Wampanoag people

“ For boys it was a lengthy process to finally achieve recognition as an adult member of the tribe. De Rasieres describes some of the aspects of Wampanoag initiation.
When there is a youth who begins to approach manhood, he is taken by his father, uncle or nearest friend, and is conducted blindfolded into a wilderness, in order that he may not know the way, and is left there by night or otherwise, with a bow and arrows, and a hatchet and a knife. He must support himself there a whole winter with what the scanty earth furnishes at this season, and by hunting. ”

“ The history of contact between primitive peoples and Europeans has tended to be similar throughout the world, in that the first to contact and deal with the natives were usually entrepreneurs looking for new profits, followed by missionaries looking to save souls. The Wampanoags likewise experienced this phenomenon. While it was the intention of those who went there to settle to bring Christianity to the Indians, preparations for such a monumental task were not very well laid. English colonists had their hands full for a number of years just getting a living. ”

“ The pages that follow attempt to describe as fully as possible the culture of the Wampanoags as it would have been during the lifetime of Plymouth Colony—1620 to about 1690. A few words are in order in regard to sources of information. The normal procedure for gaining ethnographic information is for a trained observer—usually an anthropologist—to live among the people he wants to study, interviewing informants and observing with the aid of notebook, tape recorder, and camera the activities and habits of the groups under study. ”

“ The best sources for information on Wampanoag culture are the journals and letters of travelers and settlers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the Pilgrims, Edward Winslow proved to be an exceptional ethnographer, having recorded a number of insightful observations on Indian culture. John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay sent a collection of Indian artifacts back to England, some of which are still preserved in the British Museum. Of lesser value to the present purpose are writings of the latter half of the 17th century by missionaries who were trying to teach Christianity to the Indians. ”

“ Some of them thought that he was directing the war, but really it was carried on by other tribes of Indians that had not been very friendly towards the whites. The Wampanoags seem to have had very little connection with the war.
The Indians attacked the English towns in the Connecticut Valley, and the more exposed places on the frontier of the colony where the people were few and scattered.
No battle was fought in the open field. The Indians did not fight in that way. ”

“ Anthropologists recognize nine subdivisions on the mainland, an additional four on Martha’s Vineyard, and several others scattered throughout the offshore islands and coastal promontories. The mainland sub-tribes were generally quite cohesive, largely because of the strong leadership offered by Massasoit and his immediate heirs. The leading Wampanoag sachems kept their principal headquarters at Pokanoket (now Bristol Rhode Island) .... [390]
The actual organization of the territory into political units is difficult to discover from information recorded during the seventeenth century. ”

“ He fled with most of the defeated warriors to the Nipmuck country, and made a visit to the Mohawks of New York, whom he strove to persuade to join him in the uprising against the English, but they refused, and the Wampanoag orator roused the Indians elsewhere. In the course of a month, the war was raging over an area of three hundred miles. Settlers who lived beyond the confines of villages were attacked, generally in the dead of night, and often when the weather was bitterly cold or a violent storm raged. They fought bravely, but few thus assailed escaped. ”

“ To compete with the Puritans, the Wampanoags had to adopt their ways, but they were content with their own manner of living; were satisfied with their wigwams and primitive method of tilling the soil, and did not want the care or trouble of tending to flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, which made the white man rich and prosperous. It was the stronger race against the weaker, and, as has always happened, the Indians had to give way to those of greater intelligence and thrift. ”

“ At Rehoboth, the settlers, reinforced by some fifty Mohegan warriors, attacked him without serious loss to the whites, although thirty of King Philip's men were soon weltering in their own blood. The Wampanoag Chief was fighting for his life, and he fought well, urging on his hardy braves by word and gesture, and animating them to deeds of daring by exposing himself freely upon the firing line. The whites and friendly Indians were unable to capture his devoted band and soon they were lost in the thick forest, into the gloomy depths of which the attackers dared not follow. ”

“ The indigenous people were among the first to experience the ravages of contact with European colonists. Disease, war, and forced migrations throughout the 17th and 18th centuries effectively depopulated the area of most of its original inhabitants. Those few who remained were supposedly detribalized and merged with the Europeans. Even their artifacts were carted off across the ocean to be placed in cabinets of curiosities. To this day some of the best and largest ethnographic collections of New England Indian material culture are found in European museums and private estates. ”

“ Fifty-five years of peace and friendship with the English had resulted in giving the white men all the land of any value, while the Wampanoags were decreasing in numbers and each year were finding it more and more difficult to live.
The young warriors urged immediate action. They wanted war, and wanted it then, and desired to keep it up until the English should be driven out of the country. ”

“ The name given to a rising of the Wampanoags, an Indian tribe, in 1675, with the object of exterminating the white settlers in New England. The war lasted over a year, with much destruction of property, but finally the Indians were defeated and their leader, Philip, shot. ”

“ Like the Narragansetts, the Wampanoags were considerably advanced in civilization. They built permanent villages, and cultivated corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes. They manufactured cooking utensils of stone and clay, [5] and rude implements for domestic and war-like purposes from shells, stone, and bone. They prepared the greater part of their food by the aid of fire and their cookery was, by no means, unpalatable. The famed Rhode Island Johnny cake and still more famous Rhode Island clam bake each claim an Indian origin. ”

“ It is very difficult to account for the wonderful change which a few weeks introduced. The Massachusetts Indians, for some unknown cause, became alienated from the sovereign of the Wampanoags, and bitterly reproached him with having seduced them into a war in which they were suffering even more misery than they created. All the Indians in the vicinity of the English settlements had been driven from their corn-fields and fishing-grounds, and were now in a famishing condition. ”

