40-man ocean-going

2:46

Wampanoag boats or machines that

2:48

we discussed last episode were

2:50

longer than three school buses placed

2:53

end-to-end. The English

2:55

passengers intended to become settlers by

2:57

establishing a plantation or a

2:59

permanent place of residence in North America. Using

3:02

small wooden boats aboard the Mayflower, a

3:05

contingent of passengers rode their way to the

3:07

shoreline where they found a space

3:09

that looked livable, even lived in, but

3:12

also not quite populated. The

3:15

colonists did not see any people, but

3:17

the land they decided to establish their

3:20

settlement on was located on high ground.

3:23

Ground that had largely been cleared of trees had

3:26

black fertile soils, with evidence that corn had

3:28

been planted there three or four years before,

3:31

and the ground had the advantage of being located both

3:33

near the ocean and sources of fresh

3:36

water. The ground the English

3:38

chose for their settlement was the site

3:40

of the Wampanoag village of Patuxet, unbeknownst

3:43

to the English. In the three

3:45

years before their arrival, an epidemic

3:47

had ravaged and devastated approximately

3:49

90 percent of the Wampanoag

3:52

population, including a

3:54

population who lived at

3:57

Patuxet. did

4:00

for them to call us because we just

4:02

suffered from a major epidemic that went up up to

4:04

90% of our people in a two or three year span.

4:07

Darius Coombs is the director of

4:09

Wampanoag and Algonquin interpretive training at

4:11

Plymouth Patuxet museums. This

4:13

living history museum was founded in

4:15

the 1940s and through thorough

4:18

research, interprets the Wampanoag people and the

4:20

colonial English community that settled amongst them

4:22

in the 1600s. Darius

4:25

is also Mashpee Wampanoag, a

4:28

citizen of the Wampanoag nation.

4:31

Our skin turned yellow, people got open sores in their

4:33

bodies and they died within two or

4:35

three days. Carmen thought over

4:37

the years hepatitis, people say smallpox,

4:39

but we kind of ruled out smallpox. Disease

4:42

control came out with something over 10 years ago.

4:45

They believe it was from the French trade ships

4:47

up in Maine. And when those

4:49

trade ships came over, they would have rats on the ships

4:52

and the rats would get off and the fetus of the rats

4:54

would get into the water system, brain infectious

4:56

liver disease that swept them on the

4:58

coastline. This epidemic that came

5:01

here was three years before the pilgrims

5:03

got here. Right. It was between probably 1660 and 1619.

5:07

It went 30, 40 miles inland along the

5:09

coast of Maine, wiped out whole nations of people. Like

5:12

I said, for Wampanoag people affected us up to

5:15

90% and wiped out. Years

5:17

before the pilgrims arrived in North America, Europeans

5:20

had traded more than just trade goods

5:22

with the native peoples they traded with

5:25

along North America's Northeastern Atlantic coastline. They

5:27

had also brought diseases. As

5:30

Royce Coombs related, these diseases

5:32

devastated and sometimes killed entire

5:34

villages and nations of native

5:36

peoples. So when

5:38

the English colonists arrived at Pituxet, what

5:41

would later be called Plymouth, Massachusetts in

5:43

December, 1620, the landscape

5:45

and demography of the Donlands, what we've

5:47

come to call New England had

5:50

changed. When they got

5:52

here, it was a changed place. When

5:54

they got here, it was a year, two years

5:56

after that epidemic hit us, you know, if

5:58

they landed four or five years. before it might have

6:01

been a different story. This whole area was populated with

6:03

people. And when they landed

6:05

in Patuxent, this whole area was devastated.

6:07

The nearest living communities was probably Manamet,

6:09

what's called Manamet, about 10 miles south.

6:11

We're a caring people, we're loving people.

6:14

But it's also a good time which people

6:17

needed each other, you know. They needed an

6:19

ally because of the need of

6:21

communities that didn't care for them being here.

6:23

And also we needed an ally a lot

6:25

of the time because we just got devastated.

6:27

We needed help in a way. They needed

6:29

each other. It was a very, very confusing

6:31

time too. The leaders we

6:34

lost, the chiefs, the medicine people, the

6:36

political leaders. When

6:38

the English colonists arrived at Patuxent 400 years ago,

6:41

they arrived at a confusing time. The

6:44

world of the Wampanoag people had changed in

6:46

the wake of a destabilizing epidemic. Still,

6:49

the Wampanoag who remained persisted.

6:51

They continued to practice and

6:53

observe their deeply established economy,

6:55

culture, and politics. Even

6:58

as the English colonists settled on their

7:00

village sites and colonized the Donlands. This

7:03

episode is part of a two-episode series

7:05

about the world of the Wampanoag. In

7:08

episode 290, we investigated the

7:11

life, cultures, and trade of the Wampanoag

7:13

and their neighbors, the Narragansett, up

7:15

to December 16, 1620, the day the

7:18

Mayflower made its way into Plymouth Harbor.

7:21

In this episode, episode 291, our focus will be on

7:25

the world of the Wampanoag in

7:27

1620 and beyond. We'll

7:30

explore the changes and continuities in Wampanoag

7:32

life as they work to recover from

7:34

the devastating epidemic of 1616 to 1619.

7:36

We'll also investigate how

7:41

the Wampanoag contended with life, that

7:43

after 1620, involved sustained contact not

7:45

just with European traders, but

7:48

with English people determined to settle on their

7:50

land. So who were

7:52

these English arrivals and how did they

7:54

come to find themselves in Wampanoag country?

7:57

Well, the English colonists who came to Plymouth had

8:01

a variety of reasons for coming. My name

8:04

is Carla Pestana and I am

8:06

a historian of early America in

8:08

the Atlantic world. I

8:10

teach at UCLA where I am

8:13

also the department chair at the

8:15

moment and I hold

8:17

the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of

8:19

America in the World, which I've had

8:21

for the last eight years. In

8:24

addition to teaching at the University of

8:26

California Los Angeles, Carla Pestana

8:29

has published a book, The

8:31

World of Plymouth Plantation, which

8:33

seeks to reconnect our centuries-old perceptions

8:35

of Plymouth with the reality of

8:37

the lives of its inhabitants. In

8:40

essence, Carla separates the facts

8:42

of the past from the myths of historical

8:45

memory to help us recover

8:47

the real lives and goings-on of

8:49

the Plymouth Plantation colony. About

8:52

half of them had been members of

8:54

a church in Leiden in the Netherlands

8:57

and many members of that church,

8:59

though not all of them, had the idea

9:01

to leave the

9:03

Dutch-controlled area of Europe

9:06

and move to

9:08

an English-controlled area of the

9:10

Americas. The members of that church did

9:13

not want to live in England

9:15

because their particular brand of

9:17

Reformed Protestantism was not

9:19

welcomed in England. To

9:22

practice their version of Protestant Christianity,

9:24

the members of the English church in the

9:26

Netherlands left England and decided to

9:29

establish a home in the Donlands, which

9:31

they thought of as the English-claimed area of

9:34

North America. With this decision

9:36

in place, they had to

9:38

find financial backers. Migrating

9:41

to North America and establishing a

9:43

colony was difficult work. It

9:45

required a lot of money, time, and labor.

