The war foreshadowed two centuries of fighting as Americans pushed farther and farther west, displacing hundreds of other tribes. As a new generation of leaders replaced them, “it was a confusing time for native people,” Coombs said – and for the English, too.īy the time Massasoit’s son Metacomet launched King Philip’s War in 1675, the Indians were no longer seen as equals or even as trustworthy English subjects. Winslow died in 1655, followed by Bradford in 1657 and Massasoit in 1660. Property rights were a constant annoyance: The Wampanoags held land in common. The English victory over the Pequot in Connecticut removed one of the Wampanoags’ traditional rivals, but land disputes and other pressures from a growing settler population led to conflicts that frayed their early bond with the Plymouth colony. Winslow published a pamphlet of his observations in England in 1624. In turn, Pilgrim leader Edward Winslow visited Massasoit – and learned more about the Wampanoag traditions and religious beliefs. But both sides would have seen the gathering as friendly – as was Massasoit’s presence at Bradford’s wedding in 1623. Meal customs were different, too, so it’s improbable that they would have sat at the same table. Neither group could speak the other’s language. Pickering and Coombs said the dinner would have been diplomatic, not social. It was still developing when Massasoit and a contingent of villagers joined the English for the first Thanksgiving – in September 1621, not November. That mutual respect – and the fur trade that came with it – endured beyond the Pequot War of 1637. Hockomock, another Wampanoag, was fluent in English and lived at Plimoth. The resulting treaty recognized “separate nations worthy of diplomatic honor,” Pickering said. Then the sachems Squanto and Samoset came calling in March 1621, as emissaries from Massasoit, the most powerful local chief. “The Pilgrims knew they were being observed,” Pickering said. seeing what they were up to,” Coombs said. So two threatened groups made common cause – though not immediately.Īfter the Mayflower landed, “we observed them in stealth. The plague left the rival Pequot and Narragansett tribes to the west untouched and more powerful than ever, with more than 3,000 warriors against a few hundred Wampanoags. The English desperately needed help after the starvation of the 1620 winter, but the Wampanoags needed help, too. Instead, “there was self interest on both sides,” said Pickering, who sometimes portrays Bradford in the Plimoth village. “If the English had landed five years before, history could have been totally different.” “The native peoples had never seen a plague like that,” Coombs said. It’s not clear what the disease was – but the epidemic followed the paths the traders took. By the time the Mayflower dropped anchor, whole villages had been wiped out, including the one in Plymouth. Then the plague struck.īefore 1615, as many as 25,000 Indians lived in the area. So did a skirmish between traders and Wampanoags on the Cape in 1614. The captures left many tribes wary of further contact. Some captured Indians and sold them into slavery, often to teach them European languages so they could be used as guides and translators on return trips. Ships from England and other countries had stopped along the New England coast for a decade before the Pilgrims set sail. But Coombs and deputy director Richard Pickering said a devastating plague and the memory of previous European traders set the stage for an alliance. The Wampanoags outnumbered the Pilgrims, while the Pilgrims had muskets and cannon. That necessity might not have appeared obvious. Lesson one, said associate director and Mashpee Wampanoag Darius Coombs: “They needed each other.” But interpreters at Plimoth Plantation say their early contact offers even more important lessons in how strangers and nations really get along. The early friendship between the two peoples wasn’t so innocent, either: The Pilgrims heard the Wampanoags out in the forest for four months before their first face-to-face encounter.įrom the beginning, relations between the Wampanoags and the settlers they called “the coat men” focused on diplomacy and trade, not a naive handshake between Europeans and the Indians, who’d claimed the land for hundreds of years. The gathering lasted three days in September, rather than one in November, and turkey and cranberries may not have been part of the feast. The Pilgrims and Indians probably kept mostly to themselves. The First Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags is one of the most familiar scenes from American lore and history: William Bradford and the English gathered around a long table with Massasoit and his villagers, harmoniously sharing the meal and day.īut it didn’t really happen that way.
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