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Listening to Wampanoag Voices: Beyond 1620

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Listening to Wampanoag Voices: Beyond 1620

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This website includes a collection of recordings of Wampanoag people discussing objects that are culturally significant to the Wampanoag Nation.  Some of the objects discussed include an anchor, an eel trap, and different types of baskets.

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Listening to Wampanoag Voices: Beyond 1620

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In acknowledgment of this early history, the Peabody Museum has asked Wampanoag tribal members to reflect on collections spanning the seventeenth to twentieth centuries and stewarded by the Peabody Museum. Listen in as they share memories, thoughts, and reflections about collection items made by their ancestors and relatives and learn how Wampanoag life and culture continues to flourish today.

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This section provides information about the renaming of places in Massachusetts, focusing especially on the town of Aquinnah and the Plimoth Patuxet Museums. In the case of Aquinnah, the town was renamed Gay Head in 1870 over the opposition of the Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe, whose land the town sits on. The town was eventually renamed Aquinnah in 1997. In the case of Plimoth Patuxet, the museum that was previously called Plimoth Plantation was renamed the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in 2020 as part of a broader effort to reconsider the museum's approach to Wampanoag history.

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This section provides information related to Wampanoag land reclamation, especially the efforts by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to have the land trust status of their land recognized by the federal government.

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Letter to Brian Weeden, Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe

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Letter to Brian Weeden, Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe

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This letter to the Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe details the United States' 2021 decision to recognize the land trust status of Mashpee Wampanoag land.  While the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation was initially created in 2015, recognition of the land trust status was later rescinded by the Trump administration. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe challenged the Trump Administration's decision in court and was eventually successful in getting their land trust status recognized.

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Local news coverage of the legal battle between the federal government and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe over the status of the Mashpee Wampanoag land.

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WASHINGTON - The Department of the Interior is appealing a federal judge's ruling that the department incorrectly found that the tribe did not qualify for land-in-trust status.

"This action by the Secretary of the Interior shows contempt for the June 5th ruling in the District Court of D.C.," Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell wrote in a statement.

The appeal was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District on Columbia.

"Without providing the Tribe with any warning, and without providing justification or reasoning, the Secretary's action, unfortunately, is consistent with this Administration's constant failure to acknowledge or address the history of injustice against our Tribe and all Native Americans, and its utter lack of interest in protecting tribal lands," Cromwell wrote.

The appeal is even more "brazen" given the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on the community and the toll it has taken on the tribe's resources, Cromwell said.

In early June, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe celebrated a victory in its yearslong battle for sovereignty when a federal judge ruled the Interior Department incorrectly applied its own guidelines in finding the tribe did not qualify for land-in-trust status.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, at the time, said that the department's 2018 decision that the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 was "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and contrary to law." He sent the case back to the department for "thorough reconsideration and reevaluation of the evidence."

The judge also said the department could take no further action on disestablishing the tribe's reservation until it correctly applied its guidelines on reconsideration.

The Interior Department issued a statement in early June saying it was reviewing the decision and its options to proceed.

The department had taken 321 acres in Mashpee and Taunton into trust for the tribe in 2015.

The federal government has long acted as trustee for tribes for the purpose of self-government.

The tribe had planned to use the Taunton land for economic development, mainly a $1 billion resort and casino, and the Mashpee land primarily for housing.

The casino proposal led to a long legal battle with Taunton residents who opposed the project. Then, the Interior Department under the Trump administration reversed itself in 2018, finding the tribe did not qualify for land-in-trust status.

A federal judge in Boston ruled in favor of the reversal, and the tribe lost on appeal. The tribe also sued the Secretary of the Interior in a Washington, D.C., court.

In late March, the Interior Department informed the tribe it would remove its land from trust status. The tribe asked the federal court in Washington to issue an emergency order that would postpone that action. Friedman heard arguments on that request and on the lawsuit May 20, before ruling on it June.

"The Secretary is out of step with Indian Country and with scores of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress who have called for the protection of our reservation," Cromwell said in the statement.

Despite every effort to disestablish the reservation, the tribe remains grateful for the support they have received from local, state and national leaders, Cromwell wrote.

"We will never stop the fight to preserve and protect our proud culture and traditions," he said.
Follow Beth Treffeisen on Twitter: @BTreffeisenCCT.

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Interior Department appeals June ruling over Wampanoag land

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WASHINGTON - The Department of the Interior is appealing a federal judge's ruling that the...

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This section provides sources related to the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, founded by Jessie Little Doe Baird in the 1990s.

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This section provides counterstories of the 1621 event that would later become known as the "first Thanksgiving" alongside other moments from Wampanoag history of the seventeenth century.

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Brooks, Lisa. Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. Yale University Press, 2018.

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Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War

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Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War

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This is a history of King Philip’s War and the early colonization of the United States that emphasizes the people and communities of Native New England, especially the Nipmuc and Wampanoag Nations and the Wabanaki Confederacy.  Excerpts from the “Introduction” could be especially useful for helping students think about counterstories to what they may have previously learned about New England in the seventeenth century.

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Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People. Beacon Press, 2019.

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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

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This book provides an Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and can help frame the events of the 1600s and beyond in the wider context of settler colonialism.

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Greendeer, Danielle, Anthony Perry, Alexis Bunten, and Garry Meeches Sr. Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story. Charlesbridge, 2022.

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This picture book tells the story of the 1621 harvest feast that would later be called the first Thanksgiving.  It aims to help readers understand a more full picture of Keepunumuk, centering the role of the Wampanoag people.  Danielle Greendeer, one of the authors of the picture book, is herself a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

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This article provides some background for Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story and provides more historical context about the years after Keepunumuk.

