I am up here in the Bay State giving historic tours to Social Studies teachers from New Mexico this week, and I have learned several things that might interest our readers.
In Massachusetts it is illegal to idle your car for more than five minutes.
There is an office of the State Environmental Police to enforce rules like this.
At Plimouth Plantation there is an English village and a Wampanoag village
As you enter the recreated Indian town from any direction, you are greeted by a sign that says Avoid Harmful Stereotypes, which provides point-by-point instructions for interacting with the character interpreters. Don't call them Indians, they're Native Peoples. Do not allow your ill-bred children to issue war whoops [that's a quote, folks].
The Native People lady sitting under the lean-to informed us that she makes a point to explain to Hispanics that they are called High-Spanics because they are the product of European rapes of the Indian population. "Don't let them grow up without knowing that they exist because the Europeans raped the Indians," she advised parents.
In the modern town of Plymouth we found (I kid you not) that Plymouth Rock has been placed under a plywood box while the incredibly ugly monument above it is being repaired.
Up on the hill above it is a 1928 statue of Massasoit, "the Great Sachem" who "protected and provided for the Pilgrims" according to the plaque put there at the time of the statue's dedication. Looking at Massassoit's six-pack abs I realized that I had never known that Gold's Gym had a franchise in Plymouth in 1624.
But we couldn't let the "protected and provided for" comment go unanswered, could we?
Thus, about six feet away is a plaque to commemorate the Native Day of National Mourning that takes place concurrent with those European bastards' Thanksgiving. It points out that many Native Peoples (apparently on their days off from explaining the true birth of Hispanics at Plimouth) meet here each year to contemplate the history of racism and genocide starting from the moment that the Pilgrims landed.
Reality check: For a more realistic, scholarly view of what happened in early New England, check out Neil Salisbury's Manitou and Providence, which--as one reviewer notes:
(I continue to wonder precisely how a population decimation brought about primarily through disease and unintended ecological impact (see William Cronon's Changes in the Land) can be parlayed into a claim of genocide against settlers who had absolutely no understanding of either set of dynamics. I always kinda thought that genocide had to be intentional.)
Look, folks, the history of interactions between European settlers and the Natives is not one of the brighter chapters of American history, and it ended disastrously for the Natives. Our textbooks and popular media have cartooned it for far too long as a celebration of America. But it is hardly an effective corrective to insist on a new, politically correct revision that is equally simplistic and factually erroneous.
The saddest irony is that the bookstore at Plimouth Plantation is filled with perceptive works about those interactions from historians like James Axtell, Neil Salisbury, Bruce Trigger, and Francis Jennings. Just a damn shame that none of the interpreters or park administrators appear to have read them.
On a brighter note, we spent the morning at the Adams Historical Park (as in John, John Quincy, Charles Francis, and Henry).
There I learned a lot more to interest me about our second President (I'm getting around to McCullough's biography; the HBO mini-series is interesting, but I could have done without watching John lift Abigail's dress and jump her bones).
You know what I found out?
I found out that Adams, as the first prez to live in the White House, established the precedent that each Chief Executive should bring in his own furniture and pay for the furnishings out of his own pocket (they took it all home when they left--take that, Jefferson!).
I learned that when John was in Europe and Abigail was left in dire financial straits, instead of seeking a loan or a Federal bail-out, she started selling off the fine china he'd been sending home at five times what he paid for it.
I also found out that Abigail tore apart, re-sewed, and redesigned her own inaugural dress several times so that she could keep using it--even though by that time they were rich.
I learned that even though the Adams family gave all this stuff to the National Park Service in the 1920s, they kept the rights to have every Adams daughter who gets married come get Abigail's original veil to wear at her wedding.
I got to see the Bible and the letter that Cinque and friends gave to John Quincy Adams after he won the Amistad case.
(I learned that Quincy, by the way, is correctly pronounced something like Kwinn'-zee and not the way that Quincy Jones says it.
This was one of the best historic house tours I've ever taken, with a tour guide who even correctly pointed out that John Adams is duly remembered as both a great humanist and as the father of conservative political thought in the early Republic.
Finally, I discovered that parking at any downtown Boston hotel costs at least $38/day (excluding tips to the valets).
In Massachusetts it is illegal to idle your car for more than five minutes.
There is an office of the State Environmental Police to enforce rules like this.
