Transcripts For CSPAN3 Wampanoag People 20240711

I have nantucket ties to here. My people have been around this area, massachusetts, for over 12,000 years. As you heard from the last speaker, right . And were still here today. Okay. Now what im going to do today is like wampanoag, right, is a culture of people. 1 out of over 1,000 indigenous cultures going across north america. What makes wampanoag different from the other thousand, it could be language, it could be diet, tkit could be the housinge lived in. But one common bond we have, how we think about life in general. We respect all forms of life, human life, plant life. We dont put ourselves above or below that. Thats one thing we have all in common. I do a lot of teaching. And i ask the people, what race do we come from . The human race, right . So we should all respect each other. And thats rule of thumb for my people, you know. Like i said, weve been here 12,000 years. Thats me up there, my lovely wife who teaches language. Right next to me holding a turkey feather mantle. What im going to do, guys, im going to bring you to a year, 1613, before those my major interruption in our culture, okay . Im going to bring you to our new years. You think about our new years, right, a lot of peoples new years starts january 1st. Our new year starts when everything comes to life. Think about it, when does everything come to life. Springtime, right . Thats when the birds start chirping, thats when the oak leaf comes out. Everything is new again. Every year it could be a day or so different. In our new year, we thank mother earth, the creator for having another year, because its not guaranteed. We do a lot of dancing and feasting and socializing. But once that happens, we know we have to get to work, right . And these are the types of houses we live in during the summertime. The spring and summer. This is a spring and summer matcovered wetu. These reeds right here are cat tails. Cat tail is a water plant. And weve been doing this for years. And everything we do at the museum, right, we do ourself. We go out and gather the cat tails, late august, early september, and make these mats in the winter for our houses, right. And the mats will last three to five years. Theyre waterproof. They have a cup to it, so it acts like a natural funnel. And these houses would hold one family. Its different from a european family, back then. European family is husband, wife, kids. Our family has husband, wife, kids, aunts, grandparents. Youre looking at three or four generations inside one house. And thats one big thing that was different. We would have englishmen come into our houses and say, this guy has five wives. Maybe. But maybe not. Then again, not realizing what theyre looking at possibly. What theyre looking at is sisters, grandmothers, aunts, so thats what my job is, look at these primary sources and break it down what it means for the wampanoag people in indigenous cultures. Okay . So those are the houses we live in in the summer. What we do during the summer, now this is our planting field, right . Everybody loves corn, beans and squash, right . They call them the three sisters. And the women take care of the fields. They are considered to be the givers of life. They also give life to mother earth. You look at the planting field. It has a mound. The woman do a mound with dirt. And thats symbolic to a womans symptom wh stomach when she gives life. When do you plant corn . You have to wait for different signs in nature. Once the herrings start to run, you wait until the next new moon. The reason you do it on the new moon, the new moon draws gravity up. It helps that corn seed to grow. You plant corn. Corn takes nitrogen out of the grown, you plant your beans right next to it, and the beans will add nitrogen back into the ground. What you plan on the bottom . Your squashes, watermelons and pumpkins. They have a large leaf and will shade the ground and keep it soft. Vegetables represent half to twothirds of the diet. Probably in nan tuck et, it was probably more seafood. Going far west is worcester, going to parts of rhode island, all the islands, nantucket, let me mention some names to you. Back then we had over 70 wampanoag communities. Nantucket sound familiar . These are name places and town names. But theyve always been wampanoag communities. And at one time, we numbered over 100,000. Today its 12,000. And well get into that a little later. Thats a planting field. What is next we know they take care of the field. What do the kids do during the spring or summer . These are this is my daughter right here. This is her in this picture when she was 11 years old. Maybe 10. And thats her younger sister storm with her. What shes doing is picking sumac. You pick those berries, you boil them up, and that has three times vitamin c as orange juice does. Kids helped out a little bit, but they played, had races, went swimming, swimming, joked around. As you would change as a person, your names would change to fit how you are. Now you wouldnt pick the names yourself. We still have medicine people in our community that gives us names depending on how we are. Lets talk about tashima . What does that mean . Tashima means one who lifts up. Its not because shes physically strong, its because she waks up in a good mood every single day. When she does that, she raises everybody in the house. Kids are given more responsibility as they matured. This is me and my lovely life. We did a lot of fishing back then. Still do today. Still a big part of the culture. We saw a lot of men going ocean fishing, freshwater fishing, a lot of the women would get to shellfish, clams, mussels, crabs. The biggest fish we would go for, large parts of wampanoag country, any idea what the biggest fish was that would go in the rivers and ocean back and forth . 