“OUR STORY NOT THEIRS”

The Mattakeeset Massachuset Tribe are the descendants of the indigenous peoples of what most know today commonly referred to as the “Commonwealth State of Massachusetts”. It is and always has been the Massachuset People that the Englishmen and Women first encountered in 1620 on their voyage from England and the Netherlands to the shores of the great Massachuset Indian Country and Nation. After 400 years of atrocities, forcible removal, forced assimilation, land grabbing and genocide from the militia of Myles Standish and Christian bearing reverends we still stand here today as the true descendants of the first people here in the “Commonwealth State of Massachusetts” We continue to survive today as Mattakeeset Massachuset Indian peoples through our blood, lineal documented history, traditions, identity, culture and in recognizing one another alike. Our creation stories have been passed down to us orally through our elders and chosen ones, even the stories that the English worked so diligently on not being able to recover by writing us out of the existence of so called “New England” whereas our elders today for forced to hold in secrecy due to the many laws, malicious actions and policies made to disenfranchise the Massachuset Indian today. We are blessed highly to still have our Pauwaus (Medicine People) around and Sachems to share with us the truth of our people and carry on the brave mission of work set out for us by our creator. Today, we honor first our Creator Ketan, Manitoo upon Massachuset lands of our great Caoutontowit and we then honor our ancestors for never giving up trying to protect creators will for our people and the world.

So, before we blame King Philip as the great villain for starting and steering the great war that carried his name and that shattered the once all-powerful Massachuset Indian Tribe, we might want to review the activities that the Plymouth Colony Governor and allied Commander-in-Chief engaged in during this period:

• Winslow was named Commander-in-Chief of the combined Massachusetts Bay-Plymouth-Connecticut armed forces in the war and used SLAVERY as a weapon. In one instance, when several hundred natives had been promised amnesty, they surrendered; but when they came before Winslow’s Council of War, they were convicted and shipped to Spanish Cadiz as slaves. Untold hundreds were “devoted into servitude” under Winslow’s rule.

• As commander at the Great Swamp Fight at South Kingston, Rhode Island, in a bitter February 1676, he refused amnesty, refused to parley, and ordered the attack in a massacre of 700 to 1,000 Indians, mostly women and children who burned to death in our villages. Before this act, he told his men that, if they were victorious, they would each receive a generous reward of land. So, this wasn’t a holy war to save Christianity from the pagans, as propagandized. It was another strategic reach for continued land grabbing of Massachuset Indian Lands.

• He led New Plymouth’s Council of War in ordering the forced removal of all Mattakeeset Massachuset Indian men, women and children to incarceration on cold, unsheltered and desolate Clark’s Island in Plymouth Harbor/ Duxbury bay once called Mattakeeset where the English men would like to say an estimated half of possibly 500 or more of our tribe was certain to have perished (there are no records) from starvation, disease, and the elements of that harsh winter by the way…..

Thousands of Pokanokets, Nipmuc and Pocumtuck Indians as well as their later allies, the Narragansett – along with Mohegan, Pequot, and Christianized Indians, mostly Massachuset and Pawtucket – died too, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 in all. (But this keeping count really right ?) Our wigwams were destroyed during this time leading to forcible removal and still current homeless Indians.

The United Colonies claimed that the war had cost them between 100,000 and 150,000 English pounds. …
Still no care nor idea what it cost our people in financial terms, except that, in the long run, it cost us much more than the Pilgrims and Puritans all together….With NO land and, with our cornfields unplanted, it left us in dire consequences till to date. And it left us under total English subjugation, with greater restrictions of movement, habitation, and legal now legal rights. But we are here to say the “Jig is Up” and “Chach Mat” The King is Dead!

At least one historian wrote that “no tribe had been annihilated in the war.” If not annihilated, it must be said that the war most assuredly led to the near elimination of our Nation and to this day we are not recognized by the United States government whom was established after our Nation as an authentically organized tribe.

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After King Philip’s War, the English began to purchase falsafied property deeds from our ancestors at Punkapoag. Captain Ebenezer Woodward made a survey and plan of the original Punkapoag plantation in 1725 based off of his own estimation BullShit Reader…oh and after an order was given to do so by the General Court. But by 1756, Robert Spurr, who was “guardian” aka slaveowner and observer of our Nation found himself “very much embarrassed,” or unable, to determine the boundaries between the lands of the English and our Nation. It was asserted that neither we nor anybody else had a plot plan, and that no trace of any field notes could be found. So we ask respectfully, please honor the bounds of the Sachems till this day just as written from many Englishmen.