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A New Thanksgiving Story for a 21st Century America

Many Americans see Thanksgiving as a holiday rooted in our nation's birth, celebrating a harvest feast. They imagine tables laden with turkey and its accompaniments, surrounded by brave Pilgrims and their newfound "Indian" friends. These ideas are reinforced every year in America's classrooms, on televisions and at annual parades as the big day arrives.

Unfortunately, these ideas are based on a myth born at the height of the Civil War. Sarah Josepha Hale, an influential magazine editor who wrote the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb," fervently campaigned for a national day of thanks. She envisioned a Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate peace and unite a divided country. In September 1863, Hale wrote to President Lincoln, urging him to create a national holiday, and he agreed. Thanksgiving, as we know it, was born.

Images of Pilgrims, "Indians" and turkeys embedded themselves into our nation's conscience in the decades that followed-all at the expense of the true Thanksgiving story and the Wampanoag peoples who saved the Pilgrims. European historical records and Wampanoag accounts present a very different story.

In September 1620, a group of settlers left Plymouth to start new lives in the colony of Virginia. A storm blew them off course and they found themselves moored off the lands of the Wampanoag people in present-day Massachusetts. The newcomers explored their new world and stole food and provisions from Wampanoag homes. They created a new settlement, named Plymouth, on the site of a Wampanoag village devastated by disease and warfare caused in large part by earlier visits by European traders.

Nearly half of the settlers died that winter, largely due to exposure. When spring came, Wampanoag sachems (leaders), helped the newcomers and taught them how to raise local crops known as the "Three Sisters": Corn, beans and squash. In November 1621, the settlers celebrated their first harvest. When they heard the gunfire, over 90 Wampanoag warriors and others joined the nearly 50 settlers and feasted as well. This was Keepunumuk, one of many harvest festivals celebrated by the Wampanoag people each year.

Unfortunately, the celebrations - and the newcomers' thanks - did not last long. Fifty-five years later, in 1676, the settlers killed the son of the Wampanoag sachem who saved them. This was not new. European, and later American, settlers regularly attacked and exploited the Native people they met. This left Native Americans fighting foreign diseases, illegal occupation and removal from their homelands. The American government also created boarding schools that punished Native Americans who dared to speak their language or practise their culture.

White Americans justified their actions by defining Native Americans as peoples of the past, transformed and "improved" by Western civilization. We see this today when, for example, sports fans dress themselves as stereotypical "Indians," wearing headdresses and doing "tomahawk chops" to cheer their team on. When asked, sports fans often insist they are honoring Native peoples, when they are actually harming us and our children, as confirmed by a recent study.

Despite the odds, Native peoples have survived and we are still here. We assert our identities, learn our languages and celebrate our cultures. We fight to improve the lives of our people and the health of our communities, to recover from the centuries of intergenerational trauma inflicted upon us and to prosper in a new world. Significant challenges remain, but we support each other and we will prosper.

Americans are deeply divided as they come to terms with the past and question their values for the future. It's time for a new Thanksgiving story that unifies the country and centers the voices of Native peoples.

Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story does just that. A story for the youngest of readers, it gives children a new way to see and celebrate Thanksgiving. It helps their parents, friends and community members rethink the Thanksgiving they grew up with and find new, more inclusive ways to celebrate this holiday. Keepunumuk. . . is a new story for a 21st-century America.

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Rethinking Thanksgiving - Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story

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Many Americans see Thanksgiving as a holiday rooted in our nation's birth, celebrating a harvest feast. They imagine tables laden with turkey and its accompaniments, surrounded by brave Pilgrims and their newfound "Indian" friends. These ideas are reinforced every year in America's classrooms, on televisions and at annual parades as the big day arrives.

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Greendeer, Danielle, Anthony Perry, Alexis Bunten, and Garry Meeches Sr. Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story. Charlesbridge, 2022.

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While this book has not yet been published, it will be a nonfiction account of American colonization from an Indigenous perspective.  It is a middle grade book written by Linda Coombs, who is an historian and member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah.

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“Sacred Sites.” The Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation, https://pocassetpokanoket.com/sacred-sites/.  Accessed 19 July 2023.

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Sacred Sites and Wampanoag Land in the 1600s

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Sacred Sites and Wampanoag Land in the 1600s

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This is a website provided by the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.  The site includes a map of Wampanoag territory around 1600, with Wampanoag names for villages alongside English names.  The site also provides names, images, and brief descriptions of sacred sites on Wampanoag territory.

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“Territory of the Wampanoag, circa 1620.” National Geographic

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This map shows the territory of the Wampanoag nation around the year 1620, which was the year when English settlers first created a settlement on Wampanoag land at a location the Europeans named Plymouth.  The land of the Wampanoag Nation encompassed much of present-day southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island.  Within the Wampanoag Nation in 1620, there were at least 67 distinct tribal communities.

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This text set focuses specifically on the Wampanoag Nation.  It begins with a collection of counterstories of the “first Thanksgiving” and early colonization, challenging the interpretation of relations between European settlers and the Wampanoag Nation that is often taught in New England schools, before moving forward to texts that relate to the Wampanoag Nation today, focusing specifically on language reclamation, debates over land and naming, and oral histories and ceremonies. As a whole, the text set aims to challenge the myth of the “vanishing Indian” and illustrate the many ways that the Wampanoag Nation continues to survive in New England today.

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Powwows held by the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation

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Powwows held by the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation

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This website provides a selection of videos of different Powwows recorded by the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.

