helped the
Plymouth colonists learn to cultivate
corn. Contacts between the Wampanoag and colonists began in the 16th century when European merchant vessels and fishing boats traveled along the coast of
New England. In 1524,
Giovanni de Verrazano contacted various tribes such as the Wampanoag and the
Narragansett in modern day
Rhode Island. Captain Thomas Hunt captured several Wampanoag in 1614 and sold them in Spain as slaves. A
Patuxet named
Tisquantum (or Squanto) was ransomed by Spanish monks who focused on education and evangelization before he escaped. He accompanied an expedition to
Newfoundland as an interpreter, then made his way back to his homeland in 1619, only to discover that the entire Patuxet tribe had died in an epidemic. The Wampanoag suffered from an epidemic between 1616 and 1619, long thought to be
smallpox introduced by contact with Europeans. However, a 2010 study suggests that the epidemic was
leptospirosis, introduced by rat reservoirs on European ships. The groups most devastated by the illness were those who had traded heavily with the French and the disease was likely a
virgin soil epidemic.
Alfred Crosby has estimated population losses to be as high as 90 percent among the
Massachusett and mainland
Pokanoket. In 1620, the
Pilgrims arrived in
Plymouth, and Tisquantum and other Wampanoag taught them how to cultivate the varieties of corn, squash, and beans (the
Three Sisters) that flourished in New England, as well as how to catch and process fish and collect seafood. They enabled the Pilgrims to survive their first winters, and Squanto lived with them and acted as a middleman between them and
Massasoit, the Wampanoag
sachem. In ''
Mourt's Relation,'' initial contact between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag was recorded as beginning in the spring of 1621. The Wampanoag are commonly depicted in pop culture as attending the
First Thanksgiving. However many American Indians and historians argue against the romanticized story of the Wampanoag celebrating together with the colonists. One primary account of the 1621 event was written by a firsthand observer states that there were Indians at the celebration but nothing more. Massasoit became gravely ill in the winter of 1623, but he was nursed back to health by the colonists. In 1632, the
Narragansetts attacked Massasoit's village in
Sowam, but the colonists helped the Wampanoag to drive them back. The high levels of epidemics among the Indians may have motivated some conversions. Salisbury suggests that the survivors suffered a type of spiritual crisis because their medical and religious leaders had been unable to prevent the epidemic losses. " built in 1684 in
Mashpee, Massachusetts, the oldest Indian church building in the United States Individual towns and regions had differing expectations for Indian conversions. In most of Eliot's mainland praying towns, religious converts were also expected to follow colonial laws and manners and to adopt the material trappings of colonial life. Eliot and other ministers relied on praise and rewards for those who conformed, rather than punishing those who did not. The Christian Indian settlements of
Martha's Vineyard were noted for a great deal of sharing and mixing between Wampanoag and colonial ways of life. Wampanoag converts often continued their traditional practices in dress, hairstyle, and governance. The Martha's Vineyard converts were not required to attend church and they often maintained traditional cultural practices, such as mourning rituals. The Wampanoag women were more likely to convert to Christianity than the men.
Experience Mayhew said that "it seems to be a Truth with respect to our Indians, so far as my knowledge of them extend, that there have been, and are a greater number of their Women appearing pious than of the men among them" in his text "Indian Converts". The frequency of female conversion created a problem for missionaries, who wanted to establish patriarchal family and societal structures among them. Women had control of property, and inheritance and descent passed through their line, including hereditary leadership for men. Wampanoag women on Martha's Vineyard were the spiritual leaders of their households. In general, English ministers agreed that it was preferable for women to subvert the patriarchal model and assume a dominant spiritual role than it was for their husbands to remain unconverted. Experience Mayhew asked, "How can those Wives answer it unto God who do not Use their utmost Endeavors to Perswade and oblige their husbands to maintain Prayer in their families?" In some cases, Wampanoag women converts accepted changed gender roles under colonial custom, while others practiced their traditional roles of shared power as Christians.
Metacomet (King Philip) Massasoit was among those Indians who adopted colonial customs. He asked the legislators in Plymouth near the end of his life to give both of his sons English names. The older son
Wamsutta was given the name Alexander, and his younger brother
Metacom was named Philip. After his father's death, Alexander became the sachem of the Wampanoag. The colonists invited him to Plymouth to talk, but Wamsutta became seriously ill on the way home and died shortly after. The Wampanoag were told that he died of fever, but many Indians thought that he had been poisoned. The following year, his brother Philip (Metacom) became sachem of the Wampanoag. Under Philip's leadership, the relationship changed dramatically between the Wampanoag and the colonists. Philip believed that the ever-increasing colonists would eventually take over everything — not only land, but also their culture, their way of life, and their religion — so he decided to limit the further expansion of colonial settlements. The Wampanoag numbered only 1,000, and Philip began to visit other tribes to build alliances among those who also wanted to push out the colonists. At that time, the population colonists in southern New England was already more than double that of the Indians, at 35,000 to 15,000. In 1671, Philip was called to
Taunton, Massachusetts, where he listened to the accusations of the colonists, and signed an agreement that required the Wampanoag to give up their firearms. To be on the safe side, he did not take part in the subsequent dinner. His men never delivered their weapons. Sassamon was a Christian Indian raised in Natick, one of the praying towns. He was educated at
Harvard College and had served as a scribe, interpreter, and counselor to Philip and the Wampanoag. But, a week before his death, Sassamon reported to Plymouth governor
Josiah Winslow that Philip was planning a war against the colonists. Sassamon was found dead under the ice of Assawompsett Pond a week later. A Christian Indian accused three Wampanoag warriors of his murder. The colonists took the three captive and hanged them in June 1675 after a trial by a jury of 12 colonists and six Christian Indians. This execution, combined with rumors that the colonists wanted to capture Philip, was a catalyst for war. Philip called a council of war on Mount Hope. Most Wampanoag wanted to follow him, except the
Nauset on
Cape Cod and the small groups on the offshore islands. Allies included the Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, some
Pennacook, and eastern
Abenaki from farther north. The Narragansett remained neutral at the beginning of the war.