9:48

It also required more than a group of

9:50

co-religionists. To establish a

9:52

thriving colony, the Leiden church members also

9:55

needed to find other English people, who

9:57

had skills in carpentry, building, and husbandry.

10:00

So to make their dream

10:02

of settlement in North America a reality, the

10:05

Leiden Church members had to engage in a

10:07

fair bit of recruiting. They

10:09

got backers in England, investors

10:11

who were willing to support a settlement

10:14

in the Americas because they saw it as

10:16

a potential way to make money. In

10:19

1620, the English colonies were starting to

10:21

seem like a place that people could

10:24

go, which hadn't been true

10:26

much before that. Virginia was

10:28

doing better than it had

10:30

in its first decade, and Bermuda, the

10:32

summer's island, was recently settled, and English

10:34

people were starting to think of the

10:36

Americas as a destination to which they

10:39

could go. So this was part of

10:41

a larger movement that would pick up

10:43

in the 1620s of people moving into

10:46

various locations in the Americas. As

10:50

Carla Pastana mentioned, the Leiden Church

10:52

members' migration to North America was

10:54

actually part of a larger transatlantic

10:56

movement of people. One

10:58

of the largest transatlantic movements was

11:00

the forced migration of enslaved people who

11:02

were taken from Africa to the Americas.

11:05

But there were also Europeans now moving to

11:08

the Americas to claim territory. Some

11:10

came by the direction of their monarch, like

11:12

Spanish explorers and settlers. Others

11:14

came in smaller groups. While

11:17

the English settlers set out to claim lands and

11:19

to settle in the Caribbean or in Virginia, the

11:22

members of John Robinson's Leiden Church landed

11:25

in Wampanoag country. Why

11:27

did they make that choice? Was

11:30

that where they intended to land? Well,

11:32

they had to deal with

11:34

the Virginia Company that they

11:36

would have a semi-autonomous settlement

11:39

in the northern reaches of Virginia,

11:41

which would have been around Delaware,

11:43

maybe, that part of

11:45

the coast. The king

11:48

had basically divided the eastern

11:50

seaboard of North America and north

11:52

of Spanish Florida up to Maine

11:54

into two halves and given it

11:57

to these two companies, the

11:59

Virginia Company. company of London, the one

12:01

that we now know about because it

12:04

actually succeeded in establishing a colony as

12:06

opposed to the Virginia Company of Plymouth.

12:08

So they were going to be under

12:10

the authority, the jurisdiction of the colony

12:12

of Virginia, but they were going to

12:15

have a certain amount of local autonomy

12:17

within that. So it was perfect from

12:19

the Leiden Church's point of view. They

12:21

sailed much later than they meant to.

12:23

They sailed, you know, late, late in

12:25

the season. And when they arrived, they

12:28

ended up further north than they intended,

12:31

came into Cape Cod Bay, and

12:33

it was already December and they had

12:35

to decide, do we stop

12:37

here or do we, you know, sail

12:39

out and around Cape Cod and down

12:41

and try to find where it is

12:43

we had originally intended to go? Yeah,

12:46

they landed here. They landed in Wampanoag Country.

12:49

That's when they landed in Patoxet. And

12:52

when they landed here, they found devastation.

12:54

This whole area was cleared off from

12:56

that plague that came through that epidemic.

12:59

And that's when they started building in December 1620.

13:02

It's unfortunate that first winter, you know, there was a lot

13:04

of more deaths February 4 here

13:06

in 1621 was the deadliest months for

13:09

them, you know. There's numerous sightings

13:11

of Wampanoag people during that first winter. They

13:14

say they saw two native people on a hill and

13:16

they waved them over, but the men didn't come

13:18

over. But they've heard a lot of native

13:20

people yelling in the background. So it was more than just

13:22

two people. They saw another Wampanoag

13:25

party of numerous men walking through the woods

13:27

with their dogs. There was

13:29

another time when they saw native people

13:31

on Clocks Island, which is an island

13:33

off of Plymouth. It's about three miles

13:36

out. But they never encountered

13:38

anybody physically and talked to

13:40

them, not until March 1621. So

13:45

the Leiden Church members had intended to settle

13:47

in the northern part of Virginia, which

13:49

in 1620 would have been somewhere

13:51

along the coastline of present-day Delaware.

13:54

Instead, a late start and a bit

13:56

of faulty navigation caused the English colonists

13:59

to sail for first into Cape Cod

14:01

Bay, and then into a more sheltered

14:03

bay off Mainland, Massachusetts, a

14:05

bay that's now called Plymouth Bay.

14:09

So the English colonists did not initially

14:11

choose to settle at Patuxet. They

14:13

made that choice only after arriving in North

14:16

America, and finding that winter seas

14:18

and sick passengers prevented the Mayflower

14:20

from sailing around Cape Cod and heading

14:22

further south. Now, as

14:25

Darius Coombs mentioned, the colonists found the

14:27

Wampanoag Village at Patuxet to be an

14:29

ideal building site. Of course,

14:31

so did the Wampanoag, which is why

14:33

they had developed it over centuries. Patuxet

14:36

occupied high ground, and by 1620 there

14:38

was evidence of fertile soils that had

14:40

been used to plant corn, and much

14:42

of its space had already been cleared

14:44

of trees. Further,

14:47

those Patuxets who had survived the epidemic

14:49

would have already moved inland to spend

14:52

the winter months in their fallen winter

14:54

villages. Still, as

14:56

Darius noted, there were many Wampanoag

14:58

people around to notice the colonists'

