Plimoth and the Wampanoag

Welcome to the Abilene Public Library’s Virtual Classroom.  This space will offer a new place for youth, teens, and adults to learn more about a variety of topics, with new content added regularly.

For each class, we'll share background information, educational videos, lesson plans, resources available for continued learning and more. Plus, we’ll offer a link to a test we’d appreciate if you completed to show what you learned!

Plimoth Plantation and the Wampanoag








Take a tour of Plimoth Plantation located in Plymouth,  Massachusetts through our eyes during our visit there June 30th, 2019.  This was a fascinating living museum where we learned a lot about how the Pilgrims of the Mayflower lived back in the 1600s where they first settled in New England.  Plimouth is the actual spelling that the original pilgrams used instead of Plymouth Plantation.

We also saw the daily lives of Wampanoag Native Americans, including their Wetu huts, cooking Nasaump porridge, and carving canoes.    It was fascinating as well interacting and talking to the actors who played the pilgrims at the settlers village.

Virtual field trip featuring Pilgrims and the Native American Wampanoag, discussing their lives, their collaboration, and the first Thanksgiving. For more great Thanksgiving lesson plans and teaching resources visit www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving






Native American Shelters in the North East
Plimoth Plantation








A wetu is a domed hut, used by some north-eastern Native American tribes such as the Wampanoag.[1] They provided shelter, sometimes seasonal or temporary, for families near the wooded coast for hunting and fishing. They were made out of sticks of a red cedar frame covered with either tree bark or mats made from grass or reeds. 


Pilgrim life shown through the eyes of children.







First Thanksgiving








This video is meant to give a non-bias account of the events which unfolded in the years leading up to the First Thanksgiving, and the several years following the feast (roughly 1614-1622

Inspired by the 2015 film The Pilgrims, American Experience presents a special discussion sharing Native American perspectives on the arrival of European settlers in New England 400 years ago. The conversation will examine the experiences of Native populations at the time of the settlers’ arrival, what is actually known about the first Thanksgiving, and how native tribes see themselves in today’s construction of the United States. The discussion will be moderated by Yvonne Russo, a filmmaker and member of the Sicangu Lakota Tribal Nation. Featuring: Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag, historian and independent scholar Cassius Spears, a Knowledge Keeper and Narragansett Tribal Member.








  1. Resources
  2. Lesson Plans
  3. Test Your Knowledge

Sources from Uncivil History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ociHVDWxDaY

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Berkhofer, Jr., Robert F.  The White Man’s Indian:  Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

Bradford, William.  Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Charles Deane.  Boston: Privately printed, 1856.

Bragdon, Kathleen J. Native Peoples of Southern New England, 1500-1650.  Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

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D’Argenio, Joseph Ronald. “Building a Pilgrim Utopia; Identity, Security and the Contradiction of Cross-cultural Affairs at New Plymouth, 1620-1640.” Master of Arts, Lehigh University, 2004.

Demos, John.  A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 2000.

Drinnon, Richard.  Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building.  Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

Jennings, Francis.  The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest.  New Work: W.W Norton, 1976.

Johnson, Michael G and Richard Hook(Illustrations).  American Woodland Indians.  London: Osprey Publishing, 1990.

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Kruer, Matthew.  “Red Albion: Henocide and English Colonialism.” Master of Arts, University of Oregon, 2009.

Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.  New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Mason, John.  A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable Taking of their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637.  Boston: S.Kneeland and T. Green, 1736.

Roberts, Keith and Stephen Walsh (Illustrations).  Matchlock Musketeer 1588-1688.  Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2002.

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White, John.  “Index of White Watercolors and De Bry Engravings.” http://www.virtualjamestown.org/image...

 Williams, Roger.  A Key into the Language of America. London: Gregory Dexter, 1643.

Winslow, Edward.  “Good Newes from New England: or a true Relation of things very remarkable at the Plantation of Plimoth in New-England.” In Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602 to 1625. Edited by Alexander Young.  Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841.

Winthrop, John, ed. John Beardsley.  “A Model of Christian Charity.” The Winthrop Society Quarterly, 1997.

Wood, William.  New England’s Prospect.  Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1865.

Young, Alexander, ed. “The Company’s First General Letter of Instructions to Endicott and His Council.”  In Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636.  Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1846.