Wampanoag
The Wampanoag (emphasis on the o, English pronunciation:. / wɑːmpənoʊ.æɡ / ) Pawkunnakut or Wôpanâak are Indians of eastern New England , the Gulf of Maine and the Atlantic coast whose tribal lands once large parts of the US States Rhode Iceland and Massachusetts as well as Martha's Vineyard , Nantucket and Elizabeth Islands . The Wampanoag were a confederation of several tribes, which were politically dominated by the Pawkunnakut or Pokanoket ("place cleared land"), and were therefore mostly referred to by the European settlers as Pokanoket Confederacy and the area they dominated as Pokanoket Country . They spoke or speak Wômpanâak (Wampanoag) , a dialect of the Massachusett language that belongs to the Southern New England Algonquian branch of the Eastern Algonquin . The neighboring tribes of the Massachusett and Natick spoke closely related dialects of the same language.
Surname
The autonym Wôpanâak or Wampanoag literally means "people of the first light", "people of the east" and refers to the ritually experienced sunrise over the eastern sea, the Atlantic. The word components can be explained as follows: Ur-Algonquin * wapan , Massachusett wampan / wãpan / - "light up, dawn, east", -ow- "person of", * -aki plural. Variants of this name were common among several Algonquian-speaking peoples in the east, such as the Wappinger or the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederation , consisting of Abenaki , Penobscot , Passamaquoddy , Maliseet , Mi'kmaq , Penacook and Pocumtuc . These called themselves Wabanaki , also Wabenaki, Wobanaki , which is the word equation in the local Algonquin languages for Wampanoag . It becomes clear here that the Massachusett language of the Wampanoag differs from the neighboring languages of the same language family by the presence of nasal vowels.
The Wampanoag were named Pocahontas by John Smith in 1616 , after the village of their upper sachem Massasoit near the present-day city of Bristol in Rhode Island. This name was used a lot in the early records and reports. The word Wapanoos first appears on Adriaen Block's map of 1614 and is probably a Munsee expression for all the tribes living east of them. Other synonyms are Wapenock, Massasoit and Philips Indian .
Tribal area of the Wampanoag Confederation
The area of the Wampanoag Confederation extended along the east coast of Wessagusset , today Weymouth in Massachusetts to the Cape Cod peninsula and the islands of Natocket , Nantaticu or Natockete , today Nantucket and Noepe ., Also Nope ("dry land", English pronunciation: "No-pee"), today Martha's Vineyard and in the southeast to Pokanoket , today Bristol and Warren in Rhode Island and to the northeast of today's Rhode Island.
Wampanoag Confederation groups
The Wampanoag were organized as a confederation of several tribes under the leadership of the Pokanoket , in which a Obersachem , therefore usually a Pokanoket, held the leadership of a large number of other sachems. The English often referred to the Obersachem as a king , a misleading term because the position of a sachem was by no means royal and included limited authority and few privileges. It has been handed down that if there was a lack of suitable male applicants, a woman could also become a Sachem at the Wampanoag. The correct title for the position of the leading sachem was Massasoit ("Great Leader" or "Great Sachem"), which the English misunderstood as a proper name and the then Obersachem called Ousamequin or Wasamegin ("Yellow Feather", * around 1580; † 1662) hence called Massasoit .