15:00

arrival. They would have

15:02

noticed the colonists' efforts to build new

15:04

homes, a place of worship, and a

15:06

protective palisade at Patuxet. They

15:09

may have also noticed how the colonists struggled

15:11

with their first on-lands winter, and

15:13

with the heavy death toll that came from that

15:15

experience. By March 1621, 45 of

15:17

the 102 Mayflower passengers had died. They're

15:24

not expecting it to be as harsh

15:26

a winter as they find. And

15:29

also, there are 100 people, many

15:32

of them ill, crammed into,

15:34

and they were crammed into, a

15:36

fairly small sailing vessel. So

15:38

the ship itself is not a very comfortable

15:40

place to be, but the

15:42

weather that they're seeing is not

15:45

that welcoming either. In

15:47

spite of the emphasis on a rock

15:49

that serves as sort of a dock,

15:51

allowing them to step off their boats

15:54

onto a dry spot and walk onto

15:56

land, they actually, and they describe in

15:58

some of the early... text, they actually

16:01

wade through the water as one would

16:03

expect, taking smaller boats off the

16:05

ship, getting as close as they can, and

16:07

then stepping off these boats and walking through

16:09

the waves. So when they get on to

16:12

land, it's not the greatest weather to begin

16:14

with, plus they're wet up to their knees.

16:18

And if we picture the material reality

16:20

of their lives, it's not like they

16:22

have lots of clothes to change into

16:24

or that it's easy to dry out

16:27

all those layers of clothes or any

16:29

of those kinds of things. So they're

16:31

probably pretty miserable in that time.

16:34

The building of structures, they're having to

16:36

fell trees, they're having to build

16:39

and that's not easy to do at

16:41

any time, but certainly not as it's

16:44

snowing and it's damp and it's cold.

16:46

So, it's not an easy time for them.

16:49

It's a terrible time to arrive and they

16:51

actually had intended to arrive much earlier. The

16:54

English, of course, had arrived at the worst time

16:56

that you could in any New England winter, much

16:59

less a very cold, little ice age

17:01

New England winter, had suffered

17:03

devastating losses from starvation and exposure over

17:05

the winter and their numbers had been

17:08

halved. Andrew Lippmann

17:10

is an associate professor of history at

17:12

Barnard College. He's the author

17:14

of the Bancroft Award-winning book Saltwater Frontier,

17:16

Indians in the Contest for the American

17:19

Coast. He's also the

17:21

author of the forthcoming book The Death and

17:23

Life of Squanto. Now

17:25

as Andrew and Carla described, the English colonists

17:27

had arrived in the Donlands at the worst

17:29

possible time of year to try and build

17:32

a settlement, but build they did. And

17:35

as they built their new houses, a block

17:37

house chapel and a palisade, they

17:39

were watching the Wampanoag who were also watching

17:41

them. It wasn't until

17:43

March 1621 that the Wampanoag

17:46

made their first direct encounter with their

17:48

new neighbors. What's

17:50

very important to remember is what happened six

17:52

years prior. There was an

17:54

English explorer, John Smith, and he came

17:56

around Virginia, mapped out Virginia, came

17:58

around New England and mapped out the West. New England and before he

18:01

left in 1614, this is

18:03

six years before the pilgrims arrived, he

18:05

left his captain behind being Thomas Hunt.

18:08

What Thomas Hunt did, he landed

18:10

in Patuxa, it was Plymouth today

18:12

and took 19 Patuxa slaves, went

18:15

down Cape Cod and took eight Nossa

18:17

Wampanoag slaves. Interacting

18:19

with Europeans wasn't anything new. The

18:22

Wampanoag had been trading and interacting

18:24

with Europeans for almost 100 years

18:27

before the arrival of the Mayflower. Since

18:30

the 1520s, European explorers

18:32

and fishermen had traded for furs and

18:34

peltry they no longer had in Europe

18:37

and for foodstuffs that they needed to

18:39

support their seasonal fishing villages or the

18:41

return voyages across the Atlantic. As

18:44

Der Rijs mentioned, in some instances, as

18:47

in the instance of Thomas Hunt in

18:49

1614, these European explorers

18:51

and fishermen also captured and

18:53

enslaved native peoples. It

18:56

is likely because of these earlier encounters

18:58

with Europeans, that the Wampanoag kept their

19:00

distance and observed the

19:02

colonists from afar throughout

19:04

the winter of 1620-1621.

19:06

However, it is also because of these earlier

19:09

experiences of violence with Europeans, that

19:11

when they were ready, the Wampanoag found

19:14

themselves able to communicate with the

19:16

settlers. Pretty early on

19:18

though, even before Tisquanto was taken

19:20

captive, there are enough repeat visitors

19:23

and from 1605 onwards,

19:25

other native men from the Donland

19:27

regions from both near Patuxet and

19:30

further away who have been taken

19:32

as captives who then start to

19:34

act as translators and go-betweens. And

19:36

it was at the beginning of

19:39

the spring planting season that

19:41

a nearby native man, this man Samoset,

19:43

who came from further north

19:45

in the Donland coast, arrived

19:48

as an initial emissary on

19:50

behalf of various native people from

19:53

the region. Samoset

19:55

wasn't even from around here, he was from up in Mohican

19:57

Island up in Maine. He was brought back

19:59

down here. a guide in 1619 by

20:01

Thomas Dermer. He ended up escaping.

20:04

He went to go live in Massasoit's community at

20:06

Pokanoke at about 40 miles west of Plymouth. And

20:09

Massasoit sent Samuza into the Pilgrim Village.

20:12

He probably sent it because, one, he was one of his own

20:14

men. Two, he could speak English. And

20:17

he was considered to be a Sagamore. Sagamore,

20:19

what that means is language is chief. So

20:22

he's a good man to send in there. And Massasoit didn't know

20:24

what was going to happen. Usemicwen, or

20:26

the Massasoit, was the principal leader of

20:28

the Wampanoag people. As

20:30

the principal leader, Usemicwen was responsible

20:33

for the safety of the Wampanoag. So

20:36

in early 1621, Usemicwen

20:38

carefully orchestrated Wampanoag interactions with

20:40

the English colonists to

20:43

make sure that there was not a repeat

20:45

of 1614. At first,

20:47

it seems Usemicwen had Wampanoag men

20:49

observe the colonists from afar to

20:52

ascertain their activity and intentions. When

20:55

the houses the colonists erected indicated that

20:57

this group of English intended to stay

20:59

in Wampanoag country. In

21:01

March 1621, Usemicwen

21:03

set Samuzaet, a native man from

21:06

further north in the Donlands, to

21:08

make physical contact with these Europeans.