20, 30 foot in length sometimes. Stergen. We go fishing for these boats in nighttime. We had boats big enough to carry 40 men. We have three different recordings of european seeing 40man boats being sailed out to nantucket island. Not paddled, sailed. Which we paddle too, we pull along to shore. We go out at nighttime, we would have torches on the end of our boats. It would attract the fish up and they would flip up on their belly and we would spare them. Salmon was another fish. We had so much flounder. Cod was so thick, you can walk across the backse of the cod. Lobster, not a big deal. We used lobster as fishing bait. We have so much lobster, we picked them right off the beach. You go back to 100 years ago and lobster was fed to prisoners in jail every single day. And the prisoners had a big uprising. They said, were sick of this. We dont want no more. So there was a law that you could only feed lobster to prisoners twice a week. If you did it more than that, it was considered to be inhuman. Back in 1623, governor bradford had a ship come him. He was like, im sorry, this is all the lobster we have to give you guys. It takes on today different meaning. We did a lot of fishing during the summer. Thats why we do the majority of the fishing. We want to go inland a little bit away from the ocean. Its hard to do in nantucket. Im sure you try to find more shelter around the more woodsy area. And you get protection from the wind from the ocean. Inland may be a half mile, maybe a mile. These are the houses we live in. We heard the name before long houses. Theyre barkcovered houses. And normally during the winter, these houses could be 100 foot long to one of the biggest houses we found the footprint of this house, right. It was a structure like this. This footprint was found in worcester. It was 300 foot in length 320 foot in length and 60 foot in width. Think of a football field, thats how big this house was. The frames were made out of cedar. The outside bark would have been ch chestnut and elm. We used to use white ash. But you have the emerald ash bug today that is wiping out those trees. And they get well talk about that in a minute. The men did the hunting, like i said, the men are considered to be the takers of life. And we hunt for the deer, for big game. There was so much deer around here at one time. On the mainland, we go for black bear, elk, moose. Small animals, do you guys like the taste of skunk . Anybody . Thats a good answer. Never tried it, right. Skunk is considering to be a wampanoag delicacy. How do you catch a skunk . Very carefully, right . You get two boys, one boy will be in front of the skunk distracting him, you get the other boy who will sneak up from behind. In order for a skunk to spray, he has to be on all fours, putting pressure on his hind legs. You get him up in the air, he cant do that. You have a club, you bang him over the head and you cut him open and take his stink glands out. If you puncture the stink glands, you might not be welcomed into the community for a wild. Some elders say you take that gland of the skunk and you rub it on your arthritis and it works. [ laughter ] i dont have arthritis. They dont sell it in drugstores yet either. What we do a lot during the winter is a lot of the woman do a lot of the weaving. Were known for our weaving, the wampanoag people. Some of our weavers are the best in the world and some of their work is in the smithsonian in washington, d. C. Theres a woman who is a relative of mine, and her work is in the smithsonian in washington, d. C. We made string. How do we make string . We use different plants, milk weed, bark of a bass wood tree. We take the stalks after theyre dead, take the inner fibers out and work them together on our leg. When the colonists got here, they noticed women making string so fast that their eyes couldnt keep up with it. Then we dye it with different types of berries and roots for the coloring. We have small bags like you see here and we had large bushel bags to store our dried vegetables so we would have food during the winter. This is an interior of a house. Those are all of my daughters right there. Those are three out of my four. I have four daughters and no boys. So my oldest daughter is named taleah. The two sitting on the ground. I want to break out for a second. I want to tell you where these pictures come from. We work with scholastic quite a bit over the years. In 2016 they came to plymouth plantation and asked if they could made a video and put this across every third grade class in the united