An Independent-minded calendar of arts and events for Outer Cape Cod

Advertise in the Indie.

Reach more readers from Eastham to Provincetown.

Unchained news for Outer Cape Cod

The Provincetown Independent

Let us bring you the paper.

Your subscription supports real community journalism.

Wampanoag

    FIRST PEOPLES FOLLOW-UP

    Interior Dept. Presses Threat to Wampanoag Lands

    Casino competition emerging as factor in government’s case

    By

    A U.S. district court judge has chastised attorneys for the Dept. of the Interior for filing an “incomprehensible” memorandum in a case that threatens the tribal sovereignty of the Mashpee Wampanoag. Due to an apparent technical glitch that cut off the press and public from listening in on the full session, the outcome of the May 20 court hearing, held via Zoom, is not yet known.

    Wampanoag Territories
    A map of Wampanoag territories in 1620, from Voices from Colonial America: Massachusetts, 1620-1776, National Geographic Society, 2007.

    Interior’s recent move appears to be motivated by President Donald Trump’s belief that a proposed casino on the Wampanoag reservation in Taunton would threaten his allies’ financial interests in Rhode Island casinos.

    At the D.C. district court hearing, the Interior Dept.’s lawyers presented new criteria for evaluating tribal land applications, which would require the tribe to prove it was under federal jurisdiction in 1934. Judge Paul Friedman pointed out that these criteria would make it effectively impossible for the Wampanoag to maintain their reservation.

    “This is one of the worst written documents I’ve ever read from any government agency,” said Friedman during the hearing. “It’s a joke.”

    The memo was full of errors and “couldn’t guide any lawyer in the field,” Friedman said. “You’re going to have a tough time with this judge.”

    During the hearing, Wampanoag attorney Tami Azorsky argued that the tribe was under federal jurisdiction for decades before 1934. She cited examples such as Wampanoag students who were sent to an Indian boarding school, where decisions about their health, education, and religious practices were made by a federally appointed superintendent. Azorsky also referred to several reports on the tribe by the federal government, one of which considered relocating it westward.

    The audio conference allowing the press and public to listen in on the proceedings cut out before the conclusion. Steven Peters, a member of the tribe, said that no one has been able to learn the outcome. Azorsky did not return calls from the Independent seeking information about the judge’s ruling.

    On March 27, the Interior Dept. informed Mashpee Wampanoag tribal leadership that their 320-acre reservation would be disestablished and taken out of federal trust. Removing the reservation, divided between Mashpee and Taunton, from trust would undermine the tribe’s sovereignty.

    David Silverman, a professor of American colonial and Native history at George Washington University, told the Independent that if the reservation is disestablished, “the government can continue to provide the tribe with funds for educational, public health, and cultural revival initiatives. But the tribe wouldn’t be able to have a housing complex for its low-income residents, a police force to keep order, or a school for language revitalization.”

    Taking the land out of trust would also mean the tribe’s planned casino in Taunton would not be allowed to operate.

    A fix to this legal battle would require an act of Congress, which has long been in the works. A bill filed by U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, which affirms the status of the Wampanoag tribe, passed the House last May with bipartisan support.

    Trump then intervened, tweeting a warning to the Senate.

    “Republicans shouldn’t vote for H.R. 312, a special interest casino Bill, backed by Elizabeth (Pocahontas) Warren,” Trump wrote. “It is unfair and doesn’t treat Native Americans equally!”

    Keating, who represents Cape Cod in Congress, believes that special interests prompted Trump’s action. He pointed out that lobbyists and advisers close to the president have interests in casinos in Rhode Island that would face competition from the Wampanoag casino in Taunton.

    “It’s corrupt. It’s despicable,” Keating said.

    Rhode Island Connection

    Opponents of the bill have argued that it would hurt two casinos across the state line in Rhode Island, both of which have ties to Trump. The Washington Post reported last year that George Papanier, president of Twin River Worldwide Holdings, which operates the Rhode Island casinos, used to work at the Trump Plaza Casino in Atlantic City.

    Matt Schlapp, who lobbies for Twin River, is married to Mercedes Schlapp, the president’s director of strategic communications. He is head of the American Conservative Union, a supporter of the president.

    Silverman said that the administration would likely not have intervened if casinos weren’t involved.