As a result, Spurr asked the General Court to order all English property owners in Canton abutting native land to produce their deeds, as well as pay their proportion of the fee for surveying our lands. The request was granted. Both sides paid for the plan, which was finished in 1760. It turned out that by this time, some 100 years after we had been granted 6,000 acres, we now have land amounting to 710 and three-quarter acres. The native-owned land at Punkapoag “would disappear entirely between 1760 and 1780,” wrote historian Daniel R. Mandell. Some five surviving natives were living there at the time, according to Mandell, who wrote: “. . . Punkapoag land was sold to pay debts arising from basic needs, and the Indians . . . relied on fishing and gathering economies and avoided extensive English-style agriculture. Even in 1768, the five Punkapoag survivors noted their ‘dispirs’d scattered manner of living.’”

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Lets be clear here! Massachuset Indians “the People of the First Light,” aren’t extinct – we live still, as individual persons, many of us vey active in Native American affairs. It has been difficult, however, for us to become a federally recognized tribe under current legal conditions, unless the criteria, as established for formal recognition by the US Congress in 1978, were changed to a more culturally sensitve framework. As of now, as historian Karen H. Dacey has put it succinctly:
• A tribe must be recognized from historical time to the present as aboriginal.

• A substantial number of tribal people must live in the same area and be viewed as a separate community from the population around them.

• Modern tribal members must be descended from the Native people who originally inhabited the locale.

• The tribe must have maintained a distinct political influence from earliest times and have a tribal government in place today.

• The tribe must not be part of any other tribal authority.

• A tribe must have a written constitution.

• It must have a set procedure for determining a tribal membership and maintain a verifiable roll of all “bona fide” members.

It should be noted that the federal recognition process has become increasingly controversial because, for one thing, the recognized tribes currently in Massachusetts don’t want others attaining recognition because it may unravel the truth of stolen history from the Massachuset Indians and block some future developments attached to Asian crime syndicates – the reason being, the increasingly narrow slices of the “federal funding “pie.” as well.

The Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs recognizes the following tribes in the Commonwealth, representing some “Wampanoag” and Nipmuc peoples:

Chappaquiddick Wampanoag; Chaubunnagungamaug Nipmuc (Dudley); Hassanamisco Nipmuc (Grafton); Herring Pond Wampanoag; Pocasset Wampanoag; Seneonke Wampanog but intrestingly enough they don’t recognize the Massachuset Indians whose name the commonwealth state is named for ????

According to the Indian Affairs Commission, two groups – the Natick Massachusett and the Ponkapoag Massachuset – are native people whose heritage and histories are known and whose state recognitions are so called pending, unfortunate state reports have announced that the commission on Indian affairs has violated its charter and has not submitted an annual report in 18 years ouch! https://www.eagletribune.com/news/indian-affairs-panel-struggles-to-fill-vacancies/article_815d524f-b56f-54f7-a50e-cfcb488024a5.html needless to say, it is the Mattakeeset Massachuset Tribe whose genealogical evidence substantiates the true history of the Massachuset Indian Nation.

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The Massachuset – along with the Pokanoket and Pawtucket – gave sustenance to the early Pilgrims and Puritans. We helped the early settlers when asked. We fought them only when provoked. The Massachuset are known to have rebelled in a few rare cases. and yes, we took revenge against the violation of our grandfather, Chickataubut’s mother’s grave and when our food was stolen at Wessagusset. We shared our land and its abundance but not to be mistaken for giving it away. And, with rare exception, our kindness and hospitality were not well received. What we got in return was arrogance, oppression, cruel treatment, and segregation all the way up to our tribal citizens being homeless today.

Our Massachuset people, the people of the Dawnland, aren’t extinct, we live still, not as a federally-recognized tribe but as our ancestors did in the sense that we are clear that our creator acknowledges his own creation. But the old campsites, the old lodges, wetus and wigwams atop the Blue Hills and below in the valleys – at the Neponset falls and at Shawmut (Boston), at the coastal Moswetuset Hummock at Squantum (Quincy) and Wessagusset, at Natick, Punkapoag, at Mattakeesett (Pembroke/Hanson), even Titicut – have been illegally occupied now, carried into the mists of remorse. 

At the range of hills – from which our tribe got its name, the Massachuset, as we prefer to call ourselves the Massachuseuck – many names remain: Chickatawbut Hill and the nearby Chickatawbut Overlook; and Kitchamaken Hill, only half the height of Great Blue, and Wampatuck Hill, with nearby pathways called Squamaug and Sassamon – all within today’s Blue Hills Reservation.

Above all and highest of all, granite-encrusted Great Blue, in foggy mist or sparkling sun, stands in solemn salute to the oral tradition and remembrance of our proud and noble people.