Sometime in the fall, 400 years ago the Wampanoag and English Separatists came together for what we now call the "First Thanksgiving". The native Wampanoag people had suffered tremendous loss from disease, pandemic, and kidnappings. The Separatists had fled their native England, and their temporary home in Leiden, Holland, and were seeking respite in the New World. Both came together for not just a feast, but to support each other through mutual aid and understanding. Little did they know that this trust and treaty would last only a few decades. As we commemorate this event, we need to recognize the events leading up to that harvest meal, and what happened in the decades and centuries that followed.
Many people came together to plan the 400th Anniversary - the Wampanoag people, the state of Massachusetts, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, the National Park Service, the town of Plymouth, the Plymouth 400 organization, Massachusetts Governor Baker, the town of Provincetown, the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, the governments of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and more. Little did they know how another pandemic would disrupt life, plans, and events. And in the aftermath of this disruption, we need to recognize that the events should not end. We should continue to learn and turn our hearts into new understandings of what happened in Plymouth. As new archeological evidence is uncovered about how the native people and the Pilgrims lived together, we need to pass on this information to new generations.
I hope that the scholarship, archaeology, publishing of new books, lectures, online and in-person events continue. Events like the Indigenous History Conference should be an annual occurrence. Across the nation, this 17th century history is being erased from school curriculums and from textbooks, just at a time when understanding cultural differences and the story of the indigenous people of North America is desperately needed!
For the truly curious:
On YouTube, a video compilation of some the events from Plymouth 400: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EmOzXPmgxQ
NBC 10 Boston TV's special "Righting 400 Years of History: Plymouth Then and Now" which originally aired on September 8, 2021 is available online at this link:
Some scheduled events for 2021: https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2021/08/2021-updated-mayflower-400th.html
Authors and Lecturers:
Sue Allan https://mayflowermaid.com/
Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs https://leidenamericanpilgrimmuseum.org/en
Caleb Johnson http://mayflowerhistory.com/
Paula Peters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Peters
Nathaniel Philbrick https://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/
Museums (watch for events):
Plimoth Patuxet Museum: https://plimoth.org/
The Pilgrim Hall Museum: https://pilgrimhall.org/
The Mashpee Wampanoag Museum: https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/museum
More:
The General Society of Mayflower Descendants: https://themayflowersociety.org/
The Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project: https://www.plymoutharch.com/
SmokeSygnals https://www.nativeamericancreative.com/
The Silver Book Project: https://themayflowersociety.org/genealogy/explore-your-roots/silver-books-project/
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To Cite/Link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the First Thanksgiving", Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 30, 2021, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2021/10/commemorating-400th-anniversary-of.html: accessed [access date]).
