Review of Museums: Plimoth Patuxet

I have fourteen posts in the queue*. This may take a while

Formerly Plimoth Plantation, now including the history and interaction with the Wampanoag community in that area. Plimoth was settled by Europeans because it had been cleared and had a fresh water supply.  the previous inhabitants and clearly been gone at least a few years. We now know this was because of the European diseases that ravaged the areas prior to the arrival of the English colonists, who had been aiming for the Hudson Valley. Trading in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine had started as far back as 1500. Even the gradual introduction of disease over a century did not provide much buffer. Throughout trip we would encounter references to large earlier populations that shrank during contact with the Europeans. 3000 Wampanoags down to 700 in Nantucket over a century. 100,000 in the 69 villages down to 15,000 in 22 villages. 

But for the colonists this was barely known. And when the mass die-offs were known to have occurred, they were not interpreted in the light of germ theory, which was two centuries in the future. Both the natives and the English thought that God or the gods had engineered this directly, to reward or punish one group or the other. Both would still interpret smaller local events that way as well, of sickness or survival of individual puritans or Abenaki stemming from spiritual causes.  This is not absent from the Patuxet portion of the largely outdoor museum. They are serious about getting the history right and represent what people thought, as near as we can tell from here.

There are people assuming the roles of known colonists, and they are very good at not breaking character, and looking puzzled about incidents that took place after 1627. I jokingly told one who represented my ancestor John Howland that I predicted a long life and many descendants for him (which I now regret - I should have gone along with the museum's intent) and he quite seriously told me that such things were in the hands of God, and then with a hint of a smirk, and of his wife Elizabeth (Tilley). I am going to doubt that the enactors were especially religious people, but they played the intense and sincere puritans wonderfully.  One young woman would not give her maiden name or talk about her family in England, because this was a new world and a new life and she intended to live by that. She was proud of having been accepted into membership in the church and being a new person. I wish I had had the presence of mind to use the joke, common a few decades later and likely understandable to her character even if she had never heard it, that she had dropped her name in the ocean on the way over, but alas, I wasn't quick enough. They had not heard of New Hampshire or Strawbery Banke (which puzzled me, as settlers came here in 1623, but they were right. New Hampshire was not named until 1629 and Strawbery Banke settled in 1630.) They might have recognised Odiorne Point and one woman did suggest "Isle of Shoals?"

There are historians on premises who talk in modern context as well, very knowledgeable. They discussed the technical changes that have been made since the place opened in 1947, such as the addition of wattle and daub to the buildings. This rang true to my wife, who had visited in 1975 when the spaces between the slats admitted a fair bit of breeze. We were told that there had been the suspicion at that time that something had filled the chinks, but until they knew it for a high probability, they had not reconstructed the houses that way. They make them without modern improvements, so that every twenty or thirty years they have to be replaced, in as authentic a manner as possible. They know a bit more with each building they replace. They learn more about costumes, and what the blacksmith who arrived in 1623 actually did for repairs, because there was no mining or ability to fabricate items. A surprising amount is known about what medicinals they grew, as a few people kept clear records.

We went over to the Mayflower II as well. Also very knowledgeable over there, and walking into the spaces gives me a clearer picture, at least.  I had not visualised it well on my own.

Very highly recommended.  It will take you an afternoon, including the films and exhibits indoors, but they package it very well so that is not an overwhelming amount of similar information to take in.  They know how to break it up.

*The joke is that queue is a perfect illustration of itself. One letter followed by four silently in a line after it..