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Videos – THE POCASSET WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF THE POKANOKET NATION

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· © 2023 THE POCASSET WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF THE POKANOKET NATION · Powered by · Designed with the Customizr theme ·

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Federal- and State-Recognized Native Land Today

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Federal- and State-Recognized Native Land Today

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This map shows federally recognized and state recognized reservation areas in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Currently, there are only two federally recognized tribes in Massachusetts: the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe.  There are at least four other visible tribal communities within the Wampanoag Nation in Massachusetts who are not currently federally recognized.

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Official US Native Land Area Representations - Native Land Information System

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This maps displays US Native lands as Represented by the US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, and 1978 India Claims Commission.

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In 1870, the town of Gay Head was incorporated on Wampanoag land, over the unanimous objections of members of the Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe.  In 1997, the town voted to change the town name to Aquinnah, in order to recognize the town’s Native American heritage.  This article discusses the name change about twenty years after the fact.

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The Vineyard Gazette - Martha's Vineyard News

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Just over 20 years ago this week, the Island's smallest town voted to rebrand itself. By a three-vote margin at the annual town meeting, Gay Head became Aquinnah, the area's original Native American name.

The shift made national headlines at the time and today still tops lists of towns that have changed their names, right next to formerly Pile-Of-Bones, Canada, and Wineville, Calif.

Decades later, remnants of the old name still linger. On a drive through town, tourists pass by the Gay Head Community Baptist Church and the Gay Head Light on the way to the Gay Head Cliffs. Ask older residents where they're from, and they often have to catch themselves when they respond.

"People who have been coming here a long time still call it Gay Head," said Martha Vanderhoop, a tribal member who runs Hatmarcha Gifts up at the Aquinnah shops.

Ms. Vanderhoop said before the vote, many members of the tribe wanted to go back to the original name, especially since the tribe received federal recognizition in 1987. Older folks were less inclined and considered themselves "Gay-Headers" above all. Despite the nail-biting vote, she said there has been little pushback since.

"Once it was changed, people loved it," she said.

The name Gay Head was incorporated by the town in 1870, but was chosen roughly 200 years prior after English settlers saw the craggy, colored cliffs on the headlands of Vineyard Sound and thought them "gay," a term that meant something much different back then. The name Aquinnah, which means "land under the hill," had already been used for centuries by the tribe to refer to the area. Town records show several residents over the years who were even named Aquinnah. The hill referred to is believed by many to be Peaked Hill in Chilmark.

The town made a failed attempt to change the name in 1991, but Carl Widdiss, a Wampanoag leader and former selectman, led the charge to try again in 1997, citing the importance of retaining the town's Native American heritage.

"I think if you want to give proper recognition to the Native American history, the area should have a Native American name," Mr. Widdiss told the Gazette in the run-up to the 1997 vote.

Residents agreed and voted 79-76 at their town meeting in May to make the new name of Aquinnah official.

"It was hard to get used to, but I think the name is beautiful and appropriate," said Vera Dello Russo, an Aquinnah librarian who has lived in the town for years.

"I remember not being able to make the transition," added her colleague Jennifer Burkin. "It felt like an artifice at the time."

Over at the town hall, the new name meant an overhaul of the entire town map. Addresses had to be changed. State agencies had to be contacted. The town letterhead needed an update.

Aquinnah police chief Randhi Belain, an officer at the time of the name change, said there were many expenses involved in the transition, too. The department had to order new patches and new badges to adorn the uniforms of what is now the Aquinnah police force. He said that out on patrol, officers frequently had trouble when calling in with the usual codes over the radio, saying "G" for golf instead of "A" for Aquinnah.

"Everybody was slipping," he joked. "We had to correct ourselves on radio calls."

While the name Aquinnah has now become the norm for most residents, there are some who choose to hang onto the name Gay Head out of respect for the older generations. One of them is town administrator Jeffrey Madison, who was a selectman when the name change was first being considered. He said he was actually the one who investigated the possibility of a name change in the late 1970s, but his mind was changed by older tribal residents who were fond of Gay Head.

"They told me, we're very proud of our name and don't want to see it change," said Mr. Madison. "It resonated with me."

To this day, Mr. Madison continues to refer to the town as Gay Head as a way of remembering those who passed away before the change. He said there's a lack of reverence for the town's history and past generations in the town today, and he wants to do his part to keep the Gay Head tradition alive.

"I'm a Gay-Header," Mr. Madison said. "There aren't many of us left."

A handful of tourists were spending a breezy spring afternoon on Tuesday perusing the Aquinnah shops and marveling at the views of waves crashing onto Moshup Beach. There was family visiting from Italy, timeshare owners from South Carolina and a father and son hopping over from Nantucket. None of them said they knew Gay Head was the former name of the town, though they agreed that giving the town a Native American name was a good way to respect the town's tribal history.

Just down the hill from the lookout, tribal member Carla Cuch was behind the counter at the Stony Creek Gifts shop. She echoed that the new name took getting used to, but tribal members feel like they can call it by either name. She voted for the change at the 1997 vote and said that though there are people who still refused to call the town Aquinnah, it is the original and proper name.

"It needed to go back," she said. "Culturally it's the name of our town."

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Aquinnah Officially Turns 20, But Gay Head Name Endures

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Just over 20 years ago this week, the Island's smallest town voted to rebrand itself from Gay Head to Aquinnah, the area's original Native American name.

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Local news coverage of the legal battle between the federal government and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe over the status of the Mashpee Wampanoag land.

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‘This news is so welcome’: Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe can retain reservation land

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U.S. Department of Interior reverses a Trump administration order rescinding the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s right to 321 acres of reservation land.

