Why was Plimoth Plantation changed to Plimoth Patuxet Museums?

Amelia Stern, The Enterprise
Updated ·4 min read
Alyssa Harris, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoags and a museum educator at Plimoth Patuxet Museums sits in a corn watch tower as visitors walk through the Wampanoag Homesite living history exhibit, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020, in Plymouth.

PLYMOUTH — For 73 years, millions of students and families learned about colonial and indigenous history at what was formerly called Plimoth Plantation. In 2020, to celebrate the 400-year anniversary of the colonist's occupation of the site, the museum changed its name to Plimoth Patuxet Museums.

Discussions about a name change for the museum began in 2019 and surrounded one question, the museum wrote in a press release. "Does our name reflect the full, multivalent history that is at the core of the museum’s mission?”

“The conversations generated by that fundamental question have moved us toward a new, more balanced name demonstrating that the history and culture of the Indigenous people of this region are as integral to the museum’s educational mission as the history and culture of the English colonists,” they wrote.

Despite its name change, the museum continues to educate visitors about the people and the land the English settlers called Plymouth and the Wampanoag people called Patuxet.

Plimoth Plantation: ‘Only half of the story’

Plimoth Plantation was founded in 1947 by archaeologist Henry Hornblower II. According to the museum’s website, Hornblower’s original museum included two English cottages and a fort. It wasn't until 1973 that the museum began working directly with the local Native people to incorporate their perspectives into its exhibits and programs.

Over time, the museum grew to include an equal educational focus on the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, called the Patuxet, who lived on the land for 12,000 years before the colonists arrived in Plymouth in the early 1600's. At the museum's Patuxet homesite, visitors can step inside a wetu (house), watch the making of a mishoon (dugout canoe), and visit a cooking area and garden to see seasonal meals being prepared over hot coals.

“Although our educational mission is inclusive of Indigenous history as well as European colonial history, the name of the Museum underscores only half of the story,” the museum wrote. “Changing the name to Plimoth Patuxet Museums in 2020 acknowledged what was already true – that the history and cultural heritage of the region’s Indigenous people are essential and have been a vital part of the Museum for more than 50 years,” they continued.

What not to miss while you're there Plymouth museum named one of USA Today's best museums

Why 'Plimoth' instead of Plymouth?

According to a spokesperson at the museum, much of what is known about Plymouth Colony comes from an account written by English settler Wiliam Bradford, who served as Governor of Plymouth Colony from 1621-1632, 1635, 1637, 1639-1643, and 1645-1656. In his written account of his time at Plymouth Colony, Bradford used the spelling 'Plimoth' as seen in the title of his work, 'Of Plimoth Plantation.'

What does 'Patuxet' mean?

For the 12,000 years that the Wampanoag lived in and around what is now Plymouth, they called the land Patuxet, meaning "place of running water" in the Wampanoag language. According to a spokesperson at the museum, "place of running water" refers to the many waterways in the area, including what is now called Town Brook.

A living history: 'Land that is both Plymouth and Patuxet'

According to the museum, there are still around 4,000 to 5,000 Wampanoag in Massachusetts, where two federally acknowledged tribes, the Aquinnah Wampanoag and the Mashpee Wampanoag, still exist.

In 2015, the federal government declared 150 acres of land in Mashpee and 170 acres of land in Taunton as the Mashpee Wampanoag reservation. However, in 2020, the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided that the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s reservation would be disestablished, and its land taken out of trust.

The museum released a statement in support of the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation the same year they changed their name.

“It is incumbent upon us to acknowledge and affirm the rights of the Wampanoag people to what is a small fraction of their ancestral lands, so that they may preserve - in ways they see fit - their culture, their tribal government and their identity for future generations,” they wrote.

In 2021, the U.S. Department of the Interior reversed the order that rescinded the Mashpee Wampanoag’s right to the 320 acres of land in Massachusetts.

“This land that is both Patuxet and Plymouth speaks to the emergence of an Indigenous-English hybrid society that existed here – in conflict and in collaboration – in the 17th century. It is a complex and interwoven story of diplomacy and subterfuge, of respect and of oppression, of friendship and enmity, of innovation forged of necessity,” the museum wrote in a statement. “In short, it is America. It is the history we are all still living today.”

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Why was Plimoth Plantation changed to Plimoth Patuxet Museums