A number of years ago, having driven with a friend from Oklahoma to Boston to a teacher union convention, being a native of the Bay State and the South Shore, I showed her the many historic sites, and among them was Plimouth Plantation.

Some of the details of the Pilgrim part were well known and a few new things learned, but what was of special interest to someone from Oklahoma was the Wampanoag village. There were comparisons to be made.

At the recreated village there were a number of local indigenous people doing various tasks with everyone in historic native dress who were willing to stop what they were doing and answer questions. The person who was cooking something in a large pot did not stop and give a lecture but continued cooking while having a conversation with the tourists and answered may questions before they could be asked.

It wasn’t a huge village set up but looked more like a decent start of a larger project.

A few years later, I was back in Massachusetts for Christmas with a more intimate friend from Oklahoma, and on the way to show this person from a landlocked state Cape Cod, we stopped in at the Plimouth Plantation knowing it was closed but wondering how much of it we could see before getting shooed away. We surprisingly were able to wander for quite some time and eventually arrived at the Wampanoag village that was basically a skeleton upon which one assumed things would be added to make the village more complete during tourist season.

Recently, I was at the Plimouth Plantation with a group of people.
The Pilgrim village was all abuzz with tourists and Pilgrim re-enacters driving them nuts by pretending not to understand 21st Century things like cellphone cameras and certain jargon. The Wampanoag Village, though, looked like it did during the winter trip minus the dusting of snow and really cold temperatures.

There were no identifiable indigenous people. One seemingly young, Caucasian woman in a uniform not unlike the one I wear as a docent at the museum at which I volunteer answered questions as she stood by the communal food preparation area, but everything else you needed to know about the rest of the village was on little signs placed near an example of something that would be part of the village with the one describing the paltry garden as a good food source leaving you to wonder if the villagers really expected to make it through the winter with what little was growing.

I was hoping to take pictures to send to friends in Oklahoma, but it looked too much like something under construction if not abandoned, and as much as I credit the young woman answering our questions with doing a good job as far as she was able, I could not get the image of the tour guide at the Alamo explaining to the tourists among whom was Pee Wee Herman that Aynez is shucking corn.

Obviously, this apparent lack of doing more than at least have an afterthought does not sit well with the people in cultural parentheses. 
Members of the state’s Wampanoag community and their supporters say Plimoth Patuxet Museum, a “bi-cultural museum”, needs to do a better job of treating the story of the European and Indigenous peoples that lived there equally.

There was a whole cultural existing before the Pilgrims showed up, and people in that culture kept the Pilgrims alive, but somehow have been reduced to the neighbors nearby who are nice enough but are a little different. Historic Pawtuxet Village, the other half of the exhibitmeant to focus on traditional Indigenous life is in need of repair, is obviously too small, and is staffed by workers who aren’t from local tribes.

As part of the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing, the museum changed its exclusionary title, Plimouth Plantation, to the more inclusive one,  Plimouth Patuxet and promised it would reflect the importance of the Indigenous perspective.

A new name is good, but there has been little interaction with the tribes to bring substance to it.

It would seem that the nice Wampanoag lady who was making some concoction with strawberries, corn, and sunflower seeds many years ago was not there so I could find out what ingredient I was missing when I tried to make it myself, may have left as other Native employees did because of having their suggestions for modernizing and expanding the outdoor exhibit ignored and because of low pay and poor working conditions.  

The consulting group of Native Americans, Wampanoag Consulting Alliance, has claimed that with the steps that had been taken to provide equal representation being removed and with the village falling apart, or just there, the museum has lost the important connection with the Wampanoag Community.

The Pilgrims did the best they could with what they had both in material and knowledge, but in building a European village they introduced certain things like types of livestock and vegetation that were not native and could have replaced something from here, and using the land and its produce as if it was unending and automatic, this among a people who almost perished their first year when it became obvious that this was not Europe and should have learned they needed to respect the land. 

The Indigenous people had found a way to live in the area for centuries and seemed to have done so successfully without a lot of European waste and disrespect for the land, so there are lessons to be learned in regard to the environment and interracial relationships and why they are beneficial.

This can’t be done as upon entering the village it appears another European plague has decimated the tribe who, like the tenant who sneaks away, left a lot of things behind.

This is not an equal presentation and there are those who want it addressed.

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