Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Author of Colonization and the Wampanoag Story will speak with the public at Wistariahurst Museum on Saturday, November 9 at 2 p.m. Her book presents the true story of America from the Indigenous perspective. When you think about the beginning of the American story, what comes to mind? Three ships in 1492, or perhaps buckled hats and shoes stepping off of the Mayflower, ready to start a new country. But the truth is, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Colonists didn’t arrive at a vast, empty land ready to be developed. They arrived to find people and communities living in harmony with the land they had inhabited for thousands of years, and they quickly disrupted everything they saw. Told from the perspective of the New England Indigenous Nations that these outsiders found when they arrived, this is the true story of how America as we know it today began.

Linda Coombs is an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, and lives in the Wampanoag community of Mashpee on Cape Cod, MA. She will be speaking at Wistariahurst Museum as a culminating event to the four-week October Book Discussion Group that read and discussed in order to educate themselves and gain an understanding of the Indigenous perspective.

Coombs, who began her museum career at the Boston Children’s Museum in the Native American Program, as well as working for the Wampanoag Indigenous Program (WIP) of Plimoth Plantation for 30 years, and who presently does independent museum consulting and cultural presentations, will be discussing with us, her research techniques, her writing style, and her motivation. She will field questions from the audience about her book and her lived experience as a historian of Wampanoag background.

Several copies of her book Colonization and the Wampanoag Story will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, thanks to a generous donation of books from The Massachusetts Center for the Book’s Great Reads About Great Places program. The Great Reads titles celebrate our state’s unique culture and literary heritage, inspiring local conversations and spurring engagement.