>> next, we visit plimoth patuxet and plymouth, massachusetts, to explore the re-created 17th century colonial village and talk to interpreters about daily life. the you depicted is 1627, seven years after the mayflower landed when about 160 pilgrims lived there. >> i am richard pickering, executive director at plimoth patuxet museum and we are in 17th century english village, a recreation of plymouth as it

looked seven years after mayflower landed. when our guests enter the historic site the encounter living history educators who are portraying men and women who lived in plymouth in 1627. we know the name of every man, woman and child that was here because this is the last year that they live within the walled town. in 1620 they started spreading up and down the coast. and so to divide all of their common assets equitably they needed a complete list of residence. every person that our guests encountered once actually walked they of the earth. when you come to a living museum you enter into another world. you are able to encounter the spiritual belief of the past and technology of the past, the experiments itself in three

dimensions. and one of the things that we strive to deal is hold the people of the past in our hands were gently and with compassion so we can enter into their story and experiencing it in 360 degrees. the 360 degrees surrounding the right now behind me, you can see the fort meetinghouse at the top of the street which it were able to magically transport ourselves to modern plymouth in 2020, you would see the unitarian universalist churches there and we would be on leiden street. that's the street we re-create. use a number of of different domestic dwellings and where the houses are placed on a re-created street is based on a map fragment that was left in william bradford has. the gardens based on inventory and list of feeds you find in

documents like the brewster book from the will jim brewster family. the idea is to help our guests walk into an accurate we creation of the past and to feel that they've been physically transported and mentally transported as well. >> my name is elizabeth howland and i been here for seven years. my family and i decided we're going to come to visit the new world in 1620 or so. on a ship called the mayflower that brought us here. being that i was 13, i cared for the other children and my parents. when we were in the harbor, people were getting sick with coughs and colds.

it was tedious. we sing songs, pray a lot to try to sleep. but the sounds of the animals were always terrifying. i mean, we brought pigs and dogs and cats. the ship already smelled awful, so with all the animals as well, made it a bit more uncomfortable. we stayed underneath the top deck with very low ceilings.

[inaudible] it's not built for people certainly. the mayflower was built -- they delivered the wine to where it was going. there were no windows or anything. the air gets very heavy. it's a very sickly place. not very healthy at all. this is were i got married and have had children. we are starting see the fruits of our labors.

this was actually suffer from night before. a small meal to get us through the day until dinnertime. dinnertime is the largest meal so it usually in the season we have got quayle, deese, all different kinds of birds we can pick from. i still have salt fish i keep for the summertime. the hands are still laying eggs. my children, care for them. some days it takes all day to do the laundry for the bedspread so depends on what i need to do usually. the weather, just a bit, not the best day to do the laundry when it is raining.

everything changes with the season. it's time to tidy up the garden. it's almost the end of october notes i do see a frost anytime upcoming. i'm trying to decide what to harvest. i've got some carrots left. earlier this day i took up all my pumpkins and put those in the loft of the house. i'm just trying to make it to the frost. we had some turnips here that will help us through the winter. parsnips as well. they should be fine. hope it's not an overly harsh winter so they will be fine. most of the work in the garden during the season is hiding up, turning the beds and length compost among it.

letting some things go to seed as well. once the sun dries his hat and a couple weeks or so i can collect the seeds off the flowers and so i will save those in in a sml linen sack and plant them again next year. a bit of that work. my family, we finished taking the harvest and that is about four or five weeks of work. but i'm finished now and i can get to the rest of the preparation for the winter.

>> my name is phineas pratt. most citizens here call me just pratt for i was the first pratt. were as my brother is here now and his name is joshua. for most unwed men by and large they are referred to by their surname. because i was the first pratt henceforth i will always be pratt where he will be joshua. >> what was it like coming over? >> i came over on the ship of the fishing vessel, a smaller one called the sparrow. smaller than other vessels that brought of the persons on so on that arrival on the code, so not directly here. it wasn't so turbulent for we

were arriving ahead of the summer. that is a fair time to sale, where as i hear the persons who arrived here, the encountered some storms along the way, violent storms, for they were heading directly into the winter. where as i and nine of the men we then took the sparrow again to new plymouth here. it is but a day with a strong wind and so that did not take long and then we did rendezvous with two other ships. we we would be advanced party, an expedition that was sent to establish a separate plantation among the bay of the massachusetts. that failed miserably. >> how did you end up here?