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The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project

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The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project

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In 1994, Jessie Little Doe Baird, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe began having recurring dreams that featured people addressing her in a language she did not recognize.  After Jessie Little Doe Baird realized that the language she was hearing was Wampanoag, which had been out of use for over a century, she embarked on an effort to reclaim the Wampanoag language through existing documents and linguistics.  Jessie Little Doe Baird’s daughter Mae will grow up as a native speaker of the Wampanoag language.  This is the official website of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project founded by Jessie Little Doe Baird.

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Bringing back our language one student at time

This sacred message was given to jessie 'little doe' baird in Wôpanâôt8âôk (Wampanoag language) during the same dream for three nights in a row. During the dream she saw the same circle of faces...faces of her ancestors. At that time, she knew nothing of her people's language but little doe wondered if the words were in Wampanoag, the language of her ancestors.

Thus began a journey that, through the joint collaborative efforts of the Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet & Herring Pond Wampanoag communities, led to the birth of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP), a project that, after more than 150 years of dormancy, is bringing back to life the tribes' sacred privilege and right - our ancestral language.

Page from the bible translated into Wôpanâak by John Eliot in 1663. The existence of this bible and other legal documents written in the Wôpanâak language has made the reclamation efforts possible.

Click the image to see a full digital version of the Bible.

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Home | Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project

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Bringing back our language one student at time This sacred message was given to jessie 'little doe' baird in Wôpanâôt8âôk (Wampanoag language) during the same dream for three nights in a row. During the dream she saw the same circle of faces...faces of her ancestors.

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The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank) James, 1970

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The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta (Frank) James, 1970

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In 1970, Frank James or Wamsutta was invited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to speak at a state dinner commemorating the 350th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving.  Prior to the actual event, the event organizers asked for a copy of his speech.  When they read the speech he intended to deliver, his invitation to speak was rescinded because his remarks were “too inflammatory.”  The speech linked here is the speech that Wamsutta originally wrote, which describes the choice of Massasoit, the Sachem of the Wampanoag, to welcome and help the English settlers as “perhaps our biggest mistake.”

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ABOUT THE DOCUMENT: Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views - based on history rather than mythology - were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:

I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry.

Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years?

History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises - and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called "savages." Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other "witch."

And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the "savage" and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

The white man used the Indian's nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman -- but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man's society, we Indians have been termed "low man on the totem pole."

Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives - some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man's way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.

What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as "civilized" people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.

History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his "savageness" has boomeranged and isn't a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian's temperament!

High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We're standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we'll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.

You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.

There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We're being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.

Wamsutta

September 10, 1970

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UAINE is a Native-led organization of Native people and our supporters who fight back against racism and for the freedom of Leonard Peltier and other politic...

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After the event organizers refused to let Wamsutta deliver his intended speech, they provided another speech he could deliver instead.  Wamsutta refused to deliver the second speech and instead held a separate event on Cole’s Hill above Plymouth Rock.  He delivered his initial speech and declared Thanksgiving to be a National Day of Mourning.  The video linked above provides more information about the National Day of Mourning and contextualizes it within a broader Native American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

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One of the sources Jessie Little Doe Baird used to recreate the Wampanoag language was a bible created by John Eliot in 1685.  The bible was written in Wampanoag and was part of a European effort to convert members of the Wampanoag Nation to Christianity.  This link includes a virtual version of the Eliot Bible.

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Dear Patron: Please don't scroll past this. The Internet Archive is a nonprofit fighting for universal access to quality information, powered by online donations averaging $17. Join the one in a thousand users that support us financially-if our library is useful to you, please pitch in.

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Mamusse wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament. : Eliot, John, 1604-1690 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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The second edition of Eliot's Indian Bible, revised by Eliot and John Cotton

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This video provides a brief overview of 400 years of Wampanoag history, from the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 to the year 2020, when the video was created.  The video emphasizes the continued presence of Wampanoag people.

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We Are Still Here: Four hundred years of Wampanoag history

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In 1675, a Wampanoag Sachem named Metacomet (called King Philip by the English) led an armed rebellion against the colonists.  Metacomet was the son of Massasoit, who had been generous to the pilgrims, but by the time Metacomet became sachem, Metacomet had seen the continual intrusion of the pilgrims onto Wampanoag land.  He was also unhappy with continued efforts on the part of the settlers to convert the Wampanoag people to Christianity.  This print depicts a treaty negotiation between Metacomet and the settlers in 1676, but the war eventually ended with Metacomet’s death that same year.

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[King (Metacomet) Philip, Sachem of the Wampanoags, d. 1676, full length, standing at treaty table with white men]

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“Wôpanaâk Language Reclamation Project (WRLP), Mukayuhsak Weekuw (The Children’s House) Language Nest: A Wôpanaâk Immersion Montessori Preschool & Kindergarten.

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As part of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, the project created a full-day language immersion preschool to foster the Wampanoag language.  The school opened in the 2016-2017 school year, but was temporarily paused after the 2017-2018 school year, due to uncertainty over the federal status of the Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation under the Trump administration.  The school then reopened under the control of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. This PDF linked here details the curriculum and goals of Mukayuhsak Weekuw, or The Children’s House.

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Support Congressional Bill H.R. 312 Flier

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Support Congressional Bill H.R. 312 Flier

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Flier garnering support for Congressional Bill H.R. 312 and publicizing the effects of the uncertain land trust status on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

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We Still Live Here –  Âs Nutayuneân. Directed by Anne Makepeace. PBS, 2011.

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This documentary covers Jessie Little Doe Baird’s work and the process by which the Wampanoag language was recreated. It discusses both the linguistic work necessary to recreate a language with no living speakers and discusses the effects of language reclamation on the community as a whole.

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How is the history of the Wampanoag Nation and relations between the Wampanoag Nation and early colonizers from Europe depicted? In what ways are those depictions helpful, and in what ways are they limiting or fully innaccurate?