| Group / subject matter | Settlement area |
|---|---|
| Agawam ("Flat Meadows") | on the Agawam River and Wareham River near present-day Wareham in southeastern Massachusetts |
| Aquinnah (Gay Head) ("An island in the water", "Land under the hill" or "Land at the end of the island") | West tip of Martha's Vineyard |
| Assonet ( (H) assun-et - "Place of rocks" and "Song of praise") | on the Assonet River and Taunton River near present-day Freetown , Massachusetts |
| Chappaquiddik or Tchepiaquidenet ( Cheppiaquidne - "Separated land" or Capowak - "The separate people", also called the Band of Pahkepunnasso , the Sachem in 1643) | Chappaquiddick Iceland east of Martha's Vineyard and the islands Natuck ( Capoag , today Cape Poge) and Muskeget , each to present city Nantucket include |
| Herring Pond or Comassakumkanit | near the Praying Town Herring Pond in Plymouth County , Massachusetts |
| Mashpee ( mass-nippe , mass - "big" or "bigger" and sipp - "water") | Cape Cod Peninsula |
| Nantucket ("Faraway land", "Faraway island" or "In the midst of the waters") | Nantucket Island |
| Nauset ("Place of the bend") or Cape Cod Indians | several tribes on the Cape Cod peninsula east of the Bass River . The actual Nauset settled in the Outer Cape (Lower Cape) from the main village Nauset , today's Eastham northwards to Truro ( Paomet, Pawmet, Payomet, Pamet - "the wading place"). |
| Namasket or Nemasket ( Namas-ket - "At the fish place") | in the area of today's Middleborough in Plymouth County in southeastern Massachusetts ( Mass-adchu-set - "Great hill Country") |
| Nashanekammuck , Nashawakemuck ("Between the land") or Nashaquitsa ("At the little divided island") | southern part of today's city of Chilmark in the southwest of the island of Martha's Vineyard |
| Nunnepoag , Nunepog or Nunpauk ("When there is water there") | in what is now Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard Island |
| Nobnocket ( "At the dry land"), were under the Sachemtum the Nunnepoag | the present-day West Chop peninsula and Vineyard Haven ( Nobnocket , formerly Holmes Hole), both of which now belong to the city of Tisbury in Dukes County, Massachusetts, north of Martha's Vineyard |
| Ohkonkemme or Takemmeh or Taakemmy ("Place to grind corn") | the center and the east of the present-day city of Tisbury in Dukes County, Massachusetts, north of Martha's Vineyard, later they moved to the prayer city Christiantown |
| Okokame , Okokammeh , Takemmeh or Taakemmy ("Place to grind corn") | today's West Tisbury (former prayer town Christiantown or Manitowwatootan , Mannitwattootan - "God's Town") in Dukes County in the northwest of Martha's Vineyard |
| Patuxet , Pawtuxet or Pawtucket ("At the falls" or "At the little falls") | eastern Massachusetts in the area of today's Plymouth (the former Plymouth Colony ) on Plymouth Bay |
| Pokanoket or Pawkunnakut ("Place of cleared land") | eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island near present-day Bristol |
| Pocasset ("Where the stream widens" or "At the small cove") | today's northern Fall River , Massachusetts on the Quequechan River ("Falling River" or "Leaping / Falling Waters") |
| Sahnchecontuckquet , Sanchiacantacket or Sengekontacket ("Place where the brook flows into the river"), were subject to the Nunnepoag | Today's East Chop and Oak Bluffs ( Ogkeshkuppe - "Wet or damp thicket or woods") in Dukes County on Martha's Vineyard |
| Squibnocket , Msquepunauket ("At the place of the red cliff or bank") or Nashawakemuck | northern coast of today's city of Chilmark in the southwest of the island of Martha's Vineyard |
| and about 50 other groups |
Culture
Like the other Algonquians of southern New England , the Wampanoag farmed crops, mostly corn, beans and pumpkin, supplemented with fish and meat. They were semi-sedentary and their seasonal migrations in summer took them near the seashore, where fields were created, fish were caught and seafood was gathered. After the harvest in autumn, people moved back to the winter villages and the men went to their hunting grounds. Since southern New England was relatively densely populated around 1600, the boundaries of the hunting grounds were well defined to avoid conflict. They were passed on from father to son. The round or oval wampanoag wigwam was called wetu . During construction, several posts were stuck into the ground, bent inward over a fire and tied together at the top. The wetu was covered with grass, bark or mats on the outside, covered with mats on the inside and there was a smoke outlet at the highest point. Such a summer house could be dismantled and transported in a few hours.
