Introduction to <em>Captured: 1614</em> by Paula Peters (2014)
Paula Peters is a Native American journalist and educator from Mashpee, Massachusetts. She worked for the <em>Cape Cod Times</em> from 1992-2002 and has worked to educate the public about Native history as part of the Indian Program at Plimoth Plantation (first as an interpreter in the 1970s and 1980s, and returning in 2005 as Director of Marketing and Public Relations). <br /><br /> Peters attended Bridgewater State University from 1984-1986. She was actively involved in the Mashpee federal recognition effort, with her father, Russell Peters (d. 2002), and many other tribal members. In an interview with NPR in 2006, Peters recalls a time when "nobody in Washington cared much about which tribes were recognized." Like her father, Peters has served on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council. With her husband, Mark Harding, who serves as the council's treasurer, she co-founded the marketing company SmokeSygnals.<br /><br />As executive producer of <em>Captured: 1614</em>, Peters continues her longstanding efforts to tell history from the Wampanoag perspective. The exhibit was first unveiled in November 2014 at the Plymouth Public Library in Plymouth, Massachusetts, marking the 400th anniversary of the kidnapping of Squanto and 19 other Wampanoag tribe members by English settlers. The essays included here comprised some of Peters's contributions to that exhibit. <em>Captured</em> will travel and continue to grow until 2020, the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower. Peters serves on the committee of Plymouth 400, the non-profit organization planning that event.<br /><br />
Peters, Paula
<a href="http://www.plymouth400inc.org/events/captured-1614" target="_blank">Captured: 1614</a>
2014
Victoria Leigh Gibson, UNH 2016
Paula Peters
English
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"The Eagles and the Crows" (c. 1972) by Wamsutta (Frank James)
This card comes from an educational kit called "Indians Who Met the Pilgrims," produced by the Boston Children's Museum (BCM) in the early 1970s in collaboration with regional Native educators and activists. <br /><br />Frank James was an Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal leader, founder of the <a href="http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm" target="_blank">National Day of Mourning</a>, and an activist committed to educating non-Native people about issues affecting indigenous people. He was a member of the BCM's first Native Advisory Board in 1972, and was instrumental in encouraging museum staff to start dismantling stereotypes. Following his lead, the BCM produced an early exhibit explicitly devoted to challenging stereotypes of Native Americans.
Wamsutta (James, Frank)
Boston Children's Museum
1972
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Moonamum James. Used with permission.
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English
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"Welcome to Mashpee" by Joan Tavares Avant
Avant wrote this piece while she was President of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council and Director of Mashpee's Indian Education Program, and published it in the tribe's annual powwow flyer. The Mashpee powwow flyers have been an important source of Wampanoag writing and self-representation, as they address both Wampanoag people and non-Native visitors to the powwow.
Avant, Joan Tavares
<em>Mashpee Wampanoag People of the First Light Annual Powwow </em>flyer.
Unknown
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Joan Tavares Avant. Used with permission.
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"Maushop Brings His People Home" (2003) by Linda Coombs
An account of a dugout canoe trip from the mainland to Aquinnah, launched by Plimoth Plantation's Wampanoag Indian Program.
Coombs, Linda
<em>Plimoth Life </em>2.1 (2003): 6-9
2003
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Plimoth Plantation and Linda Coombs. Used with permission.
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"The Origin of the Fireball Game" (1988/89) by Ramona Peters
Wampanoag artist Ramona Peters wrote this piece for a flyer distributed at the Mashpee powwow in 1988 and 1989. Powwow flyers have been an important source of Mashpee Wampanoag writing and self-representation. This piece, signed "Nosapocket," speaks to the antiquity of the fireball game and to its continued existence. Peters addresses a dual audience of Mashpee Wampanoag people and non-Native visitors to the powwow.
Fireball is a healing ceremony, intensely beautiful and spiritual as it is performed and observed. The fireball itself was once made of deerskin; in modern times it is made of cotton sheeting inside of chicken wire soaked in clean motor oil for one year. When the players enter the field they have already done a prayer, for example for a sick community member. The fireball ceremony is not supposed to be photographed.
Ramona Peters is an artist, a community leader, spiritual leader and current Tribal Historic Preservation Officer.
Peters, Ramona
<em>Mashpee Wampanoag People of the First Light Annual Pow-Wow</em>, July 1-3, 1989
1988-89
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Ramona Peters. Used with permission.
