Quarantine Diary #20 4/2/2020 Wampanoag People

In the 1500’s a lot of loose European adventurer/exploiter types were cruising the new Americas. Ship captains and crews trolled the eastern seaboard; they frequently kidnapped native people to sell as slaves or curiosities back in Europe. Yes, they did this.

In 1614 several Wampanoag men were kidnapped by Captain Thomas Hart, an explorer who then sold them in Malaga, Spain (future hometown of Picasso). Spanish monks bought the Indians, including one young male named Trisqantum. He apparently learned Spanish and later English when he was traded to England. From England he eventually joined – as their translator - an expedition headed for Newfoundland. In Newfoundland he left (I don’t know if he left or escaped) the ship’s crew and walked back to his village. I looked on Google maps; that was a thousand-mile hike.

When he finally got home, six years after he’d been kidnapped, he discovered that every single person of his Patuxet clan had died (of disease). There were other Wampanoag clans in that eastern Massachusetts, western Cape Cod area, so he probably stayed with them. But he was the last of the Patuxet clan.

The following year was 1620, when the Mayflower Pilgrims landed at the summer location of his people - the west side of Cape Cod. Trisquantum eventually moved close to the Pilgrims, translated among them and other neighboring tribes and clans. He taught the pilgrims how to grow the three sisters i.e. beans, corn, and squash. He showed them how to fish and hunt in this land that was new to them. 

Half the pilgrims died that first year, but without the serendipitous presence and help of Trisquantum it is likely none would have survived.

Some people called him Squanto (thus beginning the racist American tradition of calling people from other cultures any damn thing we want to call them, instead of learning their actual names).

Like I said, his clan belonged to Wampanoag tribe. They endured epidemics, violence from Europeans, violence from rival Indian tribes as they all tried to survive the onslaught of change that arrived with the Europeans.

In 2007 the Mashpee Wampanoag were federally recognized and accorded sovereignty over their own land. There are three other bands of Wampanoag who are recognized by the state of Massachusetts.

All of them together desire to build a casino on Cape Cod. There is only one casino license left to obtain in Massachusetts.

“Late last Friday afternoon (3/27 at 4PM), the Tribe was contacted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to inform them that the Secretary of the Interior has issued an order that will terminate the Tribe’s ability to self-govern, strip the Tribe of their reservation lands, and effectively terminate them as a recognized people.”

You can read more online about the 12,000-year-old Wampanoag people and their 100-year struggle to secure control of their own land.

You can also steam with anger at our administration which, during this epidemic, is using our preoccupation to steal land and power back from the Indian nation that saved out forefathers’ butts.

I believe each of us have places where we just can’t take the lies, exploitation, and duplicity. For me, this is one of those lines in the sand.  I have already written to my senators. 

Here are more actions you can take: HERE.

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Why care about an Indian issue 1000 miles from me? Maybe because I become furious at people who make huge decisions that affect the destinies of others without doing any of the work of understanding what’s going on.  Colonial Era history is not for the faint of heart. Or more likely, understanding the world around us requires understanding of how we got here.  For contemporary politicians to play fast and loose with the sovereignty of indigenous people, at this point in time, says they are operating on sheer racism and greed.

If there are questions about a casino license, that can be addressed without pulling a homeland out from underneath a People.

Damn.

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That’s all I got today. 

Probably enough.