See also: Massachusett
history
Squanto or Tisquantum
The earliest contacts between Wampanoag and Europeans date from the 16th century, when merchant ships and fishing boats sailed along the New England coast. Most of these encounters were friendly. There were exceptions, as some of the captains of these ships were known to improve their income by capturing Indians and selling them as slaves. For example, Captain Thomas Hunt , who had some Wampanoag kidnapped on his ship in 1614 and later sold them as slaves in Spain. One of his victims - a patuxet called Squanto or Tisquantum - was bought by Spanish monks who wanted to "civilize" him. Eventually he was released and despite his bad experience he boarded an English ship again to join a Newfoundland expedition as a translator. From Newfoundland he managed to return to his home in southern New England in 1619, where the entire Patuxet tribe and with them his family had fallen victim to an epidemic .
The Pilgrim Fathers
At the same time there was a small group of English religious dissidents living in Holland who had left England to avoid persecution there. They heard about the New World in the west and decided to emigrate there. The Virginia Company , ready to take them to America, took their money and put them on two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell. Only a third of the passengers were religious separatists, the others were adventurers, criminals, and guilt tower inmates whom England wanted to get rid of. The Plymouth Company had previously been founded, a trading company of wealthy London merchants interested in bartering in the New World. Three men carried the Plymouth Company speculation across the Atlantic: William Bradford , who had previously been appointed governor of the colony to be founded, Captain Miles Standish , the Pilgrim Fathers' military leader, and Andrew Weston , the adventurer's leader.
In July 1620 the small fleet set sail, but after 300 miles the Speedwell got a leak and, accompanied by the Mayflower, had to sail back to Plymouth. The repair failed, so that in September 1620 all passengers boarded the Mayflower and set off again for the New World in crowded conditions. After 65 days, she reached the coast of present-day Massachusetts on November 11, 1620 and anchored near present-day Provincetown on the outermost headland of Cape Cod .
The colonists decided to settle here, but after a while they found that the sandy soil could not feed them. So a group of them decided to sail to the other side of Cape Cod Bay. On December 21st, they landed near the deserted Patuxet village near what is now Plymouth , Massachusetts. Most of the remaining settlers followed five days later.
For the next few months they lived here in poor huts, hungry, sick and expecting their imminent death. Half of the newcomers did not survive the first winter. The Indians watched the English, but avoided them as much as possible. Abenaki - Sachem Samoset from what is now Maine , who had met some English fishermen in the short-lived colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River and greeted the pilgrim fathers in broken English, was just at the Wampanoag . He surveyed the situation and came back with Squanto the following day. This helped the English to survive the next time. For example, he showed them how the Indians of the area tilled the land, caught fish and gathered seafood.
We owe the foregoing information to William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation .
Ousamequin (Wasamegin) or Massasoit
Squanto lived with the colonists and thus escaped captivity with the Wampanoag. He served as a mediator between the Pilgrim Fathers and Massasoit , the Obersachem of the Wampanoag. For the Wampanoag, the last 7 years before the arrival of the English was the worst time in their history. They were attacked by Micmac warriors from the north who descended the coast after defeating the Penobscot in the Tarrantine War (1607-1615). At the same time, the Penobscot came from the west and occupied eastern Connecticut . Even more devastating, however, were three epidemics, to which three quarters of all Wampanoag fell victim. The Narraganset had suffered the least from the epidemics due to their isolated residential location on the islands in Narragansett Bay and therefore developed into the most powerful tribe in the region. They are now demanding tribute payments from the weakened Wampanoag. So Massasoit hoped that the English would support his people against the domination of the Narraganset. In March 1621, Massasoit, accompanied by Squanto, visited the English in Plymouth , signed a friendship treaty and gave them permission to take over around 12,000 acres (48.5 km²) of land for the Plymouth Plantation (Plymouth Plantation). However, it is very doubtful whether Massasoit knew the difference between land ownership in the sense of the Europeans and the use of land in the manner of the indigenous people. At that moment it was of no interest either, for so many of his people had died that New England was half depopulated. It was also difficult for the Wampanoag to imagine that the few Englishmen who had barely survived the winter alive could ever pose a threat to them. The friendship and cooperation between the English and the Indians continued and the Pilgrim Fathers were grateful to the Wampanoag for their help, so that they celebrated the first Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth with them in the fall . Massasoit and his 90 companions brought five deer with them and the festival lasted three days.