21:11

Having lived along the main coast, Samuzaet

21:14

had repeated interactions with English fishermen who

21:16

came near his home to fish and

21:18

trade. These interactions allowed

21:20

Samuzaet to pick up a working

21:22

English vocabulary. Samuzaet knew

21:24

enough English to greet the colonists at Pituxet

21:26

and to convey that he came in peace

21:29

and that another man, a Wampanoag man

21:31

named Tisquanto, who was more fluent in

21:33

English, would visit them soon. As

21:36

Doris Coombe suggested, it seems

21:38

that Usemicwen had sent Samuzaet, a

21:41

non-Wampanoag man, to greet the colonists

21:43

as another way to gauge whether

21:45

the English at Pituxet had peaceful

21:47

intentions. When Samuzaet

21:49

returned to Usemicwen unharmed, that's

21:52

when he decided to send one of his

21:54

own tribal members to Tisquanto to meet the

21:56

colonists. Tisquanto

22:01

was a Wampanoag man who was

22:04

taken captive by English sailors in

22:06

1614, returned to

22:09

his home in what is now the town of

22:11

Plymouth, which he knew as Patuxet, in the year

22:13

1619, and

22:16

soon thereafter was introduced by another

22:18

native man to the Plymouth colonists.

22:20

He became their chief guide and

22:22

translator from March of 1620 until

22:25

his death in November or

22:28

December of 1622. Well,

22:30

so this is where Tisquanto's story is

22:32

a bit different from the majority of

22:35

native men taken captive. Most of

22:37

the native men taken captive by English people

22:40

and as well by French as well were

22:42

brought immediately back to either England or France.

22:45

Tisquanto is a little different in that his captor, Thomas

22:47

Hunt, he was planning to sell

22:49

them native people, not to use them as

22:52

translators or guides, but to sell them as

22:54

slaves into a Spanish market for enslaved

22:57

indigenous people, which had already been in

22:59

existence for about a century. The

23:02

sale of enslaved native people was

23:05

close to completely illegal, but not entirely.

23:08

And at some point in this sale, Spanish

23:10

officials figured out that these indigenous men were

23:12

not from the small parts

23:14

of Spanish dominions where it was legal

23:16

for Spanish people to take indigenous people

23:19

as slaves, that they were in fact

23:21

from North America and thus could not

23:23

be enslaved under Spanish law. At

23:26

some point, Tisquanto manages to

23:28

be brought to London. We

23:31

know where he lived in the

23:33

house of John Slaney on Cornhill.

23:35

John Slaney was a well-off merchant

23:37

who had connections to a circle

23:40

of merchants who were interested in

23:42

expanding English influence everywhere in Europe

23:45

and in the larger Atlantic. We

23:47

also know, however, that his time overlapped with

23:49

the Powhatan woman that we know best as

23:52

Pocahontas, then known as Rebecca Rolfe, who was

23:54

living only a few blocks away from London

23:56

at this time. It's entirely

23:58

possible, I'd say even probable that

24:01

at some point in their time

24:03

there, Okohontas and Tisquanto probably, if

24:06

not met, in that they shook hands, but

24:08

were aware of each other's existence and probably

24:10

laid eyes on each other. I think that

24:12

seems a pretty safe guess. It

24:14

wouldn't have been particularly easy for them

24:17

to communicate the Powhatan language. It's on

24:19

this vast dialect continuum and would be

24:21

not at all really intelligible to the

24:23

Wampanoag language. So, if they did meet

24:25

and spoke, they probably spoke in English.

24:29

Tisquanto spent five years, from the time

24:31

of his capture in 1614, to his

24:33

return to Wampanoag country in 1619, learning

24:36

and speaking the English language. By

24:39

the time Tisquanto returned to Patuxent in

24:42

1619, he was fluent in the English

24:44

language as well as in his first

24:46

language, Wampanoag. Tisquanto's return

24:48

from England had been difficult. He

24:51

was able to find passage from England

24:53

to Newfoundland, where he joined Englishman Thomas

24:55

Dermer's southbound crew as a guide. In

24:58

exchange for his knowledge about the Atlantic coast and

25:00

the native peoples who lived along it, Dermer

25:03

returned Tisquanto to Patuxent. He

25:07

makes his way down the coast with

25:09

Dermer, and as

25:11

soon as he starts moving south from Newfoundland, makes

25:14

a horrible discovery that much of the

25:16

Donland region has been hit by waves

25:19

of epidemic disease and has

25:21

been left severely depopulated. We

25:23

can I think assume that Tisquanto is deeply upset,

25:26

that he realizes there's a need for him

25:28

to make some contact, both

25:30

probably seeking out his own family

25:32

and relations and a kind of

25:34

larger network of people that he

25:37

can reconnect with. But

25:39

the details in terms of what

25:41

exactly that network looked like, who

25:43

if anyone would directly relate him

25:45

with surviving. So we

25:48

know that this is obviously a hugely important

25:50

moment for Tisquanto. I'm

25:52

not entirely sure if this is how it

25:55

went down in my own read of this,

25:57

but it seems likely that Dermer delivered up

25:59

Tisquanto. to the Mass of Soiad

26:02

as a kind of prisoner and captive at that

26:04

moment, so that he was not quite treated as

26:06

a homecoming son returning, but as someone who, having

26:09

been gone so long, probably at

26:11

this point dressed in European clothing and

26:13

speaking the foreigners' language, needed

26:15

to be in some ways debriefed. We

26:17

know from a later account that Desquanto, at

26:19

some point in this time period, did have

26:22

an audience with the Mass of Soiad and

26:24

explained to him a bit

26:26

about his assessment of the English, and

26:29

to him the time and the things he had seen

26:31

in England. This appears in later

26:33

sources that some sort of meeting and discussion happened.

26:36

But it's the theory of the historian,

26:38

Neil Salisbury, and I think I agree

26:40

with him, that pretty much until Desquanto

26:42

reappears in the European records, he was

26:44

probably being enslaved to be too strong

26:46

a word, but kind of the ward

26:49

or under the kind of care

26:51

and recognizance of

26:53

Mass of Soiad. Sending

26:55

Desquanto to speak with the English

26:57

at Patuxet allowed Ussamequin to gain

27:00

more information from the colonists. Through

27:03

Desquanto, Ussamequin ascertained that the

27:05

colonists had indeed come to

27:07

settle permanently in Wampanoag country.

