The Plantation at Plimouth or Pilgrims survive despite themselves

Plimoth Plantation is located just outside Plymouth, MA and of course near the Plymouth Rock. The later is a bit of litter trap. Years ago I visited the Plymouth rock when in Boston for the marathon. It was covered in trash. Suzy and I visited it again the other day and the trash is now being kept down to a manageable level but people are still throwing their trash into the pit holding the rock. Is it some kinda custom? The rock is really a small boulder and a bit of a disappointment but a must see anyway, if only a chuckle. Now the plantation is a reenactment of the pilgrims village and the Indians camp. It is quite well done. I was impressed that the sign at the entrance gave the Indians (native people) credit for being there for 12000 years when the pilgrims arrived as the Johnny come lately’s. The native people are from the Manosquot tribe and they represent the contingent at the village. Pretty impressive, the same people, the natives are the “actors” in the camp. One guy was burning out a canoe from a large log. Just as they have done for thousands of years. They ran these canoes hundreds of miles north and south along the Atlantic shore fishing and hunting. Two gals, one with a baby were cooking a duck, and making a mush for breakfast. Others were weaving baskets. One complained of tarpel tunnel and I thought that the original natives probably suffered from it as well, but had no idea what it was. The native people and the pilgrims did not trust each other so they welcomed each other in their respective villages mostly so they could keep an eye on the other and get any warning if something was being planned. Give you a bit of a different feeling about Thanksgiving, it was really kind of a spying dinner, keeping eyes on each other. A few hundred yards away and surrounded by a parapet fence was the Pilgrim village complete with actors working on the fence, the fields and cooking. The paths between houses were complete with mussel and egg shells. A red tail hawk perched on a fence nearby, looking for handouts or mice. He was unthethered. One of the actors, about sixty years old, was so in character and so knowledgable it was easy to forget he was acting as he told the tale of the company that invested in the pilgrims trip to the new world and how they gave up on the pilgrims after they didn’t send back enough goods. Course they arrived in the dead of winter with half their number dead or dying but little things like that were not heeded in the analysis of the bottom line of the company. Course the company didn’t send the goods it had agreed to to the pilgrims either, leaving them really in the learch. Our earliest steps toward capitalism almost sunk the whole operation. When asked about freedom of religion, the pilgrims said they would have none of that, as they were tired of all the heretics from Europe, so there was only one way in the new world. Rice was more coveted then meat and in limited supply as it came from England along with things like butter. The guy playing CaptainStandish,was good, he even had real bad teeth. Spoke of Indians with disrespect accurately. We couldn’t help come away from the plantation thinking this grand experiment was very lucky to survive and stick with all the errors, mistakes, and awful behavior of the pilgrims.