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"An Indian Side of the Christopher Columbus Story" by Joan Tavares Avant
Avant has had a long career as a columnist for area newspapers. This article survives in her personal collections as a clipping; it may have appeared in <em>The Mashpee Enterprise</em>, to which she was a frequent contributor. The year is unknown. The article exemplifies the continuing efforts of Avant and other Wampanoag writers to tell history from their tribal perspectives.
Avant, Joan Tavares
n.d.
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Joan Tavares Avant. Used with permission.
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"Mashpee's Identity" by Joan Tavares Avant
Avant wrote this piece during her tenure as President of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council and Director of Mashpee's Indian Education Program. The piece appeared in the Mashpee powwow flyer, an important source of Wampanoag writing and self-representation.
Avant, Joan Tavares
<em>Mashpee Wampanoag People of the First Light Annual Powwow </em>flyer
Unknown
Indigenous Resources Collaborative
Siobhan Senier
Joan Tavares Avant. Used with permission.
pdf
English
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Linda Coombs
<p>Linda Coombs* is program director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center. She is an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).</p>
<h4>Life & Career</h4>
<p>Born and raised in Martha's Vineyard, Coombs lives with her family in the Wampanoag Community in Mashpee on Cape Cod.</p>
<p>After she graduated from University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1971 with a degree in music education, Coombs began a museum career in 1974, interning at the Boston Children's Museum as part of its Native American Program. She and her peers, including Narragansett elder Paulla Dove Jennings, wrote children's books for the museum, illustrating Native American culture from a Native American perspective. Coombs later worked for nearly three decades with the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation, including 15 years as the program's associate director.</p>
<h4><strong>Writing<em><br /></em></strong></h4>
<p>Her children's book, <em>Powwow</em>, was published in 1992 by Modern Curriculum Press under their Multicultural Celebrations series; it chronicles the experiences of a Native American girl at her first powwow. The book is 23 pages long and is illustrated by Carson Waterman.</p>
<p>Additionally, through her work at Plimoth Plantation, Coombs wrote a number of essays documenting colonial history from a Native American perspective. For example, at a conference on Thanksgiving, she stated,</p>
<blockquote>The actual and factual history of Thanksgiving in this country will be discussed: the European origins, views and practices, and how it evolved into the holiday it has become today. Many people don’t realize that thanksgiving was not a new concept to Native people. … Native people have held thanksgiving ceremonies since the time of Creation. The energy of lifeways of acknowledgement and thankfulness is what sustained Native culture for millennia.</blockquote>
<p>Coombs strives to promote truth, authenticity and cultural sensitivity. In 2008, she received some media attention when she asked a nine-year-old girl to remove her indian costume before entering the Wampanoag site at Plimoth. When the child cried, Coombs gave her a necklace from the gift shop as a token of reconciliation. “Costumes are offensive because of what has happened in history,” Coombs explained; “we’re trying to educate people about our culture and to correct stereotypes and wrong information, we’re here to make a bridge between people, not to just send them packing."</p>
<p>Coombs is passionate about educating the public about myths concerning not only Wampanoag culture and traditions, but those of all Native People. Her goal is set on continuing to educate the public about Wampanoag history, culture, and other contributions and to present their nearly-forgotten traditional skills and technologies of her 17th century ancestors as authentically as possible. The material history of her research includes traditional wetu (house) construction, mat weaving, pottery, deerskin clothing, twined woven baskets, gardening, and foodways.</p>
<p>Community is the Wampanoag way. According to archeological records, the Wampanoag have been around for at least 12,000 years. They did not maintain their culture that long without work. But the Wampanoag have undergone a difficult history through colonization, and are now divided into separate tribal communities. Re-linking those communities together is a way of preserving the ancestral homelands and Wampanoag culture. As Coombs puts it in "A Wampanoag Perspective,"<em><br /></em></p>
<blockquote>For many people in this country, the word “colonization” often seems to slide glibly off the tongue; and when it is used, the full aspects of its meaning are not recognized. … The deeper, dark meanings of the word have been “bred” out of American history. However, people still carry associated attitudes and behaviors that go unrecognized for what they actually are.</blockquote>
