Join Paula Peters, citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe as she shares the historical and cultural legacy and story of the Wampanoag: the People of the First Light. She unravels common misperceptions and false narratives around the first “Thanksgiving” and the harvest of 1621 involving Native people and the first colonizers, the Pilgrims. By acknowledging what has gone before, she invites us to envision and collectively create a balanced way forward for humanity.

The Wampanoag have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for more than 12,000 years. They are the tribe first encountered by Mayflower Pilgrims when they landed in Provincetown harbor and explored the eastern coast of Cape Cod and when they continued on to Patuxet (Plymouth) to establish Plymouth Colony.

In 2020, America commemorated the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage and the founding of Plymouth Colony, a story that cannot be told without the perspective of the indigenous people who were here as that ship arrived and who still remain.

For Part II of this interview, CLICK HERE https://www.patreon.com/posts/116836972?pr=true

Video Links:

NK 360 The First Thanksgiving with Linda Coombs: https://youtu.be/pba21_DOGl8?si=4BuJUMlpk0U9zLAK

Story of Squanto, Smithsonian Channel: https://youtu.be/N-uE7cbH1-I?si=DY2Il4PYp0C4bG7x

Cranberry Day: Traditional Harvest Festivals, Smoke Sygnals/Smithsonian: https://youtu.be/g2pSir70DG4?si=RRA9b9uk4v4LS0rZ

For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

LINKS

The Thanksgiving Story from the Wampanoag Perspective: https://wilderutopia.com/traditions/wampanoag-thanksgiving-stolen-land-massacred-hope/

Native Knowledge 360: https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360

Plymouth 400: https://www.plymouth400inc.org/category/news/

Suppressed Speech Wamsutta Frank B. James:http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm

Native Land Conservancy: https://www.nativelandconservancy.org

Linda Coombs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGSmn2UPicQ

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/692454/colonization-and-the-wampanoag-story-by-linda-coombs/

Paula Peters is a politically, socially and culturally active citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. For more than a decade she worked as a journalist for the Cape Cod Times and is now co-owner of SmokeSygnals [http://smokesygnals.com], a Native owned and operated creative production agency.

As an independent scholar and writer of Native, and particularly Wampanoag history, she produced the traveling exhibit “Our”Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History and The Wampum Belt Project documenting the art and tradition of wampum in the contemporary Wampanoag community [https://www.plymouth400inc.org/category/news/].

In 2020 she wrote the introduction to the 400th Anniversary Edition of William Bradford’s, Of Plimoth Plantation. Paula is also the executive producer of the 2016 documentary film Mashpee Nine and author of the companion book, a story of law enforcement abuse of power and cultural justice in the Wampanoag community in 1976. Paula lives with her husband and children in Mashpee, Massachusetts, the Wampanoag ancestral homeland.

Carry Kim, Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, Indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth.

Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/

Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/

Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio

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Executive Producer and Intro: Jack Eidt

Hosted by Carry Kim

Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats

Episode 242

Photo credit: Paula Peters