This first harvest festival is controversial in the United States. The Indians in particular oppose a romanticized image of happy Wampanoag who celebrated together with the colonists. For the Indians later saw the Puritans as greedy and violent thieves. In 1970, Indian associations proclaimed Thanksgiving as National Day of Mourning and celebrated this memorial day in Plymouth.
In the winter of 1622 another ship arrived unexpectedly from England and brought 40 additional hungry residents, so that this second winter brought another famine.
The Narraganset were suspicious of this friendship between the Wampanoag and the English, and they suspected a military alliance directed against them. They sent a message to Plymouth in the form of a bundle of arrows wrapped in snakeskin. Although the English could hardly feed themselves, let alone wage war, they sent the snake skin back filled with bullets. Since the Narraganset were attacked by the Pequot in the meantime , Plymouth escaped another disaster. The good relationship between Wampanoag and the Pilgrim Fathers continued and when Massasoit became seriously ill in the winter of 1623, the English nursed him back to health. The Plymouth Colony had now grown and a large number of English Puritans had settled on Massachusetts Bay. By 1632 the Narraganset had ended the war against the Pequot and another against the Mohawk and turned back to the Wampanoag. They attacked Massasoit's village of Sowam , but when the Wampanoag got help from the English, the Narraganset withdrew.
Expansion of the colonists
After 1630, the 102 former founding members of the Plymouth Colony, less than half of whom were actually Pilgrim Fathers, were marginalized by a growing number of newly arriving Puritans. They settled Massachusetts Bay near what is now Boston . Hardly tolerant of other Christians, they saw the natives as savages and pagans. The militant Puritans were soldiers and merchants whose concern was by no means friendship and cooperation with the Indians. Under this new leadership, the English expanded westward into the valley of the Connecticut River and destroyed the powerful Pequot Confederation in the Pequot War in 1637. By 1643 the Mohegan had defeated the Narraganset in a war and, with the support of the English, became the dominant tribe in southern New England.
Between 1640 and 1675 new waves of settlers came into the country, pushing the indigenous people west. While the Pilgrim Fathers usually paid for the land, or at least asked permission, the Puritans simply took the land. Around 1665 the Indians in southern New England were simply in the way of the English. They no longer needed their skills to survive in the wild. Fishing and trading in other goods had replaced the skin and wampum trade in the early years. The aboriginal population steadily declined due to repetitive epidemics, such as in 1633, 1635, 1654, 1661, and 1667.
After 1640 there was a "humane" solution to the Indian problem by John Eliot and other Puritan missionaries by converting the natives to Christianity. How humane these efforts really were is a matter of opinion. The converted Indians were settled in so-called prayer cities , such as Natick, Nonantum, Punkapog and other places. Indians who were critical of the Puritan version of Christianity were not welcome. Attending church was compulsory, clothing and hairstyle had to match the style of white Christians and even the suggestion of a traditional ceremony led to exclusion.
Metacomet or King Philip
Even Massasoit adopted English manners, and before his death in 1661 he asked the Plymouth legislators to give his two sons English names. Wamsutta , the older son, was named Alexander and his younger brother, Metacomet , was called Philip. The elder Alexander became after the death of his father Obersachem of the Wampanoag. The English were not pleased, because they thought he was too confident, and invited him to Plymouth for talks. After eating a meal, he became seriously ill and died. The Wampanoag cited fever as the cause of death, but Plymouth Council records indicate that poison was believed to be the cause of death. In the following year Metacomet succeeded his murdered brother as the chief of Wampanoag and was later called King Philip by the English .
Philip was by no means a radical sachem, but under his leadership there was a dramatic change in the Wampanoag's attitude towards the colonists. By now it had become clear to them that the English would gradually take everything away from them, both their country and their traditional culture, way of life and religion. Philip decided to prevent further expansion of English settlements. But that was impossible for the Wampanoag alone because they had fewer than 1,000 tribe members at the time. From his home on Mount Hope, he began visiting other tribes in order to win them over to his plan. That too was an almost hopeless endeavor, because at that time the number of colonists in southern New England more than doubled that of the Indians - 35,000 colonists were compared to 15,000 indigenous people. Philips efforts were not secret, because a network of spies that praying Indians (Engl. Praying indians ), betrayed Philips plans to the English. In 1671 Philip was called to Taunton , listened to the allegations of the English and signed an agreement in which the Wampanoag undertook to surrender their firearms. As a precaution, however, he did not attend the subsequent dinner and the weapons were not later delivered.