<p>Coombs understands the importance of preserving her culture and making certain that the lives of her ancestors are not forgotten; she has dedicated her career to this cause and wants to share it with the world.</p>
<p>"The people today are the windows to the past if one knows how to navigate." -Linda Coombs<br /><strong><br /></strong>*This article began as a biographical profile for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Coombs" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>. Thanks to Linda Coombs for her input and feedback on that article as well as this one.</p>
<h4><strong>Writings by Linda Coombs<br /></strong></h4>
<p>“A Wampanoag Perspective on Colonial House.”<em>Plimoth Life</em>, v.3 no. 1, 2004: 24-28.</p>
<p>“Hobbamock’s Homesite.” <em>Thanks, But No Thanks: Mirroring the Myth: Native Perspectives on Thanksgiving</em>. Plymouth, MA: Wampanoag Indian Program. September 9, 2000: 2-3.</p>
<p>"Holistic History." <em>Plimoth Life</em> 1(2) 2002:12-15.</p>
<p>“New Woodland Path Makes Inroads at Wampanoag Homesite.” <em>Plimoth Life</em>, v. 5 no. 1, 2006: 20.</p>
<p>"Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War."<em> <em>Cultural Survival Quarterly</em>, Spring 2007.</em></p>
<p><em>Powwow</em>. Modern Curriculum Press, 1992.</p>
<p>“Wampanoag Foodways in the 17th Century." <em>Plimoth Life</em> 2005: 13-19</p>
<h4>Other Works Cited</h4>
<p>“Artists and Craftspeople Sought for Directory of Native American Artists Living in New England.” <em>Akwesasne Notes</em>. January 31, 1992.</p>
Dresser, Tom. <em>The Wampanoag Tribe of Martha’s Vineyard: Colonization to Recognition</em>. The History Press, 2011.
<p>Fifis, Fran. “Native Americans Still Fighting Ignorance at Plimoth.” <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/11/28/plimoth.native.americans/" target="_blank"><em>CNN Travel</em></a>. November 28, 2008. Accessed May 5, 2013.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCTnaQU9X2g" target="_blank">First Thanksgiving </a>- Boston City Hall Linda Coombs 4/4</em>, 2010.</p>
<p> “Kids Told Not to Dress as ‘Indians’ at Plimoth Plantation | <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/kids-told-not-dress-indians-plimoth-plantation" target="_blank">CNS News</a>.” November 26, 2008. Accessed April 23, 2013.</p>
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Crystal Gosnell, UNH '14
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Joan Tavares Avant
<p><strong><em>Joan Tavares Avant</em></strong> is a Mashpee Wampanoag elder, historian, and writer who works to promote an accurate representation of her Mashpee Wampanoag culture and heritage.</p>
<h4><strong>Family</strong></h4>
<p>From the day of her birth on April 14, 1940 until today, Joan Tavares Avant has lived in Mashpee, Massachusetts. As she puts it: “I was born in Mashpee as a Mashpee Wampanoag, Why would I want to leave?” She is the granddaughter of revered Mashpee Wampanoag Elder Mabel Pocknett Avant, in whose ancestral home now resides the Mashpee Wampanoag Historical Museum, of which Avant has been the past director of. She is mother to four children, grandmother to five grand-children, great grandmother to 3 great grandchildren, and has two un-adopted adult children, all which she loves dearly. She is also one of seven clan mothers, the Deer clan mother of her tribe.</p>
<h4><strong>Granny Squannit</strong></h4>
<p>Granny Squannit is one of the oldest Wampanoag legends. An old medicine woman with long black hair covering the single eye in her forehead, she snatches away children who misbehave, taking them away in her canoe to her cave in Cummaquid to scare them into being good. However, Granny Squannit also has a benevolent side, giving presents to good children and guiding sailors who leave her gifts. Every Halloween, Avant dresses up as Granny and greets (often scaring them in the process) Mashpee children as they walk through the woods. After playing Granny Squannit for adults, children and organizations and keeping her alive through writings for 20 years, Avant was given “Granny Squannit” as her native name from their tribal medicine man. She continues to write articles on Granny Squannit, even having her own column titled “Tales from Granny Squannit” in the Mashpee Enterprise in recent years. She also has a black and white tattoo of Granny Squannit on her right arm</p>
<h4 style="text-align:left;"><strong>Education</strong></h4>
<p>Unlike some of her author peers, Avant did not enter college immediately after high school, finding it hard to be accepted to a university because of her Native status, as well as financial difficulties. She finally received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Services from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1993, at the age of 53. Two years later, she earned her Master’s degree in Education from Cambridge College, and presently is working on a Doctoral Degree in Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Avant believes that “it is never too late to learn, age is but a number.” For 26 years, she was the Director of Indian Education for the Mashpee Public School district. She worked to provide guidance and promote cultural awareness to local Wampanoag students and teachers, as well as to provide school day-care and tutoring services. Finding the Mative history taught to schoolchildren biased and inaccurate, she also worked with both Native and non-Native educators to create a curriculum that highlighted local Wampanoag elders, culture, history, legends, and values. In 1993, the Falmouth Affirmative Action Committee recognized her for this work.</p>