states. We said, sure. We set up the script. Richard and i worked on it quite a bit. We showed how wampanoag and colonial kids lived back then. Back in the 17th century and before. But then again it leads up to what they do today. Shows tashma riding the bikes, wearing clothes like they have on today. Thats what kids relate to. They think were gone. Just because we wear different clothing today at times, were still here. And i do a lot of teaching, right. And this video is across every third grade class in the united states. Sometimes when i walk in these third grade classes, theyre playing a video, its called the wampanoag way. You can google it, right. I play the father in it. Im dressed up in 17th century skins. When im walking in one classroom, right, i see a boy watching the video on the screen. He sees me walking in [ laughter ] he said, your storms dad. Its a surreal moment. Inside these houses, right, we have bedding, we dont sleep on the ground. We have furs on the beds. We have mats on the beds. Like i said, the houses got really big, round shaped. They get really warm too. 60, 70 degrees. When youre making these houses, i do quite a bit of these houses myself. I build them. Every ten feet or so, you want to have a fire pit on the inside and thats to keep you warm during the winter. It is a round shape. You cant see on the walls, but we have bull rush mats on the walls. You have bark, interior frame, then you have your mats. Two layers of mats. You got the one full gap, right. Because of the way the house is shaped, the heat is going to rise, underneath the mats, force the cold out out and that keeps the air going around in circles. When the europeans got here and they went inside the houses, they said that the houses were so warm in the winter that they saw native children running outside naked in the winter and jumping out into the snow. They get quite warm. We lived like that for thousands of years, guys. We went through that cycle. The following sbripring, we celebrate new years again. No need for the winter, why not gather back together and be more communal. The Winter Community in the winter could hold 300 to 3,000 people before disease hit. Now that was before any major interruption. Thats a 13 moon cycle real quick. Thats called the last 1613. One thing i want to say real quick is, you hear the term survival from native people, how did you guys survive back then . Well, weve been doing this for 12,000 years. You dont roll over in bed one morning, where am i going to get food today . Theres a system already set up, generations long before, that people knew how to hunt and fish. Like you said, we call last 1613, okay . Lets move to 1614. There was trading going on. First european traders out here was 1524. The trade started blooming in the early 1600s. Back in 1614, though, guys, when trading happened, what english wanted and french and dutch was a lot of otter pelts and beaver pelts. They made their hats out of. But what happened in 1614, there was an english captain named thomas hunt. He came down the coast and he went to an area which is called plymouth today. That was a thriving Wampanoag Community, probably over 1,000 people. And thats how you describe yourself back then, guys. If youre traveling to pa tux sit and you went up to somebody and said, hey, what are you . They probably wouldnt say wampanoag. They would describe themselves from Wampanoag Community speaking company theyre from. When thomas hunt came to the area, he took them as slaves. A lot of people think of africanamericans, thinks of slavery. Took 19 pa tux sit, went down cape, and took eight others. The reminder was sold to england. One of those guys who were sold to england, his name was squanto. He lived in england with a merchant. He lived there for five years. He learned a lot about england culture. He knew how to speak england fluently over those five years. But what happened to squanto, there was a man who is funding a lot of these trips and theyre asking who is from this area, whats called Plimoth Patuxet. They said squanto is . Where is he . He said, get him, i want to do another adventure. He sends thomas to pick up squanto. This is 1619. He hasnt seen his home since 1614. Hes picked up in newfoundland by thomas, he comes down the they come down the coast, stop at moe heegen island, and picked up a chief in his own language. He knew how to speak english. New a lot of the english captains back then by name. They kept on going down the coast. When they were going down the coast, guys in 1619, they saw something devastating. The most devastating thing that ever happened to our people. Disease. There was a major epidemic that happened between 1616 and 1618, 1619 when squanto was in england. This plague, skin turned yellow, people got open sores on their bodies and they died within two or three days. It wiped out the native population on the coast, 70 to 90 were wiped out within two to three years. That plague as far as we know didnt effect a lot of the people on the islands, like nantucket. Its hard for disease to go over water. Thats why a lot of the people out here were protected from that plague. And people probably moved out here for