The English conquest continued and Philip gradually won the Nipmuck , Pocumtuc and Narraganset as allies. The beginning of the uprising was initially set for the spring of 1676. In January 1675, the body of John Sassamon, a Christian Indian spy, was found. Three Wampanoag warriors were then captured, charged with murder, and finally hanged. After this obvious provocation, Philip could no longer hold back his warriors because, in addition, rumors circulated that the English were about to arrest Philip. Philip held a council of war in Mount Hope: most of the Wampanoag wanted to follow him, with the exception of the Nauset on Cape Cod and the small groups on the offshore islands. Other allies were the Nipmuck, Pocumtuc and some Penacook and Eastern Abenaki . The Narraganset, however, were forced to sign a peace treaty with the English and initially remained neutral.
King Philip's War
On July 20, 1675, some young wampanoag moved to Swansea , killing some cattle and terrifying the white population. The next day the King Philip's War broke out and a number of white settlements were raided by the Indians and burned down. The unexpected attacks caused great panic among the British. The Christian Indians in the prayer cities set up by the Puritans in various parts of New England were considered suspicious and they were taken to an island in Boston Harbor. The united tribes in southern New England continued to thrive and of 90 English settlements, 52 were raided and partially burned down.
From Massachusetts, the war also spread to other areas of New England. Some tribes from Maine, the Kennebec , Pigwacket and Arosaguntacook joined the fight against the English. Even the former enemies of the Wampanoag, the Narraganset of Rhode Island, gave up their neutrality after the colonists attacked a fortified village. In this battle, which as Great Swamp Massacre (Engl. Great Swamp Massacre ) became known, the Narragansett lost more than 600 tribal members and 20 sachems. Their leader Canonchet escaped, however, and led a larger group of Narraganset warriors west to unite with King Philips warriors.
In the spring of 1676, after a winter of hunger and privation, the tide turned against Philip. The English troops hunted him relentlessly and his best ally, Sachem Canonchet of the Narraganset, was captured and executed by firing squad. Its body was quartered, its head sent to Hartford and publicly displayed.
During the summer months Philip evaded the pursuit and found a hiding place at Mount Hope. However, in August it was discovered by English Indian scouts and 173 Wampanoag were either killed or captured. Philip narrowly escaped arrest, but among those detained were his wife and nine-year-old son. In Plymouth they were put on a slave ship and sold to the West Indies. On August 12, 1676, British troops surrounded Philips' camp and shortly afterwards he was shot by an Indian scout . His head was cut off and displayed on a stake in Plymouth for 20 years.
consequences of war
With the death of Philips and most of their leaders, the Wampanoag were almost exterminated and only about 400 members survived the war. The Narraganset and Nipmuck suffered similar losses, and many small tribes in southern New England were practically wiped out. During the Great Displacement , many of the survivors were forced to leave their homes, but some did not have to go far. They accepted the asylum offered by New York Governor Edmund Andros and settled under the Mahican at Schaghticoke in the Hudson Valley . Others found refuge with the Lenni Lenape in New Jersey and Pennsylvania , but large numbers fled to the Western Abenaki and Canada . Although small groups lived on the Connecticut River until the 19th century , the Pocumtuc disappeared as an organized group. The war also brought heavy losses for the English: 600 colonists were killed, a total of 90 settlements were attacked and 13 of them were completely destroyed. Of the total Indian population in southern New England of around 15,000 before the war, there were only 4,000 survivors in 1680 and the harsh English peace conditions corresponded to complete submission.