>> well, we initially kenmare as i say, i was somewhat acquainted with these persons, and yet after that plantation rather dissolved, for god wishes that it be so but i watched him then starve before my eyes, and then the natives, they killed two others and we hanged one of our own. so this was before as well the rest of those persons, there were near 260 of us. they eventually, many of them they fled back to england. therefore perhaps even some that fled into the force i should suppose some have died who did

so for being an english person living among the natives, you will not live long. beyond that, i came here i was the only one who remained to settle in the englishtown that is such new plymouth. and hopefully here i can secure a legacy for myself. perhaps have family, and i should say things are a bit more secure here. and so i am hopeful that that is gods path. >> what were your interactions with the natives? >> well, they were sundry. initially they were quite friendly to us, yet they came to understand that we could not care for ourselves.

they more on working this is not as men, more and more they saw us as children or women. they would insult us. they began to even taking some ourselves and threaten us. this this is the thing with e natives. if you appear strong, they will respect you. so if you show any sort of, or if you show yourself in force and you bring guns, they will understand that you are serious men. whereas, if they come to understand that you cannot care for yourselves as was the case, i will admit we were not well

prepared for the winter months or even ahead of that. i should say that life here is quite a bit different than back where i came from. just outside of london city, so there you might merely go to market and secure victuals in this manner or purchased this for that item or select thing, where as here you must harvest everything that you eat or perhaps kill it, or you must make everything that you use. although admittedly most things of value they come aboard ship, so not everything i suppose. yet it is not so simple as going to market and having someone else do your work for yourself.

you must provide. .. what they do not tell you abundance you must work, you must labor. >> did you have a particular trade in england in. >> well, i apprenticed as a joiner or a carpenter, yet, i'm not doing those things so much here and, yay, i did not complete my apprenticeship either. so here, it is rather illegal to ply a trade for your own profit, so it is only--

i do these things when there's a need for, or for the common or for the principal men or for myself or good yet beyond that, it's not something we're doing over much here. there are other men who know a bit of joinery as well. >> were you accepted? >> there's a part of me that fears that the persons here, they see me much as the natives did, that i've had my manhood stripped of me and so i must regain it by laboring and that's what i'm going to do. so i appreciate and i'm grateful for my friends here, and what they have done for me, welcoming into their community with rather open arms, yet i fear i will never truly feel a part of them.

i always will, i fear, feel a bit outside of the community. why didn't you go back to england? >> well, i saw what families had here and that made me rather hopeful for what i could achieve here and there is work to be had, whereas back in england i would be but a burden on my family, on my father, and so, yea, at least here, one can labor whereas, you know, back in england, persons who have been on acres of land for near on two centuries, as tenants, you may say, gentlemen and the like who have newly become upon

means, they are buying up the land and running them off. whereas everyone as an alternative is flocking to the city, on london, whereas, there is no work to go around or there is not enough and so what work there is, rather devalued for over much persons who wish a labor in that trade, so that even the men who are able to ply a trade, they are not making half the wages that their grandfather would have made plying the same trade. so, most persons back in england, if you are not of the merchant going sort, may haps i should say that this is one alternative, as well. one way to escape that is by coming to the new world.

at least there's work to be done here. as you can see, this is-- so this is new england and has a way the to go to be likened to the old. so, that's what we intend to do. >> who determines what work you do? >> well, chiefly the principal men, the magistrates, so much of this work is court ordered, howsoever as i say i work for the men of the household or the master of the household that i reside in chiefly. so beyond that, my brother or myself, we have two acres of -- we are devoting that to the households that they are living within, and yet, we work for the goodwin and he gives ourselves lodging and food or vittles and that's the way of things here, outside of that as i say, the governor or his assistant might assign labors