protection from the plague. What we know about the plague, right, the common thought over the years, hepatitis, skin turning yellow, open sores. Disease control came out with something over ten years ago. They believed it might be leptosperosis. They had rats on the trade ships. And the fetus of the rats getting into the water system causing a liver disease. Thats what the theory is now. I say this, you can put whatever name on it, it doesnt matter to me. What i do know, it was the most devastating thing that happened to our people, period. As theyre coming down the coast with squanto and samoset, they come to Plimoth Patuxet. Imagine that, squanto coming back home, finds out all of these people are dead. Is that going to change you as a person . I think so. They end up gophing to the vineyard. And there was a leader at the vineyard. He was taken as a slave in 1811. He made it back, though. How he made it back was in 1614, they were asking him, is there gold where you are at . Is there gold at the island you come from . He was a chief, he wasnt dumb. Hes thinking, yeah, theres gold. You bring me back home, you tell me where the gold is at. In 1614, they brought him back home. Thats when he yelled something in the native tongue. A lot of his men came running to the beach, they attacked the ship and he had a chance to jump over and swam to shore. He sees another ship coming in in 1619. Hes home for five years. Hes thinking, people are coming to get me again. So theres another fight that breaks out. Derma gets injured badly. Squanto and samoset get released. And they end up in massasoits community. 70 wampanoag communities. What we know for sure, massasoit was a leader of the biggest and strongest Wampanoag Community located in rhode island today. Samoset and squanto end up there. Lets fast track to 1620. The pilgrims are arriving. They finally settle in plymouth, december 1620. They had a bad year that winter. A lot of people died. From what i hear, february was the deadliest month. But they were building their homes. Staying on the mayflower. They settled there because it was good water. So massasoit, he heard about these people building homes. Were always used to people coming over europeans coming over here. We werent used to people coming over and staying. That was different. What made these people different, they brought their women and children and that might have meant a friendlier type of people. But he didnt know. He calls over samoset, hey, samoset, come here. You know how to speak english, right . Why dont you go into these people, right, go into Plimoth Patuxet and find out why these people are building their homes. Massasoit was a leader. Hes not one of my men. So i dont know whats going to happen to him. Come march 1621, samoset walks into the pilgrim village. They considered him to be naked. He didnt have that much clothing on. He had on just a breech cloth. He goes welcome englishmen in their own language. They were shocked in seeing a native person speaking english to them. He told them about the land, the area, the plague that just came through. He stays at Steven Hawkins house over the evening. He goes back and tells masassoit its okay to come along. He comes along and brings 60 of their men and thats when they make the famous treaty between the two people, the peace treaty. You think about it, i mention that plague coming down the coast, that plague stopped dead in its tracks right before the territory started. Any thoughts about that, why it stopped right there . We have two good thoughts, right. They did not like each other for at least two or three generations before there was any european contact here. And down there the, you got the large body of water. And disease is hard to go over water. But then, again, they saw that the wampanoag were depleting in numbers. They brought thought, ill start to attack. And masassoits community was located on the border. Before the chief came out and made an alliance with the colonists, masassoit did. So one needed each other because how you really felt for the english staying it, it wasnt one universal answer. You have to go from community to community. If your brother got taken as a slave before are you going to be happy . No. But masassoit had a lot of power. Basically, its the seven pieces of the treaty, if you go to war, i am help you out, if i go to war, ill help you out. We know that treaty lasted over 50 for 55 years. No major, major conflict of war. Later on in 1621, thats win squanto lives and stays with the colonists and he teaches them how to plant corn. Thats what hes famous for, rights . Featuring them how to plant corn. Thats what hes in the textbooks about. Squanto was a changed person. He liked having power. He caused a lot of trouble back then. He died in 1622. But that two years, he caused a lot of drama. He would go to masassoit and say, you better watch out. Bradford wants to attack. Run back to bradford and say the same thing. Back and forth and back and forth. Masassoit was fed up. He sent his men out to plymouth with his own personal knife and wanted squantos head and hands delivered back to him. Governor bradford is thinking, i should do this