18th to 20th century
Mashpee
In addition to the Wampanoag groups on the islands off the coast, which remained neutral during the war, the mainland Wampanoag were resettled to the Saconnet or brought together with the Nauset to the prayer cities in Barnstable County . In Massachusetts, Mashpee on Cape Cod was the largest of the reservations . The Indians there were allocated about 50 square miles (129.5 km²) in 1660 and since 1665 they have ruled themselves with courts, hearings and judgments. The area was integrated into the district of Mashpee in 1763, but in 1788 the state revoked self-government, which it deemed a failure, and set up an all-white committee to oversee it. A certain degree of self-government was reintroduced in 1834, and although the Indians were far from total independence, this time the experiment could be judged successful. Their land was partitioned in 1842 by giving 2,000 of their 13,000 acres (8.1 and 52.6 km²) to each family in plots of 60 acres (243,000 m²) each. Many laws testify to constant problems with assaults by whites who stole wood from the reservation. It was a large area, once rich in forest, fish, and game, and therefore desirable to the whites. It was difficult to ignore this ever-growing community of non-whites, and the Mashpee Indians ran into more conflict with their white neighbors than any of the other Native American settlements in the state.
Wampanoag on Martha's Vineyard
There were three reservations on Martha's Vineyard in the 18th and 19th centuries - Chappaquiddik , Christiantown ( Manitowwatootan , Mannitwattootan - “God's Town”) and Gay Head . The Chappaquiddick reservation was part of a small island of the same name at the easternmost point of the island. The Indians lost valuable land in a land sale in 1789, and the remainder was divided among the Indians in 1810. In 1823 the laws were changed to prevent the guardians from expropriating the Indians and to introduce a visible beginning of urban organization. By 1849 they owned 692 acres (2.8 km²) of barren land and many residents moved to nearby Edgartown to pursue professions and acquire civil rights.
Christiantown was originally a prayer town on the northwest side of Martha's Vineyard, northwest of Tisbury . In 1849 the reserve consisted of 390 acres (1.57 km²), all but 10 of which were divided among the residents. The land that remained in common ownership yielded very little crops and the tribesmen left for more lucrative jobs in the cities. Oral tradition tells that Christiantown died out due to a smallpox epidemic in 1888.
The third reservation on Vineyard was established in 1711 by the New England Company , which was founded in 1649 to Christianize the Indians. They bought land for the Gay Head Indians who had lived there since before 1642. Unfortunately, there was a heated argument over how to till the land from which whites had leased the better land at low interest rates. The original goal of creating an undisturbed center for missionary work was soon forgotten. The state eventually established a reservation there, which was located on a peninsula on the extreme western point of the island of Martha's Vineyard and was called Gay Head. This area was connected to the main island by an isthmus and offered the isolation the Indian group wanted. In 1849 they had 2,400 acres (9.7 km²) there, 500 of which were shared among the tribesmen while the rest was communal property. Unlike the other groups on Massachusetts reservations, the tribe had no guardian or overseer after 1820. If they needed legal advice, they asked the guardian of the Chappaquiddick Reservation, but they did the rest of the business themselves. They had no legal rights to their land and left the members free hand in choosing their land, as well as in cultivating and fencing it to make their property rights clear. They did not allow whites to settle on their land, and the tribal membership laws were strict. As a result, they were able to consolidate group cohesion and only long after the other groups lost their strict tribal identity.
The Wampanoag on Nantucket Island were almost completely destroyed by an unknown epidemic in 1763, the last Nantucket died in 1855.
