Our Nest on Wheels

A replica of the Mayflower now sits in Plymouth Harbor, staffed with first-person interpreters. This is Captain Christopher Jones in his cabin. He didn't have a very high opinion of Calvinists, apparently, which made for an interesting conversation with this Calvinist. (The captain's take: "Ah, well. People can change.") He was an excellent and highly entertaining interpreter.


Naturally we had to see the rather underwhelming Plymouth Rock, which no one any longer believes has any association with the colonists but which nonetheless retains its place in legend.

I've started making necklaces as mementos of the places we've visited, and I figured I could find my own Plymouth rock that would be pretty much as authentic a bit of history as the Plymouth Rock, so I headed to the shore to beachcomb. I'd seen some gorgeous wampum jewelry in the gift shop (which was in use as currency between the colonists and the Wampanoag from about 1624 on) and was delighted to find a large piece of quahog shell, the clam from which wampum is made. And I found a shell that to me reflected a more sobering monument to the landing of the Pilgrims and that "first" Thanksgiving.


When Squanto, Hobbamock, and the other Native Americans were helping the Pilgrims survive, they probably didn't expect that one day the Europeans would spread over the continent and outnumber the Native population, like the white that seems to be spreading over this shell. I called it my Doctrine of Discovery shell. (If this term is unfamiliar to you, as it was to me until my daughter told me about it and forever ruined my sanitized view of history, you can read about it and an excerpt from it here; an article about Pope Francis' recent response to it here; and a lengthy report about it from the Christian Reformed Church [made up of some of those Calvinists that Captain Jones disliked; turns out he was right; people—and theological positions—do change] here. Oh, and a bunch of stuff that my daughter helped shape while she was messing with my view of history here.)


That part of the story wasn't being told when I was in Mrs. Oostendorp's third-grade class; the Day of Mourning wouldn't be observed for another three years. It seems inconceivable now; I know that some readers of this blog completely agree with the sentiments of the Day of Mourning and that others think it's a load of politically-correct BS. Undoubtedly many fall somewhere between those two poles. But regardless of your opinions on that issue, there is no denying that the long-term consequences of European settlement were injurious to the Native population.

And that's where the necklace comes in. (Stay with me here.)

I went home with my beachcombed finds and started trying to make a necklace. I thought I'd an anchor charm to represent the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, the quahog shell to represent the Wampanoag people, the rock to represent (duh) Plymouth Rock, and the shell above to show what happened and to acknowledge the Day of Mourning memorial.

It looked terrible.

And I wanted it to look nice. I harbor hopes of someday maybe selling some of my creations, but who would want an ugly necklace? That beautiful bit of quahog shell, though, looked gorgeous with the silver anchor. Maybe I could leave out the Doctrine of Discovery shell; it worked for Mrs. Oostendorp. The result was much better, but my Plymouth rock, chosen at random from the beach in Plymouth Harbor, didn't really fit with the other two pieces. I did, however, have a rock from another location—I don't remember exactly where—that would look great.

A pretty necklace, don't you think?


And then's when I got it: why history gets sanitized and how easily it can happen. Third-graders shouldn't have to deal with genocide (I mean that; I'm not being sarcastic), so we leave out the whole Doctrine of Discovery shell. And okay, that rock/detail of the necklace/story isn't quite authentic, but it's a lot prettier—and we want people to like it.

So now not only do I have to give up my sanitized view of history, but I can't even feel smugly superior to the sanitizers. But I do have a pretty necklace.

(I also made a "hard truths" necklace. This one includes the Doctrine of Discovery shell and the real rock I found in Plymouth. I added some purple-and-white beads to represent wampum, and that fish under the three kernels of Indian corn is a reminder of the fish Squanto taught the colonists to plant under the "three sisters" of corn, squash, and beans. And guess what? I like it even better than the pretty version.)



Jane

by Jane

When I was in Mrs. Oostendorp's (to my non-Dutch friends: yes, that really was her name) third-grade class at Sylvan Christian School, we worked together as a class to write a poem about the "first" Thanksgiving—the one with the Mayflower and Squanto and those construction-paper Pilgrim hats, not one of the many other "first" Thanksgivings (some of which you can read about here). I remember only two couplets:

Pilgrims hunted with a gun.
They shot a turkey on the run!

And

Elder Brewster gave thanks to God
For that fine day of glory and laud.

(We were children who had sung, "All glory, laud, and honor," every Palm Sunday for the eight years of our young lives, so that final line didn't seem strange to us. It was, I realize now, an odd subculture in which I grew up.)

This fall, Steve and I got to visit the living-history museum Plimoth Plantation, near Plymouth, Massachusetts, home of that particular "first" Thanksgiving, where we saw reconstructions of the early years of the colony (1620-1627) and of a Wampanoag homesite nearby.


I'm having a terrible time writing this post, because there is so much interesting history I want to include. I've been sitting here for two days with 34 tabs open on my browser—my Tyndale teammates could tell you how excited I get about fact-checking—and haven't yet managed to distill all the information down to a reasonable length for a blog post. (Steve periodically looks over my shoulder and says things like, "I see you have a title. That's progress.") So here's my compromise: I'll include links to some of those open tabs, and if you're interested, you can read the history for yourself.

So, quick summary:
Plymouth Colony was started in December 1620 by English men, women, and children, some of whom left England for religious reasons (and whom we now call the Pilgrims, although that term wasn't used at the time) and some of whom had been recruited by the Virginia Company—the same guys who sent the ships to Jamestown in 1607 (cue the Disney song).

This may be what the colony looked like, minus the hordes of tourists. This beautiful setting is not the actual location, because the town of Plymouth is sitting on that, but this week archaeologists announced the finding of what they think is the original site.




The museum staff plant the garden the way Squanto (or somebody) taught the colonists: with a dead fish under the "three sisters"; beans to fix nitrogen in the soil, corn to support the beans, and squash to provide shade and crowd the weeds out. Companion planting is nothing new.

My favorite part, though, was the description of the houses. They were intended to be easy to put up, easy to take down, and portable, so that the residents could spend the summers in the cooler north, then pull up stakes (or, in this case, posts) and head south for the winter. Just like me and Steve—only the Wampanoag didn't have to wait till retirement to do it.



The museum also includes a replica of the Mayflower, but we had to drive to modern-day Plymouth for that—and you'll have to wait for Part II of this post.

I had been here as a kid, during one of our family summer camping trips.  But I was probably something like 8 or 10 at the time, and I don't have too much memory of the place. Our next stop was Schenectady, which was basically halfway to Boston.  But we found interesting stuff there too that we might write about.  Our time in Acadia should warrant a post, as it's a really cool place and we were there 9 days.  So look for that to come soon, right after we determine which one of us has to write it!

Steve

Better Than Expected