27:10

There's so much mythology around this moment as being

27:12

kind of generally that the pilgrims are being welcomed

27:14

by people who wanted them there. That's clearly not

27:16

the case in any way. This

27:18

was a strategic decision of

27:20

a canny political leader in a

27:22

pretty desperate time to at least

27:25

establish contact before deciding whether or

27:28

not to permit them to keep

27:30

their village there. And that

27:32

sort of careful kind of feeling

27:34

out, getting more information, recognizance style

27:37

is I think pretty characteristic of what

27:39

I failed to interpret of Mass of

27:41

Soiad as a leader, that he was

27:43

someone who was very good at assessing

27:45

and processing information and tended

27:47

to favor consensus building as

27:50

a general governing strategy. With

27:53

Desquantum, they're able to have a deeper

27:56

conversation and they're able to

27:58

use the fact of the

28:00

translation skills that Squanto brings

28:02

to have conversations with the

28:04

local native peoples. They

28:07

negotiate an agreement with

28:09

a man they call Massasoit that

28:13

allows them to be in the

28:15

area and that says that they

28:17

will be basically allies and trading partners.

28:20

From there, they begin to encounter

28:22

other groups and to understand that

28:24

there's a complicated politics

28:27

of native interactions, that there are

28:29

these distinct groups not too far

28:31

distant, that they have their own leaders,

28:34

that those leaders might have

28:36

some political relationship to Massasoit

28:38

or might not. The

28:40

Narragansetts in particular are referred

28:43

to as enemies and fearsome people. And

28:46

they were able to keep

28:49

relations fairly calm by and

28:51

large. But there are moments of

28:54

severe tension and there are moments of violence

28:56

as well. What

28:58

was interesting was the decision being

29:00

made by Massasoit and the other

29:02

Wampanoag people at the community at

29:04

Pokanoket, which is where Massasoit was

29:06

from, just to decide somewhat strategically

29:08

to build up a web of

29:10

alliance, to work to create kind

29:13

of allies inside primarily native, but

29:15

to include this new English settlement

29:17

probably as kind of a defensive

29:19

hedge against other native groups in

29:21

the region that were seen as

29:23

threatening Massasoit's community, in this case,

29:25

probably the Narragansetts. That's sort

29:27

of a general interpretation of the Wampanoags

29:29

making a political calculation that

29:31

this community was not necessarily as dangerous

29:33

as they appeared, that they could be

29:35

reasoned with, that they could be a

29:37

source of various trade goods, and

29:40

that temporarily permitting them

29:43

to exist in peace would be

29:45

a wise strategic move.

29:48

After doing his reconnaissance on the colonists,

29:51

Ussamequin approached the English in spring 1621 to

29:53

propose a treaty. The

29:57

main points of the treaty stated that the Wampanoag promised

29:59

to defend the colonists against native attack, and

30:01

the colonists promised to do the same

30:03

for the Wampanoag should they be attacked.

30:06

The Treaty of 1621 protected the

30:08

colonists from the Wampanoag's native neighbors.

30:11

It also protected them from other Wampanoag

30:13

peoples like those at Picasset. The

30:16

Picasset Wampanoag Seitjem, Corpetant, objected to

30:18

the English settlement at Patuxet, but

30:21

as he was just a Seitjem and not the

30:23

Massasoit or the principal leader of the Wampanoag people,

30:26

Corpetant and the Picasset Wampanoag were

30:28

powerless to overrule Usemicuin in his

30:30

dealings with the English. Negotiating

30:33

a treaty like the Treaty of

30:35

1621 proved to be a difficult

30:38

process. In addition to

30:40

navigating different languages, the Wampanoag

30:42

in English also had to navigate

30:44

different cultural understandings about land, law,

30:47

and governance. Where Usemicuin

30:49

believed that the Wampanoag had entered a

30:51

Treaty of Peace, Cooperative Alliance, and Mutual

30:54

Defense. The treaty the

30:56

English colonists recorded reflected their view that

30:58

English law would have the final say.

31:01

This view of English legal superiority, combined

31:03

with their idea of land as property

31:05

that could be owned by individuals, served

31:08

as core issues that opened the door

31:10

to future conflicts about the rule of

31:12

law and governance in Wampanoag country. Conflicts

31:15

that would lead to warfare in the late 1630s and again in the

31:17

1670s. But

31:21

in those first years, the Treaty

31:23

of 1621 served to more

31:25

closely unite the Wampanoag in English

31:28

colonists by establishing a trade relationship.

31:30

How do we know what the Wampanoag and the

31:33

English traded? There's a really

31:35

exciting archaeological project that's happening in downtown

31:37

Plymouth, Project 400, that's

31:39

through the UMass Boston Fisk Center

31:41

for Archaeological Research. That's

31:43

Dr. Jade Lewis, the Curator of

31:45

Collections at the Plymouth Patuxent Museums.

31:48

Jade is a historical archaeologist and

31:50

was a curator behind Plymouth Patuxent

31:53

Museums' new archaeology exhibit, History in

31:55

a New Light, illuminating archaeology of

31:57

historic Patuxent in Plymouth. They've

32:00

been excavating a really intact section

32:02

of the 1620s, 1630s Plymouth Colony site. And

32:07

what they found is that there's

32:10

a contemporary Wampanoag site that's virtually

32:12

a pace or two from the

32:15

Palisade Wall, the fence surrounding

32:17

the community. And it

32:19

really puts in place how close these two

32:21

communities were. There's a lot

32:24

of textual evidence about pretty constant

32:26

interactions between the English and the

32:28

Wampanoag. But to physically

32:30

see in space that they were

32:32

neighbors really emphasizes this sort of

32:35

high-stakes international diplomacy relationship that is

32:37

hinted at in the writing. With

32:40

the Treaty of 1621 in place, and

32:43

with the colder weather of winter giving way to the

32:45

warmer weather of spring, Wampanoag people

32:47

returned from their fallen winter villages to

32:50

Patuxet for the planting season. As

32:53

Jade Lewis revealed, archaeologists have found evidence

32:55

that just a pace or two outside

32:57

of the English Palisade, that wall that

32:59

surrounded their new village, the

33:01

Wampanoag established another home site. This

33:04

means that early on, the Wampanoag in English

33:06

lived in very close proximity to one another.