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Tribal Website and History – Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe

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Tribal Website and History – Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe

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This website provides an overview of Wampanoag history written by the Wampanoag Aquinnah Tribe, which includes reference to the renaming of the area previously called “Gay Head,” back to “Aquinnah,” which is the Wampanoag name for the area.

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HISTORY of martha's vineyard

The last great North American glacier began its retreat some 10,000 years ago, leaving behind the accumulation of boulders, sand, and clay that is now known as Martha's Vineyard. There, it is said, a benevolent being named Moshup roamed the land. One day, Moshup was making his way across the mainland to the headlands of the Aquinnah Cliffs. Weary from his journey, Moshup dragged his foot heavily, leaving a deep track in the mud. At first, only a silver thread of water trickled in the track. But gradually, the ocean's force of wind and tides broadened and deepened the opening, creating an island named Noepe. The Wampanoag were the first people of Noepe.

The ancestors of Wampanoag people have lived for at least 10,000 years at Aquinnah (Gay Head) and throughout the island of Noepe (Martha's Vineyard), pursuing a traditional economy based on fishing and agriculture. The Aquinnah Wampanoag share the belief that the giant Moshup created Noepe and the neighboring islands, taught our people how to fish and to catch whales, and still presides over our destinies. Our beliefs and a hundred million years of history are imprinted in the colorful clay cliffs of Aquinnah.

Historical Background of the Wampanoag

For over ten thousand years the Wampanoag have inhabited the island of Noepe. When the first Europeans dropped anchor off our shores in the 1500s - just before the Pilgrims - we numbered three thousand or more. To this day we still occupy our aboriginal land of Aquinnah and count 901 members, about 300 of whom live on the Island.

The Wampanoag Nation once included all of Southeastern Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island, encompassing over 67 distinct tribal communities. The Wampanoag people have undergone a very difficult history after assisting pilgrims in the early 1600s. With the European settlers came much adversity for our tribe - disease that virtually wiped out whole villages, systems of government that bore little resemblance to our tribal practices and values, missionaries intent on converting us to Christianity, and private models of land use and ownership that conflicted with our tribe's own communal practices and values. The vast majority of these tribal communities were killed in battles initiated by colonists to secure land. Today, only six visible tribal communities remain. Mashpee and Aquinnah have maintained physical and cultural presence on their ancestral homelands. Linking these tribal communities through preservation efforts is essential for survival of the many cultural arts and traditions at risk of being lost.

AQUINNAH WAMPANOAG HISTORY & GOVERNMENT

The Aquinnah Tribe's ancestral lands have always been on the southwestern end of Noepe (Martha's Vineyard). After the arrival of the English, these lands became reduced in size. The area from Nashaquitsa Pond to the Cliffs became an Indian District, eventually governed by three tribal overseers. In 1870, over the unanimous objections of the Wampanoag Indian residents, the Town of Gay Head was incorporated. From the Wampanoag point of view, the principal effect of the incorporation of Gay Head was the alienation of Wampanoag Indian District Lands (reservation), which was in violation of the Federal Non-Intercourse Act of 1790. Because the Tribe controlled the Gay Head town government for more than a century since 1870, the effects of this alienation were largely obscured, and the integrity of the Tribal Common Lands seemed to be adequately protected. In 1972, however, in response to the growing potentiality for encroachment on Tribal Common Lands, the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head, Inc. (WTCGH) was formed to promote self-determination among Wampanoag people, to ensure preservation and continuation of Wampanoag history and culture, to achieve Federal recognition for the Tribe, and to seek the return of Tribal lands to the Wampanoag people.

The political identity of the Wampanoag Tribe has continued under the township's laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but over the past 50 years more and more Indian land has been lost as changes in the local economy have forced more Indians to move to other parts of the Island or to leave the Island altogether.

Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal members continued to be very active in town government, with the three town-elected selectmen positions filled by tribal members. In 1987, after two petitions and lengthy documentation, our tribe obtained federal acknowledgement by an act of the U.S. Congress. The U. S. government acknowledges and has taken responsibility for inequities to the tribe and granted partial restitution for land that was unjustly taken. In accordance with 1987 Settlement Act with the federal government there are approximately 485 acres of Tribal Lands purchased (160 acres private and approximately 325 acres common lands). The common lands include the Gay Head Cliffs, Herring Creek, and Lobsterville. Other land owned by the Tribe include parcels in Christiantown and Chappaquiddick. A master plan of Wampanoag Tribal Lands was developed in 1993 for approximately 160 acres of the Wampanoag Tribal Trust Land, comprising of parcels I, IIA, IIB, and III. The Master Plan followed several years of investigative efforts and illustrates the present vision of the future tribal community in Gay Head.

The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the Town of Gay Head entered into agreement in June of 1995 to jointly provide for the health, safety and welfare of persons on Tribal Lands by providing for the use of police, fire, and medical personnel and resources in the event of disaster, disorder, fire or other emergencies arising on Tribal Lands. The Town is working with the Tribe to make trained and experienced Public Safety Officials and personnel readily available on Tribal Lands to provide increased protection for persons and property on Tribal Lands, until such time as the Tribe can provide these services for its tribal members. The Tribe's Aquinnah Rangers are EMT certified and provide services for both Tribal Lands and the up-island communities.

In 1998, the name of the town was officially changed from Gay Head back to its former Wampanoag name of Aquinnah by the state legislature, representing recognition of Wampanoag history in the region. Traditionally, the Wampanoag people have been, and continue to be, self-reliant and independent, preferring hard work and subsistence to dependence on local, state or federal governments.