At Plimouth Plantation there is an English village and a Wampanoag village
As you enter the recreated Indian town from any direction, you are greeted by a sign that says Avoid Harmful Stereotypes, which provides point-by-point instructions for interacting with the character interpreters. Don't call them Indians, they're Native Peoples. Do not allow your ill-bred children to issue war whoops [that's a quote, folks].
The Native People lady sitting under the lean-to informed us that she makes a point to explain to Hispanics that they are called High-Spanics because they are the product of European rapes of the Indian population. "Don't let them grow up without knowing that they exist because the Europeans raped the Indians," she advised parents.
In the modern town of Plymouth we found (I kid you not) that Plymouth Rock has been placed under a plywood box while the incredibly ugly monument above it is being repaired.
Up on the hill above it is a 1928 statue of Massasoit, "the Great Sachem" who "protected and provided for the Pilgrims" according to the plaque put there at the time of the statue's dedication. Looking at Massassoit's six-pack abs I realized that I had never known that Gold's Gym had a franchise in Plymouth in 1624.
But we couldn't let the "protected and provided for" comment go unanswered, could we?
Thus, about six feet away is a plaque to commemorate the Native Day of National Mourning that takes place concurrent with those European bastards' Thanksgiving. It points out that many Native Peoples (apparently on their days off from explaining the true birth of Hispanics at Plimouth) meet here each year to contemplate the history of racism and genocide starting from the moment that the Pilgrims landed.
Reality check: For a more realistic, scholarly view of what happened in early New England, check out Neil Salisbury's Manitou and Providence, which--as one reviewer notes:
Decimated by diseases brought over by early explorers, native tribes were unable to mount an effective resistance to the immigrants. Declining population was more of a threat to the native culture than was the threat posed by the new immigrants. In addition, the uneven effects of the illnesses were to destabilize the existing relationships between different tribes and shift the balance of power.
(I continue to wonder precisely how a population decimation brought about primarily through disease and unintended ecological impact (see William Cronon's Changes in the Land) can be parlayed into a claim of genocide against settlers who had absolutely no understanding of either set of dynamics. I always kinda thought that genocide had to be intentional.)
Look, folks, the history of interactions between European settlers and the Natives is not one of the brighter chapters of American history, and it ended disastrously for the Natives. Our textbooks and popular media have cartooned it for far too long as a celebration of America. But it is hardly an effective corrective to insist on a new, politically correct revision that is equally simplistic and factually erroneous.
The saddest irony is that the bookstore at Plimouth Plantation is filled with perceptive works about those interactions from historians like James Axtell, Neil Salisbury, Bruce Trigger, and Francis Jennings. Just a damn shame that none of the interpreters or park administrators appear to have read them.
On a brighter note, we spent the morning at the Adams Historical Park (as in John, John Quincy, Charles Francis, and Henry).
There I learned a lot more to interest me about our second President (I'm getting around to McCullough's biography; the HBO mini-series is interesting, but I could have done without watching John lift Abigail's dress and jump her bones).
You know what I found out?
I found out that Adams, as the first prez to live in the White House, established the precedent that each Chief Executive should bring in his own furniture and pay for the furnishings out of his own pocket (they took it all home when they left--take that, Jefferson!).
I learned that when John was in Europe and Abigail was left in dire financial straits, instead of seeking a loan or a Federal bail-out, she started selling off the fine china he'd been sending home at five times what he paid for it.
I also found out that Abigail tore apart, re-sewed, and redesigned her own inaugural dress several times so that she could keep using it--even though by that time they were rich.
I learned that even though the Adams family gave all this stuff to the National Park Service in the 1920s, they kept the rights to have every Adams daughter who gets married come get Abigail's original veil to wear at her wedding.
I got to see the Bible and the letter that Cinque and friends gave to John Quincy Adams after he won the Amistad case.
(I learned that Quincy, by the way, is correctly pronounced something like Kwinn'-zee and not the way that Quincy Jones says it.
This was one of the best historic house tours I've ever taken, with a tour guide who even correctly pointed out that John Adams is duly remembered as both a great humanist and as the father of conservative political thought in the early Republic.
Finally, I discovered that parking at any downtown Boston hotel costs at least $38/day (excluding tips to the valets).
Comments
..and people wonder why I never moved back.