Op-Ed

A letter to the people of Plymouth UK

  Plymouth Harbor in England bears little resemblance to the tiny seaport which sent the Mayflower off to the "New World" in 1620 or to the quiet New England town which bears its name.

A letter to Plymouth England from a Mashpee Wampanoag woman
England sent my people much more than just the Mayflower

By Paula Peters

I don't typically travel very far from my home on Cape Cod so when I set off on my first trans Atlantic trip I was admittedly a bit anxious.

I wasn't giving much thought to the significance of my visit to Plymouth, Devon in the UK where the Mayflower made its final launch for America in 1620. Not inconsequentially, I am a member of the Wampanoag tribe directly descended from those indigenous inhabitants of Turtle Island (the original name of the North American continent) who nearly 400 years ago first encountered the Mayflower. Of course that land "across the pond" as you Brits put it, is now called the United States of America.

In the 17th century it was such a frontier that Europeans called it the "New World" but it was in fact a very old world for the Wampanoag and other Native inhabitants who had been living on the back of that turtle for more than 10,000 years. Not much consideration has been given to the fact that colonization in America did not happen without impact on another culture, but it did.

Upon Mayflower's arrival with its mix of haggard crew, adventurers and castaway Separatists from England, all of what my ancestors knew of their world was about to change both dramatically and quickly.

They certainly were a courageous lot, 102 of them crossing the Atlantic in 66 tumultuous days. By comparison my Virgin Atlantic red eye from Boston to Heathrow took about six hours with hardly a hint of turbulence. I can't imagine the below deck accommodations during Mayflower's voyage were as comfortable, and I certainly didn't have to share my space with livestock and people who hadn't bathed in weeks.

The victors write the history books

Paula Peters was part of the Plymouth 2020 group which visited Plymouth UK last month. Here are the two stories we published on the town they visited; The Poledancers of Plymouth and Plymouth USA prepares for its 400th Birthday.

My journey took a different kind of courage. Standing on the waterfront in the UK's Plymouth at the Mayflower Steps I saw the name of the historic ship etched into the granite on the ground. I was struck with the magnitude of my mixed emotion: at once grateful to be invited to inform the process on the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of her sailing from an indigenous perspective, and saddened that my ancestors endured so many sacrifices as a result of it.

The history of that voyage and subsequent settlement of Plymouth has always been told from a colonial perspective, marginalizing the Wampanoag and fostering stereotypes and misconceptions. Among the most significant that we were savage and ungodly and had been wiped out. This anniversary due in 12 years gives us an opportunity to set the record straight.

In the early 1600s nearly 100,000 Wampanoag lived in New England. Plagues, war, slavery and genocide threatened us with extinction, but there is no accounting for indigenous tenacity. The Wampanoag have survived socially, culturally and spiritually and today the federal government in the USA recognizes two of the remaining Wampanoag tribes, the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe based on the island of Martha's Vineyard and my own tribe based in Mashpee on Cape Cod.

Meaningless treaties, King Philip's War, my people sold as slaves

By the time Governor William Bradford signed the treaty with Ossamequin (the Native leader, whom many know by his title Massasoit) in the spring of 1621, thousands of Wampanoag had already died from plagues brought over by European traders. His forces of warriors weakened, Ossamequin saw an opportunity to strengthen his ability to protect his territory with the English militia and establish important trade relationships. For Bradford the alliance assured his fledgling colony would be sheltered and they would get critical lessons in hunting, fishing and farming in the "new land."

I stood on the Mayflower Steps from where the Pilgrim voyage began.

And so a mutual alliance was forged, but somehow I think full disclosure of the Doctrine of Discovery and the intent of Manifest Destiny might have caused Ossamequin to give pause to that decision.

Within 20 years that tenuous colony of barely 50 survivors of that first New England winter, would grow to an estimated 40,000 English settlers in the region.

By 1675, Wampanoag land, trade agreements, and freedom all compromised, Ossamequin's son Metacomet led his people in an uprising against the colony.

The English had given Metacomet the name of Philip and the war, which some believe was perhaps the bloodiest ever fought on American soil, was called King Philip's War.

In its wake, any surviving Wampanoag deemed hostile were sold into slavery in Bermuda and the Caribbean. Wampanoag who learned to pray like the English were allowed to remain. How ironic, with memories too short to recall what they themselves had endured to seek religious freedom, colonists refused to recognize the spiritual beliefs of the Wampanoag as legitimate.

The survivors of King Philip's War were sold in slavery to Bermuda

My trip to the land where all of this began comes at a time when the people of Plymouth, Massachusetts and communities in the UK including Plymouth and Southwark are considering ways to commemorate the voyage of the Mayflower in the year 2020. People are asking, what should a 400th anniversary look like? Who should be involved?

While any participation by the Wampanoag should by no means be a celebration, I think it is critical that the Wampanoag story be told in our own voice. It is the only way people will finally understand that colonization didn't just occur for the settlers, it happened to the Wampanoag.

Rest assured, hijacking the heritage of the Mayflower is not the intent. It is my hope that this can be done in a way that honors both the heritage of the Mayflower and the Wampanoag, but we have to begin by acknowledging what really happened.

My participation in this Pilgrimage back to Mayflower's roots has given me an opportunity to test the readiness for such a concept that may sound as if it is in conflict, but is actually not. It simply asks for the truth to be told, which only lends integrity and credibility to any story.

Throughout my trip to the UK I was treated with a great deal of dignity and respect and if the people I met are any indication, I think there is a place for one story to be told with two voices.

Paula Peters is a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Associate Director of Marketing at Plimoth Plantation, a living museum of the 17th Century that includes, the 1627 English Village, Wampanoag Homesite, and Mayflower II, a replica of the ship that sailed to America in 1620.