because this is this could be one of the first breaks of the treaty. If they do something wrong, we have to turn that person over. Masassoit comes out with gifts too, by the way, to give governor bradford with his own personal knife. Statement, there was a ship that was coming in the water and governor bradford was distracted and he said, wait a second, the guys got frustrated and went back home. Squanto died in 1622. He leads a few others down the chatham for a trading scenario, meet and greet. That evening when he was in one of the houses, he had a nosebleed that wouldnt stop. It was called indian fever back then. Some type of hemorrhaging going on. When he was lying on his deathbed, he asked english if he would be accepted into their gods. He might have been a changed person, he knew what he was doing. This guy right here doesnt get much praise in the textbooks. Hobbamock, if it wasnt because of this guy, history would have been different from today. Masassoit made that treaty with the english in 1621. He needed somebody this village was 40 miles west. He needed an ambassadorship out here on plymouth colony. Thats when he sent hobbamock to live amongst the english. He lived with his family of over ten people from 10, 15 years of his life. He was the closest friend the closest native the english would consider to be a friend. They dont say much about his family. They say hobbamock has more than one wife. I wish i knew one of his wifes names, because she plays a major role in the diplomacy. She actually reports back and forth to masassoit about whats going on, especially with squanto, but they never give her name. They dont say much about his family structure. Were guessing he lived in a home like normal, what he was used to. He kept peace between the two people. He was considered to be a panice and its one who counsels on war and one who leads into battle. And theyre considered to be indestruckable. Youre chosen from childhood. You have special qualities. From then on youre raised. One of the final stages, youre given a stone knife. You would go into the woods alone for a winter, if you came back, you would be a panice. If you didnt, you wouldnt. Hes highly respected amongst the people. He kept other people native people who didnt like yhesa key role player. Lets skip up a little bit here. Praying towns. If youve been on the homeland well, my homeland, this is the oldest Meeting House in the united states. It was built in 1684. We heard a little bit about praying towns. We know a lot of it started in ma thats vineyard. Learning about the King James Bible and they say one of my relatives, knew the bible so well, he was preaching to other people. There was a preacher who called him out and said, what are you doing . We have our own ways of doing things. Why are you teaching Something Different and punched him in the face. But he continued to preach. He made it over here. Well talk about his son, what he did. We know it was the first praying town of 1651. There was about 14 of them, you had the cotton wood, you have john elliots. Do i have that what im looking for here . I want to talk about this right here. This is the son right here, joel iacoomes. When praying town was being formed, john elliot was the one. Caleb was another. Might have heard of the book calebs crossing. And these two guys would have been the first graduating class of Harvard University back in 1665. One graduated, caleb did. Joel did not. Okay. Joel was considered, the reason he did not graduate is two weeks before graduation, he went home to marthas vineyard, on the way back, stopped here in nantucket, and he got killed, and it was probably his own people that did it because christianity didnt make it to 1859. There was a lot of tradition here. Basically asking what he was doing. I always say about the praying indians, you dont know what theyre going through unless you walk a mile in their moccasins, so i never judge like that. But what harvard did back in 2011, they invited my family up there, and gave us a posthumous degree in his name, which harvard rarely does, and this is it right here. Also, when elliot was teaching the bible to native people back in the 50s and 60s. He he felt like the native people were picking up the religion quick enough, so what he did was hired native interprets and wrote the bible in wampanoag, my language. Theres a good story, some of you guys might have heard about language. Back in the 1990s, there was a woman from my community, shes a vice chair today, right, her name is jesse little doe beard. She was having dreams. She said people were coming into a dream speaking a different tongue. This happened night after night after night. The people looked familiar but did not know their names. One of her dreams, the people spoke english to her. They say if the wampanoag people have the chance to get the language back, would they say yes. So she took it upon herself, went to m. I. T. , graduated with a degree in linguistics and started piecing the language back together again. How this was done, elders who could still speak some of the language. Old records were in wampanoag, okay. Similar language families, but what helped a great