    There is a history of conflict between the president and Native-owned casinos. “This is not the first time interest groups, lobbyists or the president have challenged tribes’ protected federal status as sovereign nations to block the construction of competitive casinos,” wrote Camille Erickson of the Center for Responsive Politics a year ago. In the 1980s and ’90s, Trump owned casinos in Atlantic City. During that time, he challenged the constitutionality of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in court in an attempt to eliminate competition from the Mashantucket Pequot tribe’s Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

    Silverman said of the current case, “It’s just craven cronyism, with an undercurrent of racism, that has characterized so many other policies of this administration.”

    National Implications

    Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who was appointed by Trump last year, made the March call to Mashpee Wampanoag leadership informing them their land would be taken out of trust. In a statement on the tribe’s website, Chairman Cedric Cromwell wrote that the move came as a complete surprise to tribal leadership, who were in the midst of confronting the coronavirus pandemic.

    Holding land in trust ensures it will be protected for posterity. It’s also important for First Peoples to manage resources, police their community, and live in a way “that’s consistent with their values and interests,” Silverman said.

    If the Dept. of Interior wins and the new criteria are adopted, then First Nations across the U.S. could be at risk losing their land as well.

    Silverman pointed out that many tribes on the East Coast and in California were recognized only in recent decades. For groups that have reclaimed their patrimony and embarked on cultural and economic revitalization, “All of that is at risk,” Silverman said. “They’ll be quaking in their boots.”

     

    EASTHAM 400

    Commemoration Evolution

    Shallop replica still setting its course for Provincetown and Rock Harbor

    By

    EASTHAM — As a gallery of works by the Eastham Painters Guild rolls by on the screen, your eyes are held by those of Aspinet, the Nauset sachem who befriended the Separatists — now we call them Pilgrims — who washed ashore here four centuries ago. In his portrait by Jody Shyllberg, Aspinet is thoughtful and a bit rueful.

    That’s not a bad perspective with which to view the Guild’s commemoration of the event, “Picture Perfect: 400 Years of Eastham,” available at easthampaintersguild.com as part of the Eastham 400 commemoration of the first encounter of the newcomers with the resident population.

    The virtual exhibit of paintings by Guild members is one example of how the Eastham 400 Committee is coping with the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic. The thoughtful planning that went into the roster of events has encountered the rueful awareness that changes are needed.

    Nauset Sachem Aspinet
    Eastham Painters Guild member Jody Shyllberg’s painting, Nauset Sachem Aspinet (Photo courtesy Jody Shyllberg)

    The art exhibit has moved online and will run through the summer rather than just for one month. The 10-minute sunset presentations of Eastham’s history at First Encounter Beach every evening starting on Memorial Day weekend will be recorded for later viewing or live-streaming. The Cape Cod Genealogy Society’s canceled March 29 event at the library may return as a virtual event.

    The Elizabeth Tilley shallop, a replica of the vessel that brought the Pilgrims to their first encounter with the Nauset in Eastham, is still on track to visit Provincetown and Rock Harbor in July. In an update after the commemoration committee’s April 27 meeting, chair Jim Russo wrote that his group and the Pilgrim John Howland Society are “both very aware that there are a multitude of circumstances that can change our plans at the last minute.”

    On the other hand, some events seem to be enhanced by the current situation. Vice chair Tom Ryan told the committee that a group of young adults is still interested in hosting a couple of open houses to highlight the historic personages interred in the Cove Burying Ground. After all, he noted drolly, “they’re usually buried six feet from each other.”

    Cape Cod National Seashore Volunteer Coordinator Sue Moynihan had less optimistic news. “We have lost some significant funding,” she said. Eastern National, which run stores at parks, “has had a tremendous financial loss and curtailed donations to the park.” The Wampanoag Day planned for Labor Day weekend has been postponed, and the August appearance of the Cape Symphony Orchestra is not certain.

    “Because we are nested under the federal and state governments,” Moynihan said, “a number of these decisions will not be ours to make.”

    The Eastham Historical Society, which has been planning a full summer of exhibits, talks, and other events, met this week to discuss options. Last week, the society’s Patty Donohoe told the committee the centerpiece this year is a display of Native American artifacts “all found in Eastham over at the Salt Pond. They’re up to 9,000 years old.” Eastham Public Library Director Debra DeJonker-Berry suggested that archaeologist Dan Zoto could offer a virtual tour of the exhibit and answer questions in a Zoom session.

