Themes and useful resources

The arrival of the Mayflower had a lasting impact on the development of the United States. Key themes of migration, contact, belonging, family, and environment, provide the contexts through which the motivations and implications of colonial settlement can be addressed and analysed.

Links to academic overviews, an academic interpretation, of each theme can be found in the margin on the right of this page.

Below is a list of useful links and resources that help build a picture of the impact of colonisation on the Indigenous people of North America.

Wampanoag peoples, their cultures, and their leaders now and in history–

https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/past-leaders

https://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/06/meet-native-america-jonathan-perry.html

https://www.elizabethjamesperry.com/about-wampum-art.php

Current Wampanoag and other Indigenous North American perspectives on Thanksgiving –

https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/thanksgiving_poster.pdf

http://oyate.org/index.php/resources/43-resources/thanksgiving

Pratt, Stephanie (2013) ‘Visualising Thanksgiving and Other Colonial Entanglements in New England,’ in Daniel Maudlin and Robin Peel (Eds) The Materials of Exchange between Britain and North East America, 1750-1900, Farnham: Ashgate Press, 157-174.

General introduction to Northeastern Indigenous North American peoples –

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/native-americans/native-people-of-the-american-northeast/

Visual resources for Wampanoag and other Eastern North American Indigenous:

See, Written Out of History. The Untold Legacy of Native American Slavery (2010), authored, produced and created by Dr Max Carocci and Simona Piantieri of Simolab (22-minute video)

Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Wampanoag+Indians&fq=online_media_type:%22Images%22

Sources regarding Indigenous involvements in slavery, captivity and adoption practices/histories of the middle ground and impacts of colonial trade –

Calloway, Colin G. (1997) New Worlds for All. Indians, Europeans and the Remaking of Early America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

https://www.academia.edu/323423/Written_Out_of_History_Contemporary_Native_American_Narratives_of_Enslavement 

Carocci, Max and Pratt, Stephanie (2012) Native American adoption, captivity and slavery in changing contexts, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Demos, John (1994) The Unredeemed Captive, A family story from Early America, New York: Borzoi Books.

Gallay, Alan (2002) The Indian Slave Trade. The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Lepore, Jill (1998) The Name of War. King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, New York: Vintage Books.

White, Richard (1991). The Middle Ground. Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sources for modern understandings of Indigenous heritage, monuments, reenactments and commemorations in Native North America –

Handsman, Russell G (2008) ‘Landscapes of Memory in Wampanoag Country – and the Monuments Upon Them,’ in Patricia E. Rubertone (Ed) Archaeologies of Placemaking.Monuments, Memories and Engagement in Native North America, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Sources regarding the Mayflower Compact and truthful historical understandings of it –

Sargent, Mark L. (1988), “The Conservative Covenant: The Rise of the Mayflower Compact in American Myth”, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 233-251 

Green, Steven K. (2015), “Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding”, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

This information was created by Mayflower 400 during the anniversary 2020-21 and to the best of our knowledge at that time.

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