Todays situation
By the middle of the 19th century, the suburbs around the cities grew and resorts for summer tourists became popular. The land was becoming more valuable, and property speculators persistently tried to drive the Indians off their last lands. The speculators pointed to the three-racial nature of the Indian groups as evidence that the Indians were extinct or at least had not followed any of the previous strict laws against intermarriage. Native American groups like the Montauk on Long Island had obeyed these laws and became so small and inbred that they too were declared extinct. Because of this attitude of the whites, tensions developed in the Indian communities between a relatively pure Indian core group and a mestizo fringe group. The resulting status led on the one hand to the tourist attraction to see real Indians , as on the other hand it contributed to the development of a neo-Indian culture. This was characterized by borrowings from other Indian groups and vague memories of earlier days, also romanticized by whites. Indian first names became fashionable, men wore their hair long and the Indian clothing style was adopted from Brotherton and from the Saint Regis Mohawk Indians. In 1907, William Frederick Cody , better known as Buffalo Bill , made a spectacular visit to the tomb of Uncas , the 17th century Mohegan thing, on horseback and accompanied by Plains Indians in full festive decorations. The display of early Pan-Indian clothing on the occasion made a great impression on local Indians, prompting them to wear Indian clothing at gatherings and ceremonial occasions. Information from ethnologists was helpful in encouraging the organization of powwows and other Indian festivals. These took over the social functions of the earlier Christian religious assemblies. The emphasis on Indianism did much to restore self-esteem and group pride that had long been suppressed by the racial prejudice of local whites. The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 sparked renewed interest in tribal membership. Intertribal organizations also developed, such as the 1926 Algonquin Council of Indian Tribes .
Through an initiative of Mashpee, Gay Head (Aquinnah), Assonet and Herring Pond Wampanoag, a project was launched in 1993 to revive the Wampanoag language, which died out in the 19th century. Old printed texts, including the translation of the Eliot Indian Bible from 1663, and examples from the related Algonquin languages of the neighbors served as the basis. The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project was initiated by Jessie Littledoe Baird, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and Helen Manning, a Gay Head Wampanoag. Baird now teaches school classes in Mashpee and Aquinnah; only wampanoag is spoken during class. There is a Wampanoag dictionary that currently contains about 7,000 words.
Today's tribes of the Wampanoag
Today there are five strains of the Wampanoag, but only two of them at the federal level by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a regular (federally Recognized tribe) are recognized: Assonet, Gay Head, Herring Pond, Mashpee and Namasket. All have applied for state and federal recognition, but only the Wampanoag in Gay Head still own a reservation on Martha's Vineyard and received state recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1987.
Federally recognized tribes
- Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) , also known as Aquinnah Wampanoag, formerly Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head, Inc. They fought on the side of the English during King Philip's War , their administrative seat is Aquinnah , formerly: Gay Head in Massachusetts. Aquinnah means "Land under the hill" in Wôpanâak, their reserve is located in the extreme southwest of the island of Martha's Vineyard and covers 485 acres (approx. 2 km²). In 1987 they received federal recognition as a Federally Recognized Tribe with 1,121 members.
- Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe , formerly Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, Inc . The tribe owns a reservation in the west of the Cape Cod peninsula near their administrative seat Mashpee in Massachusetts. Mashpee, derived from mass-nippe, mass - "large" or "larger" and nippe - "water", has organized a Powwow every year since 1924 at the beginning of July , operates several shops and the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum . Many tribe members who today identify as Wampanoag, however, are descendants of the closely related Nauset (Cape Cod Indians) , received federal recognition as a Federally Recognized Tribe in February 2007 , with a population of 1,400 people.
State recognized tribes
- Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation , organized as a tribe in 1990. Its administrative seat is New Bedford , a port city in Bristol County , in southeast Massachusetts.
- Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe . Its administrative headquarters are located at 128 Herring Pond Rd, Plymouth , Massachusetts.
- Namasket (or Nemasket) Wampanoag Band . They organized as a tribe in 2000 and held their meetings at Wattupa Reservation State Park in Fall River, Massachusetts, at the Pocasset Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation . The tribesmen live in villages along the Taunton River near what is now Middleborough in southeast Massachusetts. One of their ancestors was Squanto (Tisquantum) (* around 1590, † 1622) the Patuxet-Wampanoag, but today they are mostly descendants of the Namasket (Nemasket) and the Pocasset of Fall River.
Other Wampanoag tribes and groups
- Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation . Its administrative headquarters are in Andover , Essex County , Massachusetts.
- Chappiquiddic Band , also Wampanoag Nation, First People of Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachuset . Its administrative headquarters are in Pocasset , Massachusetts.
- Pocasset Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation , also Pacasset Wampanoag Tribe . They are descendants of the Pocasset, one of the most powerful tribes of the Wampanoag Confederation, and still own the Watuppa Reservation ("Where we sit and root") at 275B Indiantown Rd, Fall River , Massachusetts.