Today, the Wampanoag Tribe is governed by a Tribal Council, as was traditionally done. Our Tribal Council consists of a chairperson, vice chairperson, secretary, treasurer, and seven council members, all popularly elected. The Chief and Medicine Man are traditional members of the Tribal Council and hold their positions for life. Our Tribal Council is elected by enrolled members of our tribe to represent us in all tribal affairs.

The Wampanoag Tribal Council is a popularly elected representative tribal government, whose meetings are open to all members to encourage community involvement in all phases of community development. Community participation is further enhanced by general membership meetings, special meetings, public hearings, and, when appropriate, referenda such as the referendum called to approve the settlement agreement between the Tribe and the State and Federal Governments. The Tribal Council maintains communication with the General Membership of the Tribe through regular mailings, newsletters, and day-to-day interaction between Tribal members and Councilors. These means of communication were utilized to ensure participation by the general membership in the planning process for the Aquinnah Cultural Center.

Today, community values are still strong within our tribe. We proudly care for 477 acres of our ancestral lands, much of it set aside for common use and benefit. Land and resource management strategies rely on sustainable practices which are shared with other towns and conservation groups on the island. Traditional arts like beadwork, basket making, and pottery continue to be taught. Celebrations like Cranberry Day and The Legends of Moshup Pageant are held annually. The tribe has developed 27 units of affordable housing for families and elders. It now also owns and operates several businesses, including three stores and a shellfish hatchery. Our tribe continues to be self-governing and is taking great strides toward economic self-sufficiency. Even the Wampanoag language is being taught to tribal members. Through it all we have not forgotten who we are.

The influence of our tribe can be felt island wide. Environmental practices and values taught to the settlers long ago still help inform and maintain the island's pristine beauty. Roads which wind and bend across the island gracefully follow paths once worn smooth by our ancestors. Wampanoag place names pay homage to the earth's bounty. Everywhere on the Island are reminders of our Wampanoag heritage and community.
"To be Wampanoag is inside you. It's really something that you can be proud of." --a tribal member

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Wampanoag History - Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah)

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The last great North American glacier began its retreat some 10,000 years ago, leaving behind the accumulation of boulders, sand, and clay that is now known as Martha's Vineyard. There, it is said, a benevolent being named Moshup roamed the land. One day, Moshup was making his way across the mainland to the headlands of the Aquinnah Cliffs.

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This website on the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal website provides initial information about the language immersion school created by the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP). While initially created by the WLRP, the school is now under the control of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

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Immerson School Planning — Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe

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The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe are the people of the first light. They have lived in southeastern Massachusetts for over 12,000 years. Today, the majority of the citizens of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe continue to live and work in their ancesteral homelands.

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This article provides news coverage of the 2020 decision by the Plimoth Patuxet Museums to change its name from the former name, Plimoth Plantation.

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Earlier this month, living history museum Plimoth Plantation shared a new logo featuring two words: Plimoth-an alternative spelling of the Massachusetts colony's name-and Patuxet, the Wampanoag name for the land where English settlers landed in 1620. Per a statement, the museum will decide on a new moniker incorporating these titles within the next several months.

The announcement is expected to coincide with events marking the 400th anniversary of the 's landing in what is now the town of Plymouth, reports Lucas Phillips for the Boston Globe. The new name will drop the word "plantation" in order to better represent the fact that the site includes historical reenactments of both the 17th-century English colony and the Wampanoag tribe.

Representatives of the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation describe the change as a welcome first step but point out that museum can still do more.

"The name change is something we've been considering at the museum for over a year," spokesperson Kate Sheehan tells CBS Boston. "[It] is about making sure that we are fully reflecting what we do here, and that includes and has long included the history and culture of the Indigenous people of this region."

Although our educational mission includes both #Indigenous and European colonial #history, our name underscores only half the story. We've been in conversation for over a year about this and invite you to read more about it: https://t.co/4dBtckscQW pic.twitter.com/oaUjdXcdkV
- Plimoth Patuxet (@plimoth) July 8, 2020

In the United States, the word "plantation" is widely associated with the "antebellum South, whose economic system depended on slave labor," wrote Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman for Grammarphobia in 2015.

"But even before its use in America," the pair added, "the word had meanings connected with colonialism and the domination of defeated countries."

Plimoth Plantation was established in 1947 as a memorial to the pilgrims. The recreated English village is staffed by historical reenactors who replicate 17th-century life by wearing period clothing, speaking in the dialect of their character's home region and taking on roles essential in a 1620 community. Closer to the Eel River, the museum also has a living exhibition centered on the Wampanoag tribe.

"Unlike the people you'll meet in the 17th-century English Village, the staff in the Wampanoag Homesite are not role players," the museum writes on its website. "They are all Native People-either Wampanoag or from other Native Nations-and they will be dressed in historically accurate clothing, mostly made of deerskin."

Plimoth Plantation is a common destination for school field trips, which encourage visitors to learn by interacting with the staff and exploring the recreated landscape. It reopened in June after closing temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The museum's announcement arrives amid a spate of similarly motivated name changes. On Monday, the Washington, D.C. football team said it would announce a new moniker once trademark issues are resolved; the State of Rhode Island, meanwhile, plans to remove the latter half of its name -"Providence Plantations"-from official documents.

"Previous centuries marked anniversaries with statues, pageants, orators, and urban renewal projects that reflected contemporary views of the world," the museum says in the statement. "We intend this change to be part of the lasting contribution our Museum makes to this century's commemoration."

Speaking with the Cape Cod Times' Beth Treffeisen, David Weeden, historic preservation officer for the Wampanoag Tribe, notes that the museum's programming offered him the opportunity to learn traditional activities from tribal elders.

