Wampum's War

I’m not surprised that many residents of Plymouth are convinced that there is a cancer in our ‘body politick’, a malignancy that needs to rooted out, and that only a wholesale change in our form of government will do the trick.
Plymouth’s history is filled with instances of paranoia, of intolerance, and fear mongering.
Like most people who have, at one time or another, been treated unjustly because of how they looked, what language they spoke, or what religion they practiced, given the opportunity the original settlers of this community transitioned quickly from being oppressed, to repressing others.
For decades after the original landing in 1620, it was illegal to bring ‘outsiders’ to Plymouth, or for recently freed servants or even single people to build their own homes, without the knowledge and consent of the local government, and to do so could earn you a time in the stocks, a hefty fine, or even expulsion from the community.
In the latter part of the 17th century residents were forbidden to even ‘entertain’ Quakers, three of whom were actually hung in Boston at the peak of the anti-Friends hysteria.
And when the revolution against England began, there were numerous instances where otherwise upstanding citizens with long, respected histories of service and loyalty to the community, were tarred and feathered, hoisted to the tops of polls, beaten and otherwise abused for expressing the belief that the colonies should retain their allegiance to England.
And of course all this was in addition to the dismissive attitudes, disenfranchising ordinances, and outright injustices experienced by native peoples.
The paranoia and xenophobia of locals came to its dramatic, and somewhat comical climax on March 30, 1741, when Joseph Wampum – a native who then lived in what is now known as Manomet, told churchgoers gathered in Plymouth that day that he had been visited in his home the previous night by eight Spaniards.
He might as well have said that devils had descended from the sky. England was at the time, officially at war with Spain so – despite their philosophical and physical separation from the motherland; Wampum’s words became the spark that ignited the tinder of the community’s fears of all things foreign and unusual.
Bells were rung, and drums sounded to alert the populace, and the militia gathered in full regalia in the town square, awaiting instructions, ready for war. Don’t scratch your head and tickle your chin, trying to coax forth some lost elementary school lesson describing the carnage that followed, for your instincts are correct this time: there was no war.
Despite a century of, often-justified paranoia, the colonists were able to keep their ‘powder dry’. The hardships they had endured had done something more than filled them with fear: it had given them a deep respect for pragmatism and rationality.
They did not immediately launch their boats, or march off in search of a fight.
No one was strung up.
No one was taken off to Clark’s island for interrogation.
And the government and rules that had governed their lives for the last 120 years were not suddenly abandoned, and martial law put in its place.
They waited, watched and, when no confirmation of the Spanish Armada’s approach was received, no smoke seen on the horizon, and no sign of troops descending over the Pine Hills was detected – they unbuckled their swords and went back home and had something warm to eat.
The event itself was known from that day on as, ‘Wampum’s War’.
And that is how I choose to think of the decade of whining, personal attacks, and fear mongering that is coming to a climax now, in present day Plymouth, with the latest call to throw out our historic and – by objective standards, effective form of government.
This is just another Wampum’s War.
If the rumors and whispered innuendos – the alleged ‘talk of the town’ were true, an army of volunteers, board members, and town government employees should already have come screaming over Cole’s Hill, looking for our scalps.
If even a small portion of the dire predictions of the fear mongers had come to pass, Plymouth should already be a smoldering ruin.
And yet, even in these grim economic times, the schools remain intact, the lights are still on, and the Mayflower is still afloat in the harbor.
Still, maybe it is a good thing, this irrational fear. Maybe it is a natural phenomenon.
Perhaps we need to be brought to the brink of disaster every generation or so, so we can look out over the harbor, up into the Pine Hills, and over the State Forest and take note of… the absence of an enemy.
Perhaps Wampum was just giving the colonists what - though they didn’t realize it themselves, they most wanted in their lives – drama! There were many accounts during the first hundred years of the Plymouth colony, of the native inhabitants deliberately lying to locals for effect. Wampum’s warning may have been one of those. On another occasion natives informed the Pilgrims that Edward Winslow had died of fever, while on a mission to Connecticut. When he arrived in good health a few days later, the natives were surprised that the Pilgrims were angry with them for their ‘little lie’. After all, had not the Pilgrim’s joy at seeing Winslow alive, been all the more sweet for their sorrow at his supposed passing?
I believe that the natives realized that feelings like fear and sorrow were the kind of emotional seasoning favored by the ‘English’, and they knew that salty tears bring out the flavors of life that we often take for granted.
Certainly we can now see more clearly – as we consider this momentous change in our historic government, that Plymouth is a community that has been blessed in many ways.
Certainly now, with the cries of those who claim our community is in disarray still reverberating in our ears, we can see that few if any other towns can boast of so many recreational opportunities, so many natural wonders, so rich and authentic a history – and how few of us take advantage of all that this town has to offer.
And certainly now, we can grudgingly admit that despite their lack of perfection as both individuals and administrators, those who have served as members of elected boards and committees in the past 10, 20, even 100 years, have done a remarkable job of preserving our resources. Just look around, for comparison, at the untidy sprawl of the communities that we are supposed to emulate, Braintree, Weymouth, and Taunton.
But the alarm has been sounded, and sounded, and sounded again.
And certain militias have been assembled and waiting in the town square for nearly a decade.
We have to put someone in the stocks, don’t we? We have to burn a witch or two, right?
If, as we have been told time and time again, our demise is imminent and inescapable, we need to root out the infidels amongst us and institute a kind of permanent martial law: government by the fewest, for the loudest!
Then again, considering that there are really no devils on Lincoln Street, maybe we should just unbuckle our swords and go home.