accordingly. >> good day, thank you for coming to my house. so, i've been in the village for about seven years now, since the very beginning, and at the colony, i've been here through all of the trials that we've had, the first winter where we lost a great deal of people and famine here and these things. so we've had quite a bit of change over the years. i've lost some family here, but i've been married again and i've got four boys here now, so we've got quite a prospering happening in the last several

years. >> it's been very busy. there's always something to do. we're just past the season now so we've got all of that work done so that means there's a little more time for resting. a little more time that i can spend with my husband, with my children, with my friends, but i spend some more of my day cooking now, and things take a little longer, so i'll do a lot of my cooking in here. i've got several different sorts of tools that i use. i've got the frying pan here that i can use for frying with. i've got a spit that i can put across and i can roast. and there's a trammel in here that i can move. and hang pots from. en and you see the hook at the bottom that i can see the handle from and raise and lower it above the fire so that i can make it hotter or colder.

but i'll also spend my days husking corn and looking after my children and i've got to do laundry and bake bread and things to mend so there's always some sort of work to do, gardening and making sure that everything in the house is in good order, for that is more where i work, whereas my husband is more outside. my husband does more things like fishing, actually in the summer months, and at this time of year he's out more hunting, so a lot of the birds that come through, he'll take out his musket and go hunting for them and he'll be selling trees in the season and next year we might burn them, but also if we've got to make repair, he'll do a lot of that work and the dollars that sits on the wall and cracks from year to year,

we have no limestone here to cover them with from the weather, so here all of the clay and the marsh and the sand thickets mixed together. after a time it can crack so he'll be repairing those. but we keep them from the outside of the houses that we might protect it from the rain and any sort of weather that might come. all things that we've got in the house have really come from england. there's not a lot that's being made here at the moment. so all of the furniture and all of our baskets and all of the pottery and that all comes from england. the only things that i made here for the most part are very simple things like this stool. things that don't necessarily look very pretty, but we can use them quite well.

but there's all sorts of things that we've got hanging in the house that we can grow in the garden and we can cut back in the winter so that we might dry them and keep them for cooking and might keep them for making medicine. so it's a pragmatic season in the winter and we want to make sure that we keep things with you and things that will help, that can clear the phlegm out of your body. so not only those things, but make you feel about thor -- feel better in the winters. >> and i've got a brook broom and i'll use that to pick dust up with. cupboards for the dishes and plates and bowls and trenchers, and those come from england and for the most part are sailing with you when you come, things that you had in your home back

in england, or with your furniture, your bedding, and there are some things that come on the ships, which recently had about once a year, so things like candles and wicks for the oil lamps that you'll see burning over on the cupboard, things that butter and gun powder and baskets, and those all come, metal things like nails will come from england. so some-- sabbath is from evening on saturday until the evening next on sunday. so from there we'll have church services for most of the day. and the services of our reformed congregation, reformed christian congregation. so we'll keep sabbath for the entire day and we'll start out the door in the morning and it

will know when it's time to meet in the fort which is the largest building which we have so we'll meet up there and then master brewster who is not a minister proper. he's never finished university so has not been ordained, but he's our ruling and the only man who had any sort of proper schooling to be a minister so he's the one that will preach on sundays. le' deliver a sermon in the morning and we'll have psalm singing and usually not in different parts, but in one voice to honor god in song and usually we'll return back to our houses in the middle of the day, we'll eat our dinner and then after we've rested just a short time we'll go back up for the rest of the service where we have something that's not

called -- called prophesy and men in the village will speak on things, matters in the past week. things perhaps from master brewster's sermon that they understand better or that happened in their own lives that helped them understand better and might speak on that for the entire congregation, but really, it's not something that's happening and some here are who not accustomed to having that. >> >> the 17th century english village in plymouth, seven years after the pilgrims arrived on the mayflower.

theory, but a full schedule at c-span.org/history or consult your program guide. >> so welcome. the history of colonial america. now, at the beginning of this course i asked each of you to tell me what you think of when you think of colonial american history. many of you i'm sure do not even remember what you put. many of you focused on what we call the american revolutionary rather than the colonial trade like people like george washington, thomas jefferson, alexander hamilton, issues like taxation without. they all popped up. if you viewed