33:09

This makes sense. The Wampanoag

33:11

were actually already at home at the place

33:13

where the English were trying to establish their

33:15

plantation. The English became

33:18

just a new dynamic incorporated into

33:20

the world of the Wampanoag. Learning

33:23

within such close proximity to each other

33:25

meant that both the Wampanoag and the

33:27

English began to exchange goods, food,

33:30

and cultural knowledge. I

33:32

think they spent a lot of

33:34

time thinking about keeping the material

33:36

reality of life under

33:39

control. They spent a lot of time thinking

33:41

about food, growing it, gathering

33:44

it, preserving it, preparing it.

33:47

Just those aspects of life would have

33:50

been hugely time consuming for

33:52

both men and for women to the

33:54

extent that the men did the heavy

33:56

agricultural labor and any kind of hunting.

33:58

At first they have goats. and

34:01

chickens for sure. They bring

34:04

pigs pretty quickly, cattle,

34:06

etc. a little later in the

34:08

1620s. So they're gradually building up

34:11

a kind of English

34:14

farm economy, the basis for that

34:16

with the livestock. But in the

34:18

meantime, if they're going to

34:20

eat, you know, meat or fish,

34:23

they're just going to have to capture

34:25

it themselves. And they're not hunters. I

34:29

they are not of a social

34:31

status in England that they would

34:33

have ever been involved in hunting.

34:36

The English seeds that they bring

34:38

don't do well. They

34:40

plant things that the natives also

34:42

plant. And there's actually a famous

34:44

account of Squanto teaching them how

34:47

to plant corn and beans

34:49

and squash together. What's

34:51

also interesting about Squanto teaching them how

34:53

to, you know, grow this first harvest

34:56

and how to survive in this land

34:58

is that the work of raising crops

35:00

was not traditionally the work of men

35:02

in Wampanoag society. Men and children participated

35:04

in the act of planting. So most

35:07

any community member would know the basics of

35:09

how to plant corn, but that this farming

35:11

information of where to do it, how to

35:14

do it was mostly knowledge that Wampanoag women

35:16

had, which I think brings out something interesting

35:18

we can see in these early records. Edward

35:21

Winslow in particular describes this first summer

35:23

as being constantly, really in his word,

35:26

being bothered or visited by indigenous people,

35:28

which I think if we kind of

35:30

step away from the Eurocentric perspective here,

35:33

what he's actually referring to is indigenous

35:35

people treating Patuxet as though it were

35:37

Patuxet, a working indigenous community where summer

35:40

camping at the spot for fishing is

35:42

a very rich harbor for fish and

35:44

shellfish and for fouling would have been

35:47

part of a regular kind of seasonal

35:49

practice of land use that indigenous people

35:51

had done for millennia in this region.

35:54

And that in some ways, what's happening that

35:57

first summer, when Squanto is there acting as

35:59

the their guide and teaching them

36:01

all these ways to use the landscape. They're

36:03

also witnessing with Tisquanto explaining

36:05

to them in English what's happening, indigenous

36:07

people using this land and living off

36:09

it as they always had. And

36:12

that for a while when there are

36:14

all these, quote, visitors around this region,

36:16

these are people who probably in some

36:18

cases have connections to Patuxent. They could

36:20

be families that have survivors from Patuxent.

36:23

And we also know from these records

36:25

too that there's references in Bradford to,

36:27

quote, a member of

36:29

Tisquanto's family, of Tisquanto's family in

36:31

Bradford's account. So this

36:34

implies to me, if we think of

36:36

house, family, what they're talking about here is

36:38

that Tisquanto does have a kinship network of

36:40

people that are probably coming and staying with

36:43

him, including women. These women

36:45

are the people with this store

36:47

of agricultural and planting and harvesting

36:49

knowledge that Tisquanto himself probably doesn't have

36:51

in the same stores and that

36:53

this act of translation that are

36:55

going on are really Tisquanto we could

36:57

imagine in some ways speaking to

36:59

and talking about planting with indigenous

37:01

women he knows and then

37:04

translating this information to the English.

37:07

For millennia, Patuxent had served as

37:09

a summer fishing and agricultural village for the

37:11

Wampanoag. Just because the English

37:14

had arrived in late 1620 and built a new

37:16

English village on the site did

37:18

not make Patuxent any less native. Instead,

37:21

Patuxent grew and expanded to accommodate

37:24

new instances of native English

37:26

diplomacy and trade. Trade

37:28

took multiple forms at Patuxent. One

37:30

form was the exchange of agricultural

37:32

knowledge. A piece of critical

37:35

agricultural knowledge that the Wampanoag shared with the

37:37

English was how to grow food

37:39

in Wampanoag country. As

37:41

Carla Pestana mentioned, the colonists were

37:43

grateful for this knowledge, even if

37:46

they pretty quickly abandoned the Wampanoag method of

37:48

planting corn, beans, and squash together in

37:50

favor of planting one crop per English planting

37:52

row. The English still thought

37:55

they should do things their own way. Another

37:58

form that trade took at Patuxent was

38:00

a trait in physical objects. As

38:03

far as the objects that are found

38:05

in petuxit, lots of points,

38:07

lots of ceramic fragments have been found

38:10

as well. You also see evidence of

38:12

elements of dress, so gorgettes, which would

38:14

have been worn at the neck. You

38:17

have evidence of food, so

38:19

types of animal bones, shells, that sort

38:21

of thing. There's a vast

38:23

number of objects that are recovered and

38:26

representing life at this time for both

38:28

the Wampanoag and for the English. You

38:31

can see items that are Wampanoag

38:33

such as pottery appearing in English

38:35

houses. That's showing that it's

38:37

not just items going back to the Wampanoag

38:39

that are being traded, but Wampanoag are also

38:41

trading items in as well. The

38:44

Wampanoag sites, you find European ceramics,

38:46

you find glass beads that were

38:49

often used as trade goods, lots

38:51

of different pieces of metal

38:54

kettles like brass and copper kettles that

38:56

have been cut to pieces to be

38:59

repurposed as points or beads. For

39:02

the Wampanoag, they're looking to acquire

39:04

items that they want as far

39:06

as unusual goods that they

39:08

can't get or easily get here in

39:10

the Northeast. For the

39:12

English, it's primarily trading for goods that

39:15

they can sell back in England, but

39:17

also for items that they might just

39:19

need here in the Northeast like corn,

39:22

like ceramics, other types of

39:24

meats that makes it a little bit easier for

39:26

them to survive as they're trying to figure

39:28

out this new environment. They

39:31

are heavily reliant on items

39:33

that come to them from

39:35

England for clothing, for

39:38

shoes, etc. They

39:40

do sometimes get cloth and then they're

39:42

able to make the cloth into clothes

39:44

and the women would have been involved

39:47

in doing that. But they

39:49

suffer a fair amount of cloth in

39:51

the fact that they cannot produce these

39:53

things locally and they don't have the

39:55

ability to do it without things arriving

39:58

from England. was

40:00

strategic for both the Wampanoag and the

40:02

English. From the English, the

40:05

Wampanoag acquired items that would help them fashion

40:07

metal arrowheads for hunting and warfare, and

40:10

items such as beads, copper, and brass to

40:12

exchange with other native peoples, as

40:14

these items were difficult to access in the

40:16

Northeast. From the Wampanoag,

40:18

the English acquired necessary items that helped them

40:20

to live, or at least make due, until

40:23

the next trade ship sailed in from Europe.