King Philip's War On June 20, 1675, some Wampanoag attacked colonists in
Swansea, Massachusetts, and laid siege to the town. Five days later, they destroyed it completely, leading to
King Philip's War. The united tribes in southern New England attacked 52 of 90 colonial settlements and partially burned them down.
Mary Rowlandson's
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God is an account of her months of captivity by the Wampanoag during King Philip's War in which she expressed shock at the cruelties from Christian Indians. From Massachusetts, the war spread to other parts of New England. The Kennebec, Pigwacket (
Pequawkets), and
Arosaguntacook from Maine joined in the war against the colonists. The Narragansetts of
Rhode Island gave up their neutrality after the colonists attacked one of their fortified villages. The Narragansetts lost more than 600 people and 20 sachems in the battle which became known as the "
Great Swamp Massacre". Their leader Canonchet was able to flee and led a large group of Narragansett warriors west to join King Philip's warriors. Overall, approximately 5,000 Indians (40 percent of their population) and 2,500 colonists (5 percent) were killed in King Philip's War.
18th to 20th century Mashpee The exception to relocation was the coastal islands' Wampanoag groups, who had stayed neutral through the war. The colonists forced the Wampanoag of the mainland to resettle with the Saconnet (Sekonnet), or with the
Nauset into the praying towns in
Barnstable County.
Mashpee is the largest
Indian reservation set aside in Massachusetts, and is located on
Cape Cod. In 1660, the colonists allotted the natives about there, and beginning in 1665 they had self-government, adopting an English-style court of law and trials. Mashpee sachems Wepquish and Tookenchosin declared in 1665 that this land would not be able to be sold to non-Mashpee without the unanimous consent of the tribe, writing "We freely give these lands forementioned unto the South Sea Indians and their children forever: and not to be sold or given away from them by anyone without all their consents thereunto." An Indian Deed relating to the Petition of Reuben Cognehew presented a provision established by a representative of the community named Quatchatisset establishing that the allotment would " for ever not to be sold or given or alienated from them [his descendants] or any part of these lands." Property deeds in 1671 recorded this area known as the Mashpee Plantation as consisting of around 55 square miles of land. The area was integrated into the district of Mashpee in 1763. In 1788, after the
American Revolutionary War, the state revoked the Wampanoag ability to self-govern, considering it a failure. It appointed a supervisory committee consisting of five European-American members, with no Wampanoag. In 1834, the state returned a certain degree of self-government to the First Nations People, and although the First Nations People were far from autonomous, they continued in this manner. To support assimilation, in 1842 the state violated the
Nonintercourse Act when it illegally allocated plots from of their communal , to be distributed in parcels to each household for subsistence farming, although New England communities were adopting other types of economies. The state passed laws to try to control white encroachment on the reservation; some stole wood from its forests. A large region, once rich in wood, fish, and game, it was considered highly desirable by the whites. With competition between whites and the Wampanoag, conflicts were more frequent than for more isolated native settlements elsewhere in the state. In 1870, each member of the Mashpee tribe over the age of 18 was granted 60 acres of land for private ownership, effectively dismantling the thousands of acres of common tribal lands, and by 1871, non-Mashpee land ownership of the choicest portions of land purchased from impoverished Mashpee, leading to significant loss of Mashpee land ownership. Christiantown was originally a praying town on the northwest side of Martha's Vineyard, northwest of
Tisbury. In 1849 the reservation still consisted of , of which all but 10 were distributed among the residents. The land, kept under community ownership, yielded very few crops and the tribe members left it to get paying jobs in the cities. Wampanoag
oral history tells that Christiantown was wiped out in 1888 by a
smallpox epidemic. The third reservation on Martha's Vineyard was constructed in 1711 by the
New England Company (founded in 1649) to Christianize the natives. They bought land for the Gay Head natives who had lived there since before 1642. There was considerable dispute about how the land should be cultivated, as the colony had leased the better sections to the whites at low interest. The original goal of creating an undisturbed center for missionary work was quickly forgotten. The state finally created a reservation on a peninsula on the western point of Martha's Vineyard and named it Gay Head. This region was connected to the main island by an isthmus; it enabled the isolation desired by the Wampanoag. In 1849 they had there, of which 500 acres were distributed among the tribe members. The rest was communal property. In contrast to the other reservation groups, the tribe had no guardian or headman. When they needed advice on legal questions, they asked the guardian of the Chappaquiddick Reservation, but other matters they handled themselves. The band used
usufruct title, meaning that members had no legal claim to their land and allowed the tribal members free rein over their choice of land, as well as over cultivation and building, in order to make their ownership clear. They did not allow whites to settle on their land. They made strict laws regulating membership in the tribe. As a result, they were able to strengthen the groups' ties to each other, and they did not lose their tribal identity until long after other groups had lost theirs. The Wampanoag on
Nantucket Island were almost completely destroyed by an unknown
plague in 1763; the last Nantucket Wampanoag died in 1855. == Sachems of the Wampanoag ==