Fascinating email from a local lawyer:

Charlie

I spent last week out east with my family.  Among other things, we visited Plymouth Plantation.  Attached are a “Customs Declaration” and “Passport” we were given to complete when we purchased our tickets for the Mayflower II.  At the exit from the boat were “customs officials” to check our Declaration and admit us to “Wampanoag country.”  The officials were ostensibly from the Wampanoag nation, but I don’t know if that was really true because there were signs directing us not to ask any of the putative native Americans “hurtful questions” like what percentage of native American, in fact, they really were.  (I couldn’t care less about people’s racial composition – the “officials” were a little grim, but they seemed like decent people and I wouldn’t have given their race a second thought had not the signs themselves questioned it.  The beads and feathers looked authentic though – apparently a permissible instance of perpetuating a stereotype in order to destroy it.)

Before we got on the boat we walked through history lessons on signboards – mostly about the 1950s rather than 1620 or the 17th Century.  (This year is the 50^th anniversary of the Plymouth II’s sailing from to the , so that was probably the connection.)  One board informed us that “the world felt more at ease in the 1950s because Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist allies had been discredited and Joseph Stalin had died.” (Not an exact quote, but pretty close.)  Another said that in the 1950s “ found itself prosperous and safe while Europe suffered from poverty and devastation.”  (Historical cause and effect were not part of the lesson.  Apparently things like security and prosperity simply happen for no reason – other things like moral order, free enterprise, limited government, and military strength have nothing to do with it.)

The introductory video at Plimouth Plantation (that’s how they spelled it) was even worse.  It informed us of the collective evils of white Christians and traders (i.e., business people).  It left the impression that before the whites came, the Wampanoag lived without crime, war, hunger or disease - all in perfect harmony with nature. (“We are part of the land, the land is within us,” or something like that.) The story that the Pilgrims and Indians had a good harvest and something to really celebrate on the first Thanksgiving was untrue – just a “happy ever after story” (that’s what the video called it) which masks the grave tension between the indigenous peoples (virtuous and pacific) and the foreign invaders (generally greedy and barbarous).  Actually, the term “Indian” was verboten, as was “Native American” – the signs asked us to call them only “Wampanoag” or “Native People.” (“Native American” did show up at several other locations, so that one hasn’t been completely purged yet.)

Also, they may have been buried there somewhere among the rows of tourist trinkets, but I didn’t see a single copy of the Mayflower Compact or William Bradford’s memoirs in the gift shops or anywhere else – perhaps on the theory that primary sources are overrated and representative government and written language gave the Pilgrims unfair advantage in perpetuating their view of history.  The greatest stroke of all was the lead slogan highlighted in the video and printed materials – “You can’t change history, but it can change you.”  (I’m really not making that up.)

Obviously, I’m hardly an apologist for all things European. (My Baptist ancestor Roger Williams got kicked out of Massachusetts Bay for arguing, among other things, that the natives were human beings with souls like everyone else and that the colonists should bargain with them and pay a fair price for their land instead of taking it by force.)  I believe in the intrinsic worth of every human being (unborn ones too), and don’t discount the achievements of the Wampanoag or even the Soviet Union .  Still, I did talk to my kids later about moral and cultural equivalence, squelching opposing views by outlawing “hurtful questions” and “hate speech,” and the warning they’ve heard from me so often that they probably recite it in their sleep – “He who wins the war writes the history, but he who writes the history wins the war.”

Maybe you knew all this was going on in Plymouth – I didn’t.  I don’t usually take time to write about PC silliness, but it was like watching a nation self-destruct.  People are messy and so is history, and there is nothing easier than to find a grudge, real or imagined, invent an alternative history about what “might have been,” then make demands based on your ancestors’ sufferings rather than your own achievements.

Despite its failures, has provided more freedom and prosperity to more people than any nation in history - in large part because our founding documents rejected tribalism, declaring us to be individuals equal before our Creator.  Wonderful as equality is, though, it is also a paradox that requires abandoning the pipe dream of cosmic fairness.  Certainly we confront evil and injustice – sometimes with force.  But a nation founded on equal justice also requires that you stop wasting time over what “might have been” and take life as you find it.

That isn’t “fair,” of course.  It is hard to make your own way and do what is good and right to others regardless of what has been done to your ancestors or to you.  But the alternative to forgiveness and life on your own two feet is life in the Balkans or the Middle East slitting throats over 1,000 year old grudges.  Plimouth Plantation made me wonder if that’s where we’re headed.

Don’t know what book you’re working on, but thought this subject might be good for something – your annual Thanksgiving show if nothing else.  (For several years we’ve listened to that show and your reading from Plymouth Plantation while traveling to see family for the holiday – we enjoy it immensely.)

All the best.

Mike Dean