<h4 style="text-align:left;"><strong>Community Involvement</strong></h4>
<p>Avant has been tribal president for three terms, as well as tribal historian for four. She is currently a member of the Mashpee Historical Commission, as well as a member of the Mittark Committee, which publishes the <em>Nashauonk Mittark</em> (the monthly Mashpee Wampanoag newsletter). She is also a member of Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project, which since 1993 has worked to teach Native children the Wampanoag language, which has had no known native speakers for six generations. In November 2012, CBS News <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135817n" target="_blank">interviewed her</a> about the project.</p>
<h4 style="text-align:left;"><strong>Writing</strong></h4>
<p style="text-align:left;">Avant is also a writer for the <em>Mashpee Enterprise</em>, writing about Mashpee Wampanoag affairs and contributing her own column, "Tales from Granny Squannit." Her journalistic style often shows up in her book, <em>People of the First Light</em>. She begins each section of her book with the sentence “Let’s be Frank about this,” a line in remembrance of her son, but also a good euphemism for her writing. She uses a straightforward, blunt manner to presents her facts, and unapologetically expresses her opinion:<em> <br /></em></p>
<blockquote>There are people who still believe only that the Wampanoag met the Pilgrims and helped them through the first winter…and later fell off the face of Mother Earth. Rarely is it mentioned that we were here 12,000 years before any newcomers arrived. The entire realm of opinion has been that we have been here since the celebration of Thanksgiving in 1620…These are facts and not myths; they were challenging for our people then and continue to challenge us even today. Also, my view is this: just because leaders of this country such as Henry Laurens (President of the Continental Congress), George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and others who set certain dates for Thanksgiving does not mean that they were the first to think of such a celebration.</blockquote>
<p style="text-align:left;"><em>People of the First Light</em> took two years for Avant to finish. She self- published it in 2010. She was inspired to write after finding the Native perspective lacking in her own tribal history; decribing non-Native writing about her people, she remarks that it's “insulting and it hurts,” though it makes “millions of [dollars] off the backs of our ancestors and all our tribal people.” Having lived in Mashpee all her life, and having done tribal interviews and research, there was never any difficulty in finding things to include; in fact, she often found herself with more than she could incorporate. Avant says that the most difficult part was writing the proposal for funding; the rest, such as structure and selection of works, came naturally via cultural experience and indigenous insight. She wants to remind people, through her book and other works, that “We are still here.”<br /><br /></p>
<h4><strong>Works Cited</strong></h4>
<p style="text-align:left;">P. Stone, R. MacKenzie (1990). <em>The Excluded Past: Archaeology in Education.</em> Google Books: Unwin Hyman Ltd. p. 123<br /><br />Avant, Joan Tavares. “Now, And Always, Wampanoag.” <em>Cultural Survival.</em> N.p., 26 05 2010. Web. 23 Mar 2013.<br /><br />Avant, Joan Tavares. <em>People of the First Light: Wisdoms of a Mashpee Wampanoag Elder.</em> Mashpee: 2010. Print<br /><br /><a href="http://mwtribe.exstream.tv/content/pages/72/DecemberMittark_2009.pdf">"Special Election Candidates."</a> Nashauonk Mittark. 12 2009: 4. Web. 9 May. 2013.<br /><br />Tavares-Avant , Joan. E-mail Interview. Apr 2013.</p>
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Shelby McGuigan, UNH '13
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"Deposition" (1797) by Sarah Keetoh and Hannah Babcock
<p>“In 1789 Mashpee women Amy Simon and Mary Sunkoson complained to the overseers that they were being denied necessities that were supposed to be supplied through their common fund.” A year prior, the <a title="Mashpee Wampanoag" href="http://mashpeewampanoagtribe.com/" target="_blank">Mashpee</a> had lost their independence and in turn were under scrutiny from the “governor-appointed board of over seers.” (Schrems 2).This meant to the natives that they were not able to get as many resources and necessities as they used to. Instead they were monitored and controlled by the colonist in the area. One year later, in 1790, Mary Sunkoson died; this led to the protests and depositions of Sarah Keetoh, Hannah Babcock, and Reverend Gideon Hawley. Gideon expressed that Mary had been ill and unable to receive treatment or help due to these restrictions on herbal medicines. Instead, she was supposed to pray to God. Keetoh and Babcock had a serious problem with the way their people were being governed and these depositions prove that native women had an active role in their tribal society as well as in the literary world of the eighteenth century.</p>
