- Related Topics:
- Northeast Indian
- Mashpee Wampanoag
Wampanoag
Who are the Wampanoag?
How did the Wampanoag interact with the Pilgrims?
What led to King Philipâs War?
Wampanoag, Algonquian-speaking North American Indigenous group who formerly occupied parts of what are now the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including Marthaâs Vineyard and adjacent islands.
Traditional lifeways
The Wampanoag were traditionally semisedentary, moving seasonally between fixed sites. They practiced agriculture, with corn (maize), beans, and squash (a combination known as the Three Sisters, or milpa) being their staple crops. Food procured from hunting, fishing, and gathering supplemented their diet.
The group comprised several villages, each with its own local chief, or sachem. Each sachem was in charge of his or (more rarely) her local community, while a grand or paramount sachem oversaw foreign affairs, as well as disputes between Wampanoag communities.
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Relations with Europeans in the 17th century
Accommodation
Massasoit was the grand sachem in 1620, when the Pilgrims landed in Wampanoag territory. In March 1621 he journeyed to the colony with his colleague Samoset, who had already made friendly overtures to the Pilgrims there. Convinced of the value of a thriving trade with the newcomers, Massasoit concluded a treaty with the Pilgrims. In addition, he and his fellow community members shared techniques of planting, fishing, and cooking that were essential to the settlersâ survival in the wilderness. When Massasoit became dangerously ill in the winter of 1623, he was nursed back to health by the grateful Pilgrims. The colonial leader, Governor Edward Winslow, was said to have traveled several miles through the snow to deliver nourishing broth to the chief.
Encroachment
Massasoit was able to keep peace between the English settlers and the Wampanoag during a time of massive change and increased tensions. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company obtained a charter from King Charles I that empowered the company to trade and colonize New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The following year a group of about 1,000 Puritans settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Settlers flowed into the new colony, and by the mid-1640s the colony had grown to more than 20,000 people. Tensions grew over competing land claims and disputes over the grazing of colonial livestock on Indigenous hunting and fishing grounds. English cultural encroachment on their neighbors exacerbated the situation.
When Massasoitâs second son Metacom (English name Philip) became grand sachem in 1662 after the deaths of his father (1661) and older brother (1662), the English were increasingly trading guns, ammunition, liquor, and blankets for Indigenous land. He recognized that these sales threatened Indigenous sovereignty and was further disconcerted by the humiliations to which he and his people were continually subjected by the colonizers. He was, for example, summoned to Taunton in 1671 and required to sign a new peace agreement that included the surrender of Native American guns. Metacomâs dignity and steadfastness both impressed and frightened the settlers, who eventually demonized him as a menace that could not be controlled. For 13 years he kept the regionâs towns and villages on edge with the fear of armed resistance.
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Resistance
Violence erupted in June 1675 when three Wampanoag warriors were executed by Plymouth authorities for the murder of John Sassamon, a Harvard-educated Indigenous convert to Puritanism whom Metacom accused of spying for the colonists. The ensuing conflict, which became known as King Philipâs War, lasted just over one year. Metacomâs coalition, comprising the Wampanoag, Narraganset, Abenaki, and Nipmuc, was at first victorious. However, after a year of intense fighting during which some 3,000 Native Americans and 600 colonists were killed, food became scarce, and the Indigenous alliance began to disintegrate. By September 1676 the colonists and their Indigenous allies had destroyed much of the opposition in southern New England, killing thousands of Native Americans and selling many into slavery and indentured servitude.
From the end of the war to the modern day
Many of the Wampanoag who survived King Philipâs War were settled in neighboring regions, often assimilating into neighboring cultures. A few communities, however, were able to stay in their traditional homeland. For example, the two federally recognized tribes of the Wampanoag, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, had land officially reserved for them in the late 17th century. However, tribal ownership and sovereignty over these lands declined over the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the late 20th century both the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag petitioned for federal recognition. Their requests were granted in 1987 and 2007, respectively. In the early 2020s about 8,000 Americans claimed full or partial Wampanoag descent.