Today, we put a pin in the Pilgrims and focus (extra long) on the world they were walking, or rather stumbling, into. Long before the Pilgrims commandeered one of their abandoned villages, there existed a widespread population of sachemships, rich creation stories, highly sophisticated agricultural techniques, and engineering that outclassed the colonists’ "civilized" huts. We cover their 13-moon calendar, community-first values, and the political pressure they faced after devastating epidemics and growing threats from the Narragansett. All of it builds to 1620, when their leader has to decide if these fragile newcomers at Patuxet are a problem… or the unlikely allies he needs.

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The 3 major sources used for this episode series are:

• Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, by Linda Coombs, published in 2023 by Crown Books for Young Readers 
• Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2007 by Penguin Books
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman, published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing

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