<p>In the Wampanoag tribe, women played a very important role that went far beyond the stereotypical colonial women that was soon adopted. Wampanoag native women brought in on average 75% of the food consumed and one of their most well known and loved dishes is called “Three Sisters Rice”, a dish which combines all of their most abundant and important crops; rice, corn, beans, and squash. The native spirituality had many different aspects but centered around the idea of one Mother Earth. The most plentiful and cherished crops; corn, beans, and squash, were examples of how Mother Earth takes care of the human race. The native culture cherished the female body and felt a strong bond between themselves and Mother Earth. “The land was used and shared; it was not owned.” (Dresser 45). They viewed Mother Earth as everywhere around them and understood that as land, she was not property but instead meant for survival. “Women were the souls of the councils, the arbiters of peace and war, and in whom all real authority was vested.” (Leacock 265). For them, Mother Earth had given them the ability to take the lives of plants and animals to sustain their own survival but only because humans are able to respect the sacrifice these other living organisms make for us and understand how it nourishes our bodies, she was the one spiritual leader.</p>
<p>Native Wampanoag people understood and loved the female figure just as the ancient Greeks had understood the importance of the woman’s body and worshiped its spirituality. European colonist however, had implemented a society where a woman was only for making children, making clothing, and staying within the household; very much an object that men could buy and own—inadvertently and helplessly reliant on her working husband. Just as this idea had spread across Europe and other nations in Central America and South America, when the colonist arrived to New England they started to infiltrate the native’s beliefs simply by not acknowledging women in roles of authority. In order to save their land, Wampanoag men would learn how to speak and write in English. The men primarily did this because women were not allowed, and women were not allowed because colonists did not acknowledge women in any type of authority. Slowly the balance between men and women started to shift. Eventually, as children of this time grew up with their mothers at home and their fathers at school, church, and working in the fields, this way of life became inherited until it was eventually the only way of life natives knew.</p>
<p>The inheritance of land was passed down through the mother lineage, and in Land deposition #35 from the Native Writings in New England, the Wampanoag Sachem leaves his land to two women; Ales Sessetom and Keziah Sessestom. Not only does this Sachem swear in the name of God, but also the deed is written in English. “During the colonial period, male authority was being encouraged by Euro-Americans in their political and military dealings with Native Americans at the same time as Indian women were becoming dependent in individual households on wage-earning and trading husbands” (Leacock 264). By adopting Christianity and English literacy, the Wampanoag people were trying to save their land in any way possible. Of course, the colonist would neither accept this deed as legitimate regardless of how many witnesses signed at the bottom nor would they ever allow a woman, let alone a native woman, to own land. Until these documents were found and transcribed, to the common public it seemed that women played absolutely no authoritative role in native literacy or society. Experience Mayhew, a colonist and missionary who worked alongside the Native Wampanoags, understood the women and children’s role in their tribal society. Instead of comparing women to the subservient role that men play to god, he instead wrote about their struggles with colonization and how they had once been respected. Experience was also the Reverend who signed off on the Land deed dated March 14, 1689 - who grants permission for the two women to own land.</p>
<p><br />The idea that native women were weak and unreliable as human beings is completely false. Weetamoo served as a Sachem to the Wampanoag tribe during King Philips War and was remembered and worshiped for her strength, beauty, and severe confederacy. She was not some weak housewife who depended on her husband. Instead she was an active member of society who was entrusted with some of the most vital assessments for her people. Awashonks was another Wampanoag woman Sachem and ruled at a time when tensions between Colonist and Natives were about to break out into King Philips War, which is noted as one of the most violent periods of warfare. Clearly if women were able to rule over entire tribes and own land, then the oppression that eventually took over the Americas and other countries did not originate from within. Instead, it was learned and instigated by Colonization and Christianity. Overall it is clear that Wampanoag women were taking a stand and fighting for their land just as the men were, in any way possible!</p>
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Hawley, Gideon
Keetoh, Sarah
Babcock, Hannah
Mayhew, Experience
1797-05-22
Samantha Woods, UNH '12
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