“ Year by year the territory of the Wampanoags had narrowed until they had nothing left they could call their own but the two narrow peninsulas of Bristol and Tiverton on the east coast of Narragansett bay.
There were personal grievances also on both sides. With prosperity came avarice. Unprincipled men flocked to the new settlements which sprang up everywhere; the Indians were despised and often harshly treated; and the forbearance which marked the Pilgrims with the Indians was forgotten. ”

“ They baptized numerous black bodies, but the souls stayed chocolate. Civilization had brought all its attendants. Natives learned to speak English in order to lie in another language. They were schooled in new vices, new cheats, new gambles, new crimes. There were churches, but they were like the African Baptist or the A. M. E. churches of Owego; and there were saloons like Owego saloons.
Wadhams made so bold as to invade the dirty hut of one shiny onyx monarch of Gaboon known as King Jim Smith Bobala. Wadhams counseled this ace of spades that rum was ruining his people. ”

“ As we are dealing with a nomadic people, our ideas of town and village life have little in common with those of the Wampanoags. Where the conditions of life were the most comfortable and supplies of food the easiest, there was the Indian's home. ”

“ Here coastal dwelling Indian groups such as the Wampanoags took the advantage. Being first to meet the Europeans, they quickly established themselves as go-betweens in the trade, and besides doing trapping of their own, they traded for the furs of inland tribes, which they then traded to the Europeans for a profit. [338] The fur trade caused increased emphasis upon hunting and trapping. Since it was more profitable to trade skins than to wear them, the fur trade was a force that encouraged Indians to adopt European textiles and dress. ”

“ Without doubt production was stimulated beyond its natural limits by the demand from powerful tribes from the main land, who found it easier to exact wampum as tribute from their weak neighbors, than personally to engage in its laborious coinage. Hazard, in his collection of state papers, states, that the Narragansetts frequently compelled large tributes in wampum from the Long Island Indians. The Pequots also for many years prior to 1637, exacted large annual contributions from the same tribes while they were still further subject to the levies of the imperious Mohawks. ”

“ Governor Bradford states that the Narragansetts and Pequots grew “rich and potent” by the manufacture of wampum and, presumably, wealth contributed in no small degree towards establishing the prestige of the Wampanoags.
This tribe, properly speaking, was a confederation of clans each clan having its own headman who was, however, subservient to a chief sachem. The Wampanoags, or Pokanokets as they were also called, were originally a populous and powerful people and it is said that, at one period, their chief was able to rally around him no less than 3,000 warriors. ”

“ The Wampanoags’ only domesticated animal at the time the Europeans arrived was the dog. [76] Later, those Indians who adopted European culture as part of their conversion to Christianity seem to have begun keeping the types of livestock—cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, etc.—brought by the settlers. ”

“ The heroic and unfortunate monarch of the Wampanoags was now indeed a fugitive, and almost utterly desolate. A few of the more noble of the Indians still adhered faithfully to the fortunes of their ruined chieftain. The colonists pursued the broken bands of the Indians with indefatigable energy. A small party sought refuge at a place called Agawam, in the present town of Wareham. Captain Church immediately headed an expedition, pursued them, and captured the whole band. ”

“ By 1660 the fur trade had declined, fish and lumber having become the important exports. This trade brought in silver, and wampum ceased to be the medium of exchange. With the passing of furs and wampum, the Indian became less and less useful to the white man, who looked upon him with contempt. The christianizing of the Cape Cod Indians by the Reverend John Eliot and other missionaries was viewed sullenly by the Wampanoags, who saw in it an attempt [Pg 192] to weaken their power. Massasoit, Sachem of the Wampanoags, died in 1662, leaving two sons, called by the whites Alexander and Philip. ”

“ Annual Cycle: The environment of coastal southern New England was rich in a variety of wild food resources. Because these resources were available seasonally in several differing localities, the Wampanoags, who lived by a combination of hunting, fishing, collecting, and horticulture, moved several times during the year.
Beginning in about April, large numbers of Indians, probably the populations of several localized winter camping groups, would gather at the falls of certain rivers for the upstream runs of fish such as herring. ”

“ At the Bosque Redondo there is arable land enough for all the Indians of this family [the Navahoes and Apaches have descended from the same stock and speak the same language] , and I would respectfully recommend that now the war be vigorously prosecuted against the Navahoes; that the only peace that can ever be made with them must rest on the basis that they move on to these lands, and, like the Pueblos, become an agricultural people, and cease to be nomads. ”

“ When Philip lifted the tomahawk there were more than 400 converts, or so-called “praying Indians,” scattered among the various tribes, who held to the interest of the whites, and were, more or less, ready to sacrifice their own people. Philip and his Wampanoags withstood all missionary efforts, and boldly and openly iterated their firm belief in the religion of their fathers. In 1671 the Wampanoags were suspected of secret plottings against the whites, and, with Philip at their head, their principal men were summoned by the Boston colonists to appear before them in Taunton, Mass. ”

“ We will all do what you ask of us in the treaty. We own nothing, and have nothing to depend upon. When the President makes up his mind to do a thing he generally does it, but we do not want to go to that territory to the south.
Wamamsa:—The Lord above rules everything, and he has given us a nice mild day for our council. We have prayed for land and churches, and as we now have three churches I think the Lord has taken good care of us and has answered our prayers. Look at these young men. You have not seen any Indians during your travels dressed in that way. ”