Still, he adds, controversies remain: Plimoth dedicates an entire village to the area's English colonists, for instance, but the Wampanoag exhibition consists of a single homesite. Adding more homesites would allow for broader representation, Weedan says. He also emphasizes the need for discretionary authority over programming, fair and equal wages, and equal budgeting for programs.

"I think the name change is a start," Wampanoag spokesperson Steven Peters tells the Cape Cod Times. "But they need to dig a lot deeper than that, and there are more ingrained issues within that institute that need to shift along with the name."

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Massachusetts' Plimoth Plantation Will Change Its Name

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The new moniker will incorporate the Mashpee Wampanoag name for the region: Patuxet

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How are members of different Wampanoag tribes today continuing to thrive and continuing to work towards language and land reclamation?

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“Q&A: Jessie Little Doe Baird.” Unitarian Universalist Association, 1 April, 2021, https://www.uuworld.org/articles/jessie-little-doe-baird.  

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In this interview, Jessie Little Doe Baird (a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the founder of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project) discusses the federal government’s efforts to remove trust status from Wampanoag land and other issues affecting Native people as a whole and the Wampanoag Nation specifically.

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Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council Vice-Chairwoman jessie little doe baird discusses issues facing the Wampanoag and other Native Americans.

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News coverage of the name change at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, questioning whether just changing the museum’s name is enough.

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Kate Sheehan, associate director, media relations & marketing at Plimoth Patuxet, said the museum, founded in 1947 by Henry Hornblower, "was always committed to telling the story of both the Wampanoag and the English. The form that has taken has evolved.

"We thought our name doesn't reflect the balance of the story we tell," she said. "Elevating the Indigenous name was essential."

The name change is having a soft launch, due to COVID 19. A new logo celebrates 2020 as the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims' arrival. They anchored off Provincetown in November 1620, and first set foot in Patuxet, the Wampanoag land already rechristened Plymouth by traders, in December. They arrived in a place beset by hardship, where plague had decimated the Wampanoag, who were threatened by neighboring tribes.

The living-history museum has been a faithful steward of a complicated history since it was founded. Its focus is the relatively peaceful alliance between the English and the Wampanoag in the 1620s, digging deep - literally, with archeology - into the material culture of the two communities.

Staying in that lane, it largely avoids bigger questions about colonialism and the quashing of Indigenous societies. Questions that today are too pressing to be ignored.

David Silverman, a history professor at George Washington University and author of "This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving," said the museum has a tough needle to thread.

"I don't envy their leadership," Silverman said. "They can't win. If they tell the people the story warts and all, few people will pay to bring their kids there."

"Honest history offends just about everybody," he added. "The 17th century was a brutal time. At any given time, you'd walk into Plymouth Colony and there would be several Native heads outside the gate. You could walk into a Wampanoag community and see scalps flying over a residence. It's a barbaric time by our standards. Not for family consumption."

Richard Pickering, Plimoth Patuxet's deputy executive director and chief historian, said the museum has taken a different approach.

"You need to look at the moment," said Pickering. "There are moments of equipoise, and of conflict and loss, and every one of those moments you should be able to look at like a slice of pie, on its own." And Plimoth Patuxet's slice was comparatively harmonious.

More violent episodes, he said, must be treated with care.

"There are things we can speak about with guests, but would be too shocking to represent," he said.

Part of what visitors learn at Plimoth Patuxet has to do with the nature of a living-history museum - conversation is driven by visitors.

"How do we greet people where they are," said Sheehan, "and get them a little further down that thought-provoking path?"

Historically, Plimoth Patuxet has been ahead of the game regarding Indigenous representation.

"We have the longest living-history Indigenous program in the US," said Darius Coombs a Mashpee Wampanoag tribe member and director of Wampanoag and eastern woodlands performance, research, and interpretive training at the museum.

The museum's Wampanoag Homesite opened in 1973. While Pilgrim interpreters in the English Village are frozen in the 1620s, Native interpreters take the span of history into their narratives.

"We're here to tell the full story," said Coombs. It's available - you must know to ask.

Still, as I wandered the grounds and toured the museum displays recently, some larger context was missing. The story felt sanitized.

After all, a history of conflict still plays out on the ground in Plymouth. In 2018 the federal Department of the Interior decided that the government could not hold Mashpee Wampanoag reservation land in trust. This past June, US District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman ordered the government to reconsider, calling the decision "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law."

The 2018 move was another in a colossal chain of governmental betrayals over centuries - one reason Indigenous people commemorate a National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving. That tradition started in the town in 1970, when Massachusetts officials invited Wampanoag leader Wamsutta, also known as Frank James, to be among the speakers at the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims' arrival.

Planners didn't like the text of his speech and scripted him a cheerier one.

Wamsutta quit the event and read his speech on Cole's Hill, near a statue of Massasoit Sachem, or Ousamequin, the 17th-century leader of the Wampanoags who built the alliance with the Pilgrims. National Day of Mourning protests continue in Plymouth on Thanksgiving each year.

The Pilgrims' arrival in Massachusetts is an American origin story: Immigration to escape religious persecution; perseverance through a miserable winter; a fruitful, if not always easy, diplomatic alliance between Native and European people. A Thanksgiving feast.

"It's a romanticized version of what actually happened," said Paula Peters, a Mashpee Wampanoag historian and co-owner of SmokeSygnals, an Indigenous-owned creative/communications company. "Boots on the ground were a lot dirtier."

Peters was on the board of Plymouth 400, a nonprofit that produces events and programming commemorating the quadricentennial, many of which have gone virtual this year. The agency's offerings nimbly embrace the larger Wampanoag story, with all its difficulties.