    Russo suggested that the society hold some of its talks on the Schoolhouse Museum’s lawn, with proper seating separation. This summer, he said, people may see a grid on the Windmill Green demarcating seating areas for concerts.

    The 400 committee will meet again via Zoom on May 18.

    LONG ARM OF THE LAW

    Wampanoag Tribal Land Is Threatened

    Feds tell Mashpee tribe its reservation will be ‘disestablished’

    By

    TRURO — A new exhibition is being created at the Highland House Museum. Its purpose is to reframe the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of European settlers here, taking into account the history of the Wampanoag peoples.

    While the Outer Cape awaits its opening, the federal government has taken its own approach to resituating Wampanoag history. In an afternoon phone call on March 27, the Dept. of the Interior informed Mashpee Wampanoag tribal leadership that their 320-acre reservation would be disestablished and taken out of federal trust.

    David J. Silverman, a professor of native and colonial American history at George Washington University, told the Independent that the Mashpee Wampanoag have a connection to the Nauset people who inhabited the Outer Cape when the Mayflower arrived in 1620.

    People of the First Light, Silverman said, lived in communities throughout the Cape.

    “Over time, native people saw their land base diminish,” he said. “They were driven into debt by white creditors and courts, which have a long and terrible history throughout the 18th century, using their power to effectively force people to sell their land and even their children into servitude. Eventually, the only place left was Mashpee.”

    State Sen. Julian Cyr of Truro told the Independent that the Interior Dept.’s action was “outrageous and unprecedented.” Because reservations are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, there is little that state legislators can do besides protest.

    Still, Cyr is hoping to spur action in the senate through letters to Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and U.S. senators Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer. The letters have over 50 signers, including state Rep. Sarah Peake. “We’re circulating this letter in hopes of conveying our outrage,” Cyr said.

    The letter also supports H.R.312, a bill filed by U.S. Rep. Bill Keating that passed the House last year. It would reaffirm the Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation as trust land and require that a suit filed against the tribe be dismissed. But it stalled in the Senate after the president tweeted about it, warning Republican senators not to vote in favor.

    Keating told the Independent that the administration’s move was surprising, especially in the midst of a pandemic, when the tribe is focusing on health care. Keating said that lobbyists and advisers to the president have vested interests in preventing the Wampanoag from opening a casino in Taunton. The dissolution is “corrupt,” Keating said. “It’s despicable.”

    If the land is taken out of trust, the tribe will not be able to legally operate the casino.

    In a March 27 statement, Chair Cedric Cromwell said that the tribe hoped to prevent the loss of their land. “Today’s action was cruel and it was unnecessary,” he wrote.

    On March 31, the tribe filed an emergency restraining order in U.S. District Court to prevent the Interior Dept.’s action. They now have 45 days to find a solution. The reservation is the site of health services, a language immersion school for children, and newly constructed homes.

    Prof. Silverman said, “Trump himself has a decades-old vendetta against northeast Indians for cutting into his Atlantic earnings with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. He called them ‘fake Indians’ who got benefits that they didn’t deserve.”

    The Highland House Museum’s exhibition, according to Director Lauren Kaufman, would seek to affirm the native people’s culture. The museum’s goal is to help visitors find out about the culture that had been here on Cape Cod for 12,000 years when the Mayflower landed.

    “We hope to send the message,” Kaufman said, “that these people had established a successful life here long before the Pilgrims arrived.”

    In Plymouth, George Garmany, governor general of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, went further in an April 3 statement. “It is no exaggeration to state that the Pilgrims simply would never have survived without the help they received from those Wampanoag people,” the statement read. “All Americans, not just the millions who are descended from the Pilgrims, owe the Wampanoag people a debt of gratitude.”

    The statement went on to request that the Interior Dept. reverse its decision.

    Having land in trust is important for First Peoples to manage resources, police their community, and live in a way “that’s consistent with their values and interests,” Silverman said. “They have a right to govern their land and people.”

    Cyr emphasized that acknowledging First Peoples’ sovereignty and history is a crucial part of their ongoing struggle.

    “We’re part of a problematic history, and we’re not only descendants of that history, but our government is continuing to participate in it,” Cyr said.

