But the real story is, if a bit more complicated, no less human. And through it all, in every direction, the land was stained by treachery, bloodshed, and betrayal.įor the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors to the Plimoth Patuxent Museums, those hard truths can be difficult to square with the traditional grade-school narrative many of us grew up with-of benevolent Pilgrims and amiable Indians seated around a big Thanksgiving picnic table. Barely surviving their first winter, they feared being overrun by the Native Americans they saw peering at them from the forest-only to find in them an unlikely military and trade partner. The Europeans found their foothold in the ruins of a village emptied by the ravages of plague. Then again, the story of the Pilgrims’ early years in Massachusetts and their relationship with the Indigenous people they met there has always been fraught with unexpected twists. Then, last spring, COVID-19 came and ate all the birthday cake. Millions were expected to attend the biggest summer-long party Plymouth had ever seen. Constitution, and an escort of Native Americans paddling dugout canoes. Tens of thousands of spectators were expected for the renovated ship’s triumphant return from dry dock, including a rendezvous with Boston’s 223-year-old U.S.S. More than $11 million had been invested in restoring Mayflower II, the reproduction ship that has floated in Plymouth Harbor since 1957. The town’s nonprofit living history museum-known since its 1947 founding as Plimoth Plantation-had spent considerable time and some expense rebranding itself Plimoth Patuxet Museums, to more accurately represent the link between the Pilgrims and the Native American tribe whose village they occupied. The good people of Plymouth, Massachusetts, had big plans for 2020, the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in New England.
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