40:25

They traded for ceramic pots, furs, and

40:28

foodstuffs to help their families. Despite

40:31

what seemed to be a good trade, the

40:33

English colonists worried about living so near the

40:35

Wampanoag. They worried about being able

40:37

to keep peaceful relations with the Wampanoag, and

40:39

they worried about their ability to maintain their

40:41

Englishness. The English had

40:44

strong prejudices about native peoples,

40:46

and a strong sense of superiority of

40:48

English ways. There

40:51

was a lot of anxiety with early

40:53

colonists about the loss of their English

40:55

identity, or the over

40:57

influence of other cultures. And

41:00

so you see that anxiety played out

41:02

in sometimes really strange

41:04

adherences to English norms

41:07

of dress and food production that

41:09

maybe don't make sense logically, but

41:11

philosophically make a lot of sense.

41:14

For the English, you have evidence of

41:17

elements of dress that when you

41:19

think about coming to the Northeast

41:21

in the 1620s, and the fact

41:23

that you have large forests and

41:26

areas that haven't been cleared, it

41:28

doesn't make a whole lot of sense

41:30

to wear a lot of heavy armor

41:32

as you're moving through this space, or

41:34

wear a lot of clothing

41:37

that is loose and flowing,

41:40

and many layers, especially if you've

41:42

ever been here in summer. It can

41:44

get very humid. You

41:46

see through the archaeology that people are still dressing

41:49

in very English ways, and

41:52

that may not always make logical

41:54

sense as they're trying to move

41:56

into this area and... make

42:00

it more English. The

42:02

Wampanoag may have also worried about their relations

42:04

with the English. Forging

42:06

diplomatic ties fit within Ussamequin's desire

42:09

to forge a network of alliances,

42:12

primarily native alliances, that

42:14

would help protect the Wampanoag people from native

42:16

attack, from further conflict

42:18

with European explorers, fishermen, and enslavers,

42:22

and to provide the Wampanoag with access

42:24

to English technologies. However,

42:26

unlike the English, the

42:28

Wampanoag did not see peaceful relations with the

42:30

colonists as key to their survival.

42:33

In the big picture of the Donlands, the

42:36

Plymouth colonists constituted a very small

42:38

population, about 50 settlers in

42:40

its first year. While

42:42

within the wider world of the Donlands,

42:44

there were thousands of native peoples, some

42:47

of whom the Wampanoag had peaceful relations with

42:49

and some of whom they did not have

42:51

good relations with. For

42:53

the Wampanoag, relations with the English

42:56

only made sense within the larger

42:58

picture of Wampanoag diplomacy. I

43:01

think it's always a mistake if we

43:04

think about this from the perspective of

43:06

native peoples, of being about the future

43:08

survival of a European colony that simply

43:10

was never central in their goals. They're

43:13

always interested about their relationships with other native

43:15

people. The English were always

43:17

just a small part of a bigger plan

43:19

in which native needs, native

43:22

politics, native concerns, trying

43:24

to rebuild societies after this

43:26

massive, disturbing epidemic is

43:29

the top priority of native leaders here. That's

43:32

the world in which native people are

43:34

operating, and these 50-odd settlers,

43:36

some of whom are young children, aren't considered

43:40

super strategically important other than

43:43

what technology they can offer, what

43:45

protection they can offer from further visits

43:47

of colonists or enslavers or what have

43:49

you. That's always the

43:51

way to think of it, that

43:53

this is about native politicians, again,

43:55

trying to bring about political stability

43:57

after pretty horrible several years. the

44:00

English people are a small part of that. In

44:02

general, compared to many other early

44:05

colonies, like for example, the Jamestown Colony,

44:07

I think it's fair to say that

44:09

relations were comparatively peaceful in early times,

44:11

but that took a lot of work.

44:13

It took a lot of work at

44:15

first using first Tisquanto

44:17

as a guide and translator with

44:20

Massas Soit regularly making diplomatic

44:22

overtures and visits to many

44:25

other native villages and then

44:27

encouraging various other native Seitjams

44:29

to also visit Plymouth

44:31

as well. So I think we can

44:34

look at that first year of

44:36

interaction between Wampanoag people and

44:38

the Plymouth colonists as being

44:41

a wary, uncertain

44:43

time in which Massas

44:45

Soit and his community and his

44:47

backers were looking to establish peaceful

44:49

relations as part of building a

44:52

kind of a more powerful alliance,

44:54

mostly among native people. Tisquanto's

44:57

actions to help the English colonists seemed

44:59

very much part of his goal to be

45:01

kind of just a general guide and emissary,

45:04

the idea that if the English were safe

45:06

and strong that would help other Wampanoag people

45:08

and their allies be safe and strong. It's

45:11

clear that after the English arrived in December 1620,

45:14

that the world of the Wampanoag

45:16

continued to operate largely as it

45:18

had, for millennia. The

45:20

Wampanoag continued to organize their society

45:22

around seasonal sustainable food supply. In

45:25

spring and summer, the Wampanoag were living

45:27

and working in villages near the coastal waters

45:29

where they fished and the soils where they

45:31

planted. In the fall and winter,

45:33

they removed large winter encampments where they had

45:36

stored the food that they had grown and

45:38

harvested or hunted and fished in earlier months.