    In his statement, Cromwell wrote of the Wampanoag people’s resilience: “We have survived, we will continue to survive. These are our lands, these are the lands of our ancestors, and these will be the lands of our grandchildren…. We will not rest until we are treated equally with other federally recognized tribes and the status of our reservation is confirmed.”

     

    SCREENINGS

    How the Wampanoags Brought Their Language Back to Life

    The film 'We Still Live Here' documents the effort

    By

    The story of the Wampanoag nation, the confederation of Native American tribes who lived in what is now Cape Cod and the Islands, southeastern Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, is a constellation of tragedies, first among many in the English colonization of North America. But there is an uplifting thread to that history that is recounted in Anne Makepeace’s documentary film We Still Live Here, which she will screen at the Eastham Public Library on Saturday: it’s the revival of the Wampanoag language a century after it was considered dead — no longer spoken and essentially lost. This tale combines dreams and ancient tradition with science, history, technology, and community organizing, and it’s a tale that is still unfolding.

    Wampanoag filmmakers
    Allie Humanek (with camera, left) and Anne Makepeace (in white) film We Still Live Here with members of the Wampanoag tribe. The film will screen at the Eastham library on Saturday. (Photo Jonathan Reed)

    In an interview by email with the Independent, Makepeace disputes summing up the Wampanoag saga as tragic. “This is a story of a Native American community taking agency in reclaiming their language and reviving their culture after 400 years of a deeply challenging history,” she says. The film tells of “the indomitable character of Jesse Little Doe Baird, whose passion, intelligence, commitment, determination, and vision brought her community together in their amazing 20-year effort to unearth clues to the language and bring it back as a living language.”

    The screening is part of a weekend of events that kick off Eastham’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Massachusetts in 1620. The film is not new — it was released in 2011 — but recent efforts to include the Native Americans’ side of the story of colonization gives it a new context and relevance.

    When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic, their first sight of land in the New World was Cape Cod. They were bound for Virginia, but when they turned south, the wintry seas and shoals around Chatham proved too challenging. They sought safe harbor in Provincetown for a few weeks before settling in Plymouth. A foraging party of colonists skirmished in Eastham with the indigenous Nauset (a Wampanoag tribe), an event known as the “First Encounter.” Shots were fired. No blood was shed.

    In the first decades after the English colonists established themselves in Massachusetts, they saw it as their mission to convert Native Americans to Christianity. For that purpose, shortly after the 1636 founding of Harvard University, the Indian College was established there. The Indian College had a press, imported from England, which was used to produce the first Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere — the Eliot Indian Bible — in the Natick dialect of the Massachusett language. When the Wampanoag language eventually died out, this Bible would be instrumental in bringing it back to life.

    Another important set of texts were handwritten deeds to lands throughout southeastern Massachusetts, dating from the 17th through the 19th centuries, many of which were signed by Wampanoag elders and included Wampanoag-language entries written in the Roman alphabet. One such document is the original deed to the town of Eastham, an 18th-century copy of which hangs today in the town administrator’s office.

    In the 1990s, Jesse Little Doe Baird, who is a Mashpee Wampanoag, worked with linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with the support of Noam Chomsky, to reconstruct the language, based on the old Wampanoag texts, supplemented by other indigenous languages that are still spoken. The film adroitly shows how she and other members of the Wampanoag tribe in Mashpee and Martha’s Vineyard worked assiduously to develop instructional materials, learn the language, and bring it back into common use in the community. Baird’s daughter, Mae, is the first native speaker of the language in the new generation, and Baird and others have been teaching other children of the tribe as well.

    Jessie Little Doe Baird and daughter
    Jessie Little Doe Baird (left), a Mashpee Wampanoag who worked with linguists at M.I.T., including Noam Chomsky, to reconstruct the Wampanoag language, chats with her daughter, Mae, the first Wampanoag of her generation to be a native speaker. (Photo courtesy CulturalSurvival.org)

    Baird earned a master’s degree from M.I.T. and was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010 and an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 2017.

    Makepeace is not Native American. In fact, her direct ancestors were among the early inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who fought against the Wampanoag in King Philip’s War, including at the 1675 battle known as the Great Swamp Massacre. (The war wiped out 40 percent of the Wampanoag population.) Makepeace says that when she confessed this to Baird, Baird responded, “You’re closing the circle.”

