Mashpee Wampanoag History

EDITORIAL: A shining moment for whom?


The eminent historian Bernard Lewis once wrote that there were three kinds of history of a people: remembered, recovered and invented. The first is history passed by oral tradition from generation to generation; the second is history recovered by scholarly documentary research; the third is history created by a people who desire, for various reasons, to present a created image or history to the world that is not based upon fact. It is then repeated often enough wherein it assumes a mantle of truth not only to its creators, but to the public at large.

Your Dec. 1 article "A shining moment for Wampanoag tribe" clearly illustrated an example of "invented" history. Frankly, as a professional ethnohistorian, I was appalled by some of the inaccurate historical statements made by members of the Mashpee tribe.

Four comments are of significant concern. First is the article's headline, in particular "Wampanoag tribe." Historically there was never a Wampanoag Indian tribe. The term "Wampanoag" has two meanings, one linguistic, the other historical.

Linguistically, in the Algonquian language Wampanoag has a root ("wa.panwi, which means "it dawns." In southeastern New England it was rendered as "wompand" or "eastern," which was combined with "og," "people" or "they," collectively which translates into people of the east. It was a common term used to refer to peoples who lived to the east of another people. The Mahican tribe of eastern New York referred to the Indians residing in Connecticut's Housatonic River valley as wampanoag, just as these people, in turn, referred to those to the east of them in a like manner.

In its historical rendering, wampanoag was a term referring to those Indian tribes such as the Pokanoket, Narragansett and Nipmuc who joined with King Philip, the Pokanoket tribal sachem, the son of the great Pokanoket sachem Massasoit (aka Ousamequin) in their war against the New England colonists in 1675-76. They collectively were referred to as the Wampanoag Confederation. There was never a historical Wampanoag tribe. It was not until 1928 when remnants of southeastern Massachusetts Indian tribes, bands, and "praying towns" joined together and formed a pan-Indian Wampanoag Confederation.

This leads to the disturbing, inaccurate comment made by Mashpee tribal historian Ramona Peters. When queried concerning the United States Mint's reference to the Pokanoket Wampanoag tribe, she denied their very existence by responding that "Pokanoket refers to a territory, not a tribe."

Her comment flies in the face of long-accepted history concerning the existence of the Pokanoket tribe, whose historical area of occupation ranged from the base of Cape Cod to the western shores of Narragansett Bay. Many of the descendants of the Pocasset band of the Pokanoket tribe still reside either on the Fall River or Pocasset Indian reservation near Fall River or in the surrounding towns. Some of these people are lineal descendants of the great Pokanoket sachem Massasoit, the very Massasoit who befriended the Pilgrims and enabled their survival at Plymouth.

This brings us to the comments made by the Mashpee's chairman, Cedric Cromwell . Mr. Cromwell made the grossly inaccurate and disturbing comment, "We are honored that the United States has chosen to acknowledge our great Sachem Ousamequin." First, it appears that Mr. Cromwell is trying to abscond with the heritage of another tribe. Ousamequin was not a Mashpee sachem, he was the sachem of the Pokanoket tribe, a tribe which Ramona Peters denies existed.

Mr. Cromwell, speaking for the Mashpee, cannot legitimately say "our great sachem." He wasn't. And Mr. Cromwell goes on to say, "As the first tribe to meet the Pilgrims. ..." Here, again, invented history. There was no Mashpee tribe in existence in 1621 to meet the Pilgrims. Mashpee as a distinct social and political community of Christian convert Indians, founded by the lay preacher Richard Bourne, did not come into existence until 1661. Mashpee and its affiliated convert satellite villages consisted of Indians from all over Cape Cod who were initially called the South Sea Indians and over time became known as Mashpee.

Sorry, Mr. Cromwell, Mashpee missed the boat. It was a shining day for the Pokanoket.

James P. Lynch is owner and principal of Historical Consulting and Research Services LLC in Waterbury, Conn.