45:41

And where the trees and distance from the water provided

45:43

protection from icy sea winds and

45:46

winter storms. The

45:48

epidemic of 1616 to

45:51

1619 definitely influenced how the

45:53

Wampanoag approached diplomacy and the

45:55

English colonists. As Derias Combs

45:57

noted at the start, forging alliances

46:00

with as many people as possible seem

46:02

crucial to keeping the Wampanoag safe as

46:04

they slowly recovered from the devastating loss

46:07

of life inflicted by the epidemic. Still,

46:10

often when we look at many histories of

46:12

the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth in December 1620,

46:14

we read that

46:16

it was the English who brought great change

46:18

to the world of the Wampanoag, not an

46:20

epidemic of disease. Also missing

46:22

from these books that recount the past is

46:25

information about the Wampanoag's larger world and

46:27

their longer history. If

46:29

the world of the Wampanoag still operated as the

46:31

world of the Wampanoag after the English arrived in

46:34

December 1620, why

46:36

do we remember the Pilgrims' arrival as

46:38

a world-altering event? An event

46:40

that in many American histories is described

46:43

as the advent of religious freedom and

46:45

even democracy and the demise of

46:47

the Wampanoag and the Indians of New England.

46:51

You may have noticed I have never used the

46:53

word pilgrim. Pilgrim is a

46:55

term that is assigned to them

46:57

much later and is part

47:00

of the myth-making that occurs

47:02

around them, you know, to

47:04

make them as a founding

47:07

group in U.S. history.

47:10

The term pilgrim actually has a number

47:12

of different implications, but when it's used

47:14

in that mythic sense, it almost seems

47:16

to imply that they've come on a

47:19

mission to create America. They've come on

47:21

a mission for religious liberty. They've come

47:23

on a mission to create a settlement

47:25

that will go on to become the

47:27

United States. That's kind of how they're

47:30

depicted in the early literature that extols

47:32

them in the 18th and the early

47:34

19th century. And that

47:36

image of them as purposeful

47:39

in that respect is silly. I mean, there's no

47:41

way they could have been thinking in those terms.

47:43

So in that sense, the term pilgrim doesn't really

47:45

make a lot of sense. But

47:48

this picture, which is focused on the

47:50

people who came to be called the pilgrims, is

47:52

now finally beginning to change. I

47:56

was struck when all these commemorations

47:58

were planned for the

48:00

400th anniversary, that it's

48:03

really the native legacy that's become

48:06

our focus. That is

48:08

for more than a century, two

48:10

centuries, the focus was really on

48:12

the settlers' experience itself. You know,

48:15

that they suffered for their beliefs,

48:17

that they were hardworking, pious, people

48:20

who were willing to sacrifice in order

48:22

to come to this place

48:24

and set up a new society.

48:26

And that had been the narrative

48:28

for a very long time. I

48:31

think that in terms of what

48:34

we see regarding indigenous culture

48:36

is that it's not

48:38

a monolithic thing. Like it wasn't that things

48:40

had been the same before the arrival of

48:42

Mayflower and then all of a sudden everything

48:45

changed seriously. All through indigenous

48:47

history, you see changes that

48:49

are being influenced by climate, by

48:51

access to resources, by political shifts,

48:54

by social relationships. Think

48:56

of two different numbers, think of 400 years and think about

48:58

12,000 years. And we've been

49:00

here on our homeland for over 12,000 years. There's

49:03

two different worlds being tossed around a lot of the time, celebration

49:06

and commemoration. And people are kind

49:08

of not sure which one to pick,

49:10

you know. And I don't

49:12

mind people saying celebration because it is a celebration

49:15

for a lot of people, what's happened over those

49:17

400 years and how people are

49:19

gained, you know. So I don't mind people

49:21

saying that at all. For us, it's

49:23

not a big deal. It's because

49:25

we've been here for a long time. What

49:27

made these people different is they stayed and they

49:29

formed a colony in 1620 that

49:32

lasted. It's unfortunate because we had

49:35

people coming over before, we

49:37

had people come over afterwards. Before

49:39

and after 1620, these are different

49:41

people with different ways of thought a lot of the time.

49:44

And that was just one boat that came over. But

49:47

that one boat did establish a colony. One

49:50

thing I always want people to remember that

49:52

we are a proud of people. We're still

49:54

here today, come 2020. And we're

49:57

not going anywhere. We'll

50:00

be doing our education and raising our kids

50:02

into the culture. Our culture, everybody should

50:04

be proud of who they are. So

50:06

what can we remember in this anniversary year? A

50:09

year that marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival

50:11

of the Mayflower? We can

50:13

remember that in 1620, the

50:15

Mayflower was but a small part of a much

50:17

larger world. The world of the

50:20

Wampanoag. This

50:24

episode is part of a two-episode series about

50:26

the world of the Wampanoag, which is co-written

50:28

and co-produced by Liz Kovart and Karen Wolf,

50:31

and made possible with support from Mass

50:33

Humanities. If you're

50:35

looking for more information about this series,

50:37

our guest experts and scholars, and notes

50:39

and links for all the information we

50:41

discussed today, visit the show notes

50:44

page, benfranklinsworld.com/two

50:48

nine one. The show

50:50

notes page is also where you'll find a list

50:52

of resources and texts that we used to write

50:54

this series, plus pictures from some

50:56

of the objects we talked about today. Again,

50:59

you can access this

51:01

list of resources and

51:03

pictures at benfranklinsworld.com/two nine

51:06

one. We're grateful to

51:08

the large number of historians, tribal experts

51:11

and spokespeople, and museum professionals who took

51:13

the time to speak with us during

51:15

the course of our research. We're

51:17

also grateful for the research assistants

51:19

of Gail Coughlin and Eugene Tezdal. The

51:23

original music you heard throughout this

51:25

episode was composed by Joel Roston

51:27

in collaboration with Wampanoag musician Durwood

51:29

Vanderhoop. The Wampanoag songs

51:31

included in the score and arranged throughout

51:33

the episode were composed by Durwood Vanderhoop.

51:37

Production assistance for this podcast comes

51:39

from the OmaHundro Institute's Digital Audio

51:41

Team, Joseph Edelman, Martha

51:43

Howard, Holly White, and Karen Wolf.

51:46

Finally, any views, findings, conclusions,

51:48

or recommendations expressed in this

51:50

episode do not necessarily represent

51:52

those of the National Endowment

51:54

for the Humanities. This

51:57

podcast is part of the Airwave

52:00

Media Podcast. network. To discover and

52:02

listen to their other podcasts, visit

52:04

airwavemedia.com. Ben Franklin's

52:06

World is a production of Colonial

52:09

Williamsburg Innovation Studios.