    As the towns of Eastham, Provincetown, and Plymouth gear up to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival, they are making special efforts to include the Native American perspective. Eastham will get things started with the screening of We Still Live Here on Dec. 7. The following day, there will be a sunrise service at First Encounter Beach, and an afternoon presentation at the library — “Eastham, Beyond the First Encounter” — featuring Native American drummers and storytellers.

    “Eastham 400 has made every effort to put forward an inclusive and historically accurate series of events that will take place in 2020,” says Eastham Select Board member Jamie Rivers. “History is often a one-sided report, and the best we can do now is help paint a broader picture of that historic day from as many perspectives as possible.”

    Rivers was instrumental in setting aside two of the eight positions on the Eastham 400 Commemoration Committee for Native Americans. No members of the modern Wampanoag tribe are known to live in the town, and, so far, the seats are unfilled.

    Words to the Wampanoag
    The event: Screening of the documentary We Still Live Here, with filmmaker Anne Makepeace
    The time: Saturday, Dec. 7, at 1 p.m.
    The place: Eastham Public Library, 220 Samoset Road
    The cost: Free

    PROVINCETOWN 400

    Select Board Looks for Help With Pilgrims’ Park, Wampanoag Memorial

    Architect will make menu of options; indigenous memorial specialist sought

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The select board is looking to break the logjam on two projects related to the Provincetown 400 commemorations.

    The board voted on Oct. 15 to hire a landscape architect to help improve the Pilgrims’ First Landing Park, inside the rotary at the far end of Commercial Street, near the spot where the Pilgrims are supposed to have first set foot in America.

    Pilgrims' First Landing Park.
    Memorial stones and benches at the Pilgrims’ First Landing Park in the West End. (Photo Paul Benson)

    They also voted to get quotes from a half-dozen specialists on indigenous memorials — consultants who are versed in the complexities of how cities can best honor indigenous people and create public art. In both cases, it is hoped that consultants can provide an informed assessment of options and a proper breakdown of costs.

    On the Pilgrims’ First Landing Park, the dept. of public works and the public landscape committee are now reading from the same page. They had offered two different plans, but they now have presented a joint memo outlining a first phase that could be complete by spring 2020, following by phase two. Rich Waldo of the DPW and members of the committee described their respective roles and their hopes for the landscape architect’s help.

    Their current focus is on clearing the weed-infested rosa rugosa and trimming trees to open up sight lines to the water and clear space for more appealing plantings in the spring. The committee also proposed working with the historical commission on language for new signs. The landscape consultant will be charged with rearranging the seating areas and pedestrian walkways and considering signs and memorial placements.

    The Mayflower Compact is supposed to have been signed near this spot, but the park is also home to a large group of paving stones and benches that commemorate individuals who lived in or loved Provincetown. Integrating these individual markers with a Pilgrim marker and an indigenous marker is a key design challenge the landscape architect will be addressing.

    Select board member Lise King read a statement arguing for the importance of recognizing the indigenous people who were living here when the Pilgrims made landfall.

    “We have a moral obligation to recognize the impact on those people, families, communities that were here at this time,” said King. “The park contains memorial granite plaques marking the passing of loved ones. We can’t have a bunch of memorial stones and no indigenous memorial stone.”

    King proposed that phase one, ready by spring 2020, ought to have some kind of sign, marker, or language honoring native peoples, even if the installation of a more substantial memorial were not happening until phase two.

    Later in the select board’s meeting, discussion turned to a request from King to solicit quotes to hire an indigenous public memorial specialist. Efforts to install a Wampanoag memorial at the Bas Relief park have broken down, partly because while the original site considered was at the Pilgrim Monument, which is on private land, an attempt to install that same design on public land raised questions about site location, artistic vision, procurement procedures, and historical justice that accumulated into a thicket of difficulties.

    King reported to the board that other cities and towns have faced similar challenges around inclusive remembrance in a municipal context. She said that several nationally known Native American curators, anthropologists, and specialists in public art have begun contracting to help towns work through these subjects.

    “It’s such a specific skill set,” said King. “There has to be a background in public art, in memorial building and public art, people who know how to work within the municipal process.”

    After some discussion about whether the prior Wampanoag memorial efforts were truly stalled — “the parties who were participating are no longer communicating with us,” King confirmed — the select board voted unanimously to solicit quotes from experts in hopes of bringing their experience to Provincetown’s parks.

    © 2024 The Provincetown Independent, all rights reserved.

    terms of service