There are no scalps flying or heads on pikes, but the programming is broader than Plimoth Patuxet's. " Here it Began: 2020 Hindsight - or Foresight," a free, weeks-long online conference about Indigenous history organized with the Wampanoag Advisory Council and Bridgewater State University, wraps up this weekend. (It's not too late to register.)

"Plymouth 400 is doing the work," said Peters. That includes "'Our' Story: 400 Years of Wampanoag History," Peters's series of affecting videos. They date the Pilgrim story to 1614, when a Patuxet man, Tisquantum, was among 27 Indigenous men kidnapped by an English sea captain to be sold as slaves in Spain. Tisquantum later made it home and helped broker the relationship between the English and the Wampanoag.

Peters, who was director of public relations at Plimoth Plantation for five years until 2011, said she's glad to see the name change. "It's an important correction," she said.

Plimoth Patuxet tells the Tisquantum story, in text, as part of its museum display. It's spare and factual, but lacks affect. And that's the problem. There are many ways to tell a story; one that involves abduction and enslavement needs to be fleshed out.

Still, Plimoth Patuxet is expanding its time range, thanks to a recent National Endowment for the Humanities grant funding a new interpretive plan called "Along the Shores of Change."Programming will span 1600 to 1692, when Plymouth Colony was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A new online Thanksgiving activity for children, "You are the Historian," explores Patuxet before Europeans arrived.

Pickering said the museum's aim is to not look back and judge.

"What is the human story here? How can we celebrate its joys and mourn and explore its losses?" he asked. "Not look away, but look with empathy?"

And he's right. After all, the Pilgrims didn't know what was coming - not for themselves, for their Wampanoag neighbors, or for this continent. And theirs is really only a small part of that story.

Still, 400 years on, it seems our responsibility to reflect that the Pilgrims' arrival was also an inflection point. Everything changed. And not all for the good.

Plimoth Patuxet Museums

Closing for the season on Nov. 29. At 137 Warren Ave., Plymouth. 508-746-1622, www.plimoth.org

www.plymouth400inc.org

Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @cmcq.

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More than name change may be needed at former Plimoth Plantation - The Boston Globe

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The name Plimoth Patuxet reflects a long commitment to Wampanoag history, but the exhibits themselves are still due for a refresh.

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This article is an example of local land coverage of the language immersion school created by the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

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In a small classroom in the headquarters of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, children recite words in the language of their ancestors.

The name of the school is Mukayuhsak Weekuw, or "the children's house." There are 13 kids - kindergartners and 3- and 4-year-olds - who began studying when the school opened in September last year.

The school is predicated on the work of Jessie Little Doe Baird, a linguist and member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe who almost single-handedly saved the language from extinction.

"We speak about them as being sleeping rather than dead because it's a sign of respect for the indigenous languages," says Jennifer Weston, the language program administrator for the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, the nonprofit that runs the Wampanoag immersion school. "The language doesn't really leave, the human community just loses the capacity to appreciate it for periods of time."

Weston adds that the journey to opening the Mukayuhsak Weekuw school was 23 years long. But she puts it into the four-century legacy of British colonialism and the wiping out of Wampanoag culture.

"The overarching goal of the Wôpanâak language reclamation project is to return language home," she says. "So that's a big piece of what we're doing in the school ... the children are literally taking their language home with them and able to teach their family members."

The Mukayuhsak Weekuw school is funded by a three-year grant from the federal Administration for Native Americans. It was originally meant to be a charter school, but Weston said state education officials doubted the school's ability to deliver a curriculum in the language.

Creating that curriculum would not be an easy task, as the last living speaker died more than a century ago. So administrators teamed up with the Montessori Academy of Cape Cod and adopted Montessori teaching methods.
'Learning Their Culture'

Under the Montessori philosophy children learn in multi-age classrooms to be independent, but also to have a sense of order.

At the tribal headquarters in Mashpee, two teachers are in the classroom at all times speaking strictly in Wôpanâak. The room has a series of stations where kids can hammer nails, wash dishes, and add colored droplets to water.

Visitors to the classroom are asked to use zero English, but the children often revert to English. One of the linguists-in-residence, Tia Pocknett, is playing a language game with one of the kids.

"To have them in this school learning the language, it means that they're learning their culture ... These are the kids that are going to continue these teachings for the next generations to come."
TJ Thomas, parent of children in the school

TJ Thomas works for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, and he has been bringing two boys in the immersion school. He says he wished he had the same opportunity to learn his tribal language when he was their age.

"I go back to the beginning of when I was a kid, we knew bits and pieces of the language, we knew words, and only years later to find out that most of them were incorrect," he says. "So it wasn't something that we had. We didn't have the opportunity to learn the way they're learning today."

Now, Thomas says, the children are learning not just their language but something even more profound.

"To have them in this school learning the language, it means that they're learning their culture," he says. "They're starting off at such an early age that they're going to be able to pass this on.

"These are the kids that are going to continue these teachings for the next generations to come."

Tribal language leaders see this as just the beginning. They're developing a Wampanoag class in the Mashpee Public Schools, and in the years to come, they want to open an entire elementary school based on the Wampanoag language.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this post said there would be 13 children that would begin the program in September. It has been updated to make clear that 13 children began the program last September. We regret the error.

This article was originally published on August 24, 2017.

This segment aired on August 24, 2017.

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Mashpee Wampanoag School Looks To Revive Teachings Of Native Language

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A school that opened last year and is hoping to expand this fall is immersing children from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in the tribal language.

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Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006

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Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006

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This link leads to a federal government law that provides for the revitalization of Native American languages through language immersion programs.