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In her 40 years as a museum educator and historical Native interpreter, there is one thing that bugs Linda Coombs the most: disbelief by white people that she is real. “[Visitors] would just walk right up to you and go, ‘You’re not an Indian.’ The way we looked might not fit what they had in […]

After an arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, the colonists we call the Pilgrims were faced with a monumental decision: What to do next? Blown off course by massive storms, the weary travelers missed their intended destination of northern Virginia – what is now New York – by a few hundred miles. Landing in the […]

A first-hand account of the first permanent European colony in New England, including the fall harvest meal that inspired America’s Thanksgiving tradition, has been reprinted for a wider audience as Massachusetts marks 400 years  since the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower this year. Massachusetts’ State Library and Plimoth Patuxet Museums (formerly Plimoth Plantation) […]

It’s been 400 years since the Mayflower arrived in Provincetown Harbor, and local and international organizations spent a decade planning months of quadricentennial commemorative events, many of which were upended by the coronavirus pandemic. But while our nation has a reckoning with racial injustice, colonialism and xenophobia amid a worsening pandemic, some say the more […]

Sakonnet Sachem Awashonks relates how the English do not like dealing with women chieftains like her. “The colonists challenge my authority,” Awashonks says. “They think they should be dealing with a man.” The English go so far as to demand that the male Wampanoag tribal members usurp the authority of female sachems. And, as far […]

PLYMOUTH – The Indigenous experience in America has long been overshadowed by the European one, as American history classes focus primarily on English Pilgrims arriving on the shores of Plymouth in 1620, and the attending colonization. Efforts to balance that narrative with the history of Wampanoags and other natives who lived and thrived in America […]

Plymouth’s downtown post office was crowded with philatelic fans last Thursday set on getting the new Mayflower stamp on its first day of issue. Many placed the postage on envelopes and had them stamped that day with America’s Hometown cancellation marks. The new stamp honoring Plymouth’s 400th anniversary is on sale at U.S. Postal Service […]

The newspaper article dates from 1613 and describes how Wampanoag runners visited villages throughout the territory to check on preparations for the big new year ceremonies. It goes on to tell how men collected saplings from cedar swamps that spring for new house frames. Is this a very early edition of the Old Colony Memorial? No, it is […]

PLYMOUTH, England (CBS/AP) — With a splash of Plymouth gin, the U.S. ambassador to Britain officially launched a ship called Mayflower Wednesday, 400 years to the day after a wooden vessel with the same name sailed from an English port to Plymouth, Massachusetts and changed the history of two continents. The 1620 journey launched a […]

PLYMOUTH — You could say this postage stamp has been 400 years in the making. On Thursday, the U.S. Postal Service will release a new “forever” stamp bearing the image of the Mayflower for the town’s quadricentennial at post offices across the country. Locally, several groups are planning activities to mark the first day of issue. […]