- Royal House of the Pokanoket Tribe , also Council of Seven, Pokanoket Tribe, Wampanoag Nation, with its administrative headquarters in Millbury , Massachusetts.
- Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe . Its administrative headquarters are in Seekonk, Massachusetts. They are descendants of the Seaconke and their sub-tribes, the Wochomoqt, Seacunke, Pawtucket and Wanamoisett.
Demographics
| year | number | annotation | source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1610 | 6,600 | Mainland 3,600 and islands 3,000 | James Mooney |
| 1620 | 5,000 | Mainland 2,000 after the epidemics, islands 3,000 | unknown |
| 1677 | 400 | Mainland, after King Philip's War | general estimate |
| 2000 | 2,336 | Wampanoag overall | US Census |
Individual evidence
- ^ Wampanoag - Define Wampanoag at Dictionary.com
- ↑ Margaret Connell Szasz: Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607-1783, Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, July 2007, ISBN 978-0-8032-5966-9 , from page 102 ff
- ^ DJ Costa: The Dialectology of Southern New England Algonquian . In: HC Wolfart (Ed.): Papers of the 38th Algonquian Conference. Pp. 81-127. University of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg (Manitoba) 2007.
- ↑ Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) Natural Resources Department ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) ( Flash ; 5.9 MB)
- ↑ Wampanoag Place Names on Noepe
- ^ "Introduction to the Wampanoag People"
- ↑ Handbook of North American Indians. Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island, early period, pp. 171f.
- ↑ Chappiquiddic Band, Wampanoag Nation, First People of Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachuset
- ↑ Sachems and Royal Families
- ↑ Chappiquiddic Wampanoag History
- ↑ Handbook of North American Indians.
- ↑ a b c d e f The world of the Indians.
- ↑ William Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation". 1899., cit. after The world of the Indians.
- ↑ a b The world of the Indians. Chapter: The Pilgrim Fathers, p. 188ff.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Wampanoag History
- ↑ a b c d e f Handbook of North American Indians. Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island, late period, p. 178ff.
- ↑ a b c d e web links: The Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, Wampanoag Nation; Mashpee Wampanoag Nation webpage; Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah webpage
- ↑ Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15, pp. 179ff.
- ^ Website of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project
- ↑ See web links.
- ↑ Homepage of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Homepage of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribes ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Mashpee Wampanoag win federal recognition
- ↑ Homepage of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe
- ^ Homepage of the Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation
- ↑ There are two tribes or organizations that claim to be the legitimate representatives of this tribal group: the Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation and the Chappiquiddic Band, Wampanoag Nation, First People of Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachuset
- ↑ Homepage of the Chappiquiddic Band
- ↑ Homepage of the Pocasset Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation
- ^ Homepage of the Council of Seven / Royal House of Pokanoket / Pokanoket Tribe / Wampanoag Nation
- ↑ Homepage of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe
See also
literature
- David J. Silverman: Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha's Vineyard, 1600-1871. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-5217-0695-7 .
- Stephan Maninger: The lost wilderness: The conquest of the American north-east in the 17th century , Publishing House for American Studies, Wyk auf Föhr, 2009. ISBN 978-3-89510-121-2 .
- Stephan Maninger: War and Violence in Puritan New England , Back then, June 2007, ISSN 0011-5908
- Moondancer and Strong Woman: A Cultural History of the Native Peoples of Southern New England: Voices from Past and Present , Bauu Press, Colorado 2007. ISBN 0-9721349-3-X .
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: 500 Nations. Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1996. ISBN 3-89405-356-9 .
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: The world of the Indians. Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1994. ISBN 3-89405-331-3 .
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978. ISBN 0-16-004575-4 .
- Edward Winslow, William Bradford: The English experience, its record in early printed books published in facsimile. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Vol. 683. WJ Johnson, Norwood NJ 1974. ISBN 90-221-0683-7 .
- William Bradford: Of Plimoth Plantation . Wright & Potter Printing Co., Boston 1899.
