Luger, who grew up on a reservation in North Dakota, said the Mayflower was, to him, “traumatic, because 90 percent of my population was wiped out.” He said he was participating in the anniversary events not “because I’m excited and want to commemorate,” but because “if we don’t tell that story, then what fills its place?” Luger, the visual artist, said that the story is still not being told in the United States the way Native Americans want it to be - particularly not in primary schools, where myths about the Mayflower are still taught, he said. “This is the very first time that their story is being told in the way that they want to tell it,” said Ms. Precious said she explained the theater’s approach by pointing to the cancellation of a newly commissioned play about the military, after members of the armed forces read the script and “hated it.” She recalled that at her first meeting with a dozen or so Wampanoag members, “they kind of went, ‘How do we know that we can trust you?’” Mandy Precious, Theatre Royal Plymouth’s director of engagement and learning, said she had traveled regularly to the United States to secure Native American participation. “Wampum is quite famous, but it has always been seen from a very European, settler perspective.” “It is important that groups like the Wampanoag are getting more involved in bringing their side of the story to this,” said Ian Taylor, a project curator at the British Museum, as he pointed to the four belts, mounted on boards, in a museum conservation lab. Created with tiny cylindrical beads (“Wampum”) made from fragments of clam shells, these geometrically patterned belts served as records of treaties among tribes. It will be held at The Box, a new $52 million arts complex in Plymouth.Ī parallel touring exhibition of Native American shell belts, “ Wampum: Stories and Shells from Native America,” will have as its centerpiece a newly made belt created by the Wampanoag in Massachusetts, shown alongside four belts from the British Museum collection that are believed to date from the 18th century, if not earlier. Part of the exhibition segment is “Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy,” a selection of objects, images and ideas that tells the story of the ship’s passengers but also presents the Native American perspective on English colonization.
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“It’s kind of like a fresh, clean slate.” “In England, they don’t teach the Mayflower story,” Ms. “There is the myth of the Thanksgiving holiday that brings to mind for just about everybody the idea that Native Americans welcomed the Pilgrims.” “In the United States, I’m having to unravel the misconceptions that are put out there in history,” said Paula Peters, a member of the Wampanoag tribe who is on the advisory committee for the American and British events and working on an exhibition of Native American belts as part of the British commemorations. In Britain, the Mayflower is barely mentioned in the school curriculum.
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In the United States, generations of schoolchildren have learned that the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower signed treaties with Native Americans and celebrated the first Thanksgiving with them - a sugarcoated version of events that many historians consider a misrepresentation.
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What distinguishes the programs is that the Mayflower is a more politically charged subject on one side of the Atlantic than it is on the other. This time, Native Americans - particularly the Wampanoag Nation - are actively shaping the programming of events in the United States and Britain.
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He led a protest near Plymouth Rock instead.įifty years have passed, and commemorations for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower crossing are now approaching. The event’s organizers had asked to see an advance copy, and proposed an alternative text.
#CLEAN SLATE PLYMOUTH MA FREE#
“We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.”īut that speech was never delivered. “This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America,” his speech began. James, a member of the Wampanoag tribe that has inhabited what is now Massachusetts for 12,000 years, was invited to participate in the commemorations. It was 350 years since the arrival of the Mayflower, and Mr. James was asked to give a speech at a state dinner in Plymouth, Mass. LONDON - In 1970, the Native American leader Wamsutta Frank B.