WE ARE THE WAMPANOAG

The Wampanoag: The People of the First Light Long before there was a Boston in England, and long before there was a Boston in Massachusetts, another people had already called this land home for thousands of years. For more than ten thousand years—perhaps even twelve thousand—the Wampanoag lived across the lands we now call southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and parts of Rhode Island. Their ancestors arrived after the great glaciers melted, when the coastline looked very different from today. They watched forests grow where ice once stood, followed rivers to the sea, and learned every bay, marsh, pond, and woodland of their homeland. The Wampanoag believed that a great cultural hero named Moshup shaped the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. According to their traditions, Moshup strode across the land with giant footsteps. When he dragged his foot through the earth, the sea rushed in behind him, creating the island they called Noepe, today’s Martha’s Vineyard. The magnificent clay cliffs of Aquinnah were reminders of his presence and have remained sacred to the Wampanoag ever since. In the spring, families planted corn, beans, and squash—the famous “Three Sisters” that grew together and nourished one another just as people should. During the summer, they fished the rivers, harvested shellfish, gathered berries, and traveled along the coast. Autumn was a season of abundance, when crops were harvested and food carefully stored for the coming winter. During the colder months, they hunted deer and other game in the forests while repairing tools, telling stories, and preparing for another year. The sea was as important as the forests. Fish, whales, seals, shellfish, and countless coastal birds helped sustain Wampanoag communities for thousands of years. They understood tides, weather, stars, and seasons with an intimacy that only generations of careful observation could produce. The Wampanoag Nation was not a single village but a confederation of more than sixty communities stretching across southeastern New England. Each village had its own sachem, or leader, while a Great Sachem united the nation during times of peace, diplomacy, and war. Women held positions of remarkable importance. Family identity passed through the mother’s line, women owned the homes and fields, and elder women helped determine who would become sachems. This balance of responsibilities gave Wampanoag society a stability that impressed many early European observers. Between 1616 and 1619, epidemic disease swept through southern New England with devastating speed. Entire villages disappeared. Some historians estimate that as many as two-thirds—or even more—of the Wampanoag population died within only a few years. Families vanished. Leaders were lost. Ancient villages stood empty. When the Pilgrims arrived aboard the Mayflower, they entered a land still grieving. The famous alliance between Massasoit, the Wampanoag sachem, and the Plymouth settlers was not simply an act of generosity. It was also a practical decision. The Wampanoag had been weakened by disease and faced powerful rivals, especially the Narragansett to the west. The English, struggling merely to survive, needed food, knowledge, and friendship. Both peoples hoped cooperation would benefit them. Wampanoag men taught the newcomers where to fish, how to plant corn, beans, and squash, how to fertilize the soil with fish, and how to gather shellfish from the coast. Without that knowledge, the Plymouth colony might not have survived its first difficult years. As more English settlers arrived, they brought different ideas about land ownership, government, religion, and law. The English increasingly viewed land as private property that could be bought, sold, fenced, and permanently claimed. After the death of Massasoit, his younger son Metacom—known to the English as King Philip—watched colonial settlements spread farther across Wampanoag lands. Fearing that his people would lose not only their homeland but also their independence, he formed alliances with neighboring tribes. The result was King Philip’s War in 1675, one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history when measured by population. Villages on both sides were destroyed. Thousands of Native people and colonists died. Many surviving Wampanoag were killed, enslaved, or forced from their ancestral homes. Today, Wampanoag communities continue to thrive in southeastern Massachusetts and on Martha’s Vineyard. The federally recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) remain active, self-governing nations. Their language, once thought lost, is being spoken again by children. Traditional arts, ceremonies, fishing, storytelling, and stewardship of the land continue to connect new generations with their ancestors.