deal was that bible, the King James Bible written in wampanoag. And we had one of those first editions in our grasp today. So today we have our language back. My wife is one of the teachers of the language. We have a montessori school. We teach prek up to third grade, and every year we add a grade to it. Going back three years ago or maybe two, the wampanoag is taught still right now in masassoit high school, english, french, dutch, portuguese, we open to other schools, and its a cool story. If you lose your culture, you lose part of what you are, thats your identity, and we got it back. Lets fast forward to war. Nobody likes war but war broke out. What i can tell you in 1657, and 1660, thats when two of the first big leaders lost their lives. We know governor bradford lost in 57, passed away. We know masassoit in 1660. Youve got the next generation coming up which didnt care for each other a whole lot. Why . The thought of land. One people thought of ownership, and the other people did not think of ownership. One culture would build fences around where they lived, the other culture walked across what they would call their backyard. You cant be here no more. This is not yours anymore. The culture, thats my culture. For a native person theyre thinking, what do you mean i cant be here no more. I dont get that. Land is part of what you are as a person. Other cultures have a different way of thought. That was the reasons, you know, and in 1675, the war broke out in june. It was the bloodiest war per capita in england, around massachusetts about a year so, a couple more years, farther north, king phillip was masassoit second son, his original name was madacamin. That was a guy to reckon with. Heard a native person talking bad about him. He took his canoe and paddled out here, confront this person. He also asked a lot of people in the islands to join into the war. You know, i believe they stayed by themselves, but that war lasted about a year. It ended up with Benjamin Church led my native guide, finding king phillip, august 12th, 1676, at his home, what is called mount hope, and when they found him, they dismantled him, they took his head off. They took his arm limb by limb and threw it around. Took his head back to plymouth, put it on the post for 20 years. They are thinking, what are we going to do with his wife and kid. Didnt think death was right. A lot of them were sold to slaves. Close, whats going on today, a lot of people sold down to bermuda, one of the islands down there, and those people over those hundreds of years still have that cultural identity. They know who they are. So we at wampanoag people go down and visit them one year, and they come up to their pow wow in gnanashby, july 4th week, if youre around, come see us. They were just up here a few weeks ago so its kind of cool. Lets go a little forward to what happened here, a large population, 400 or so people over here in nantucket, and theres a vaccine given to native people in 1763, 1764 that wiped out 2 3 of the population of people, you know, you heard gene o bryants story a little earlier. What happened to the people afterwards, a lot of people stayed isolated by themselves after that. A lot of people might have took off to virginia. People were spread out. You hear a lot about the last indians and all that. You look, from a personal lens, you know, if it wasnt a lot of people say if its not recorded its not true. Its not written down, thats not true. So that happened. Lets go forward a little, about 1830. You guys heard of president jackson. Yeah, 1830, he wanted to remove all native people on the east coast, which he did, west of the mississippi. Oklahoma was one of the states relocation. The reason i bring this up, those agents come around here, too, for wampanoag people. They wanted us out west of oklahoma, and theres one nonnative voice that stood up. His name being john quincy adams, and he said, if you bring these people out west, theyre going to die. The reason theyre going to die is because they rely on seafood in their diet, and they believed him. And thats why we were left alone. The last two, they say, indians nantucket. Who knows. Like i said before, some peoples lenses. They died within seven months apart, seven weeks. What else have we got here . This is kind of cool right here. We might be doing this next year around here. Seriously. We just got a 40 foot log, i dont know if you know, looking at it next week. A 40 foot white pine log, which were going made a mashoon out of. The guy in the back is named, hes wampanoag. We wanted to stay in this boat, this big 30 foot boat. Hey, lets race for it. So we took 212 foot boats, he took one, i took another, mas shr and went across the eel river. It was like speedboats, and he beat me by half a boat length. He got to steer the boat. This trip took a lot of planning, it took three years of planning. We finally made the trip, though, and it involved large nations of people. It involved pequa wampanoag, of course. You heard of wood sole, we left august 18th of 2002. We left 6 00 a. M. , we left high tide, we attended winds to our back. We landed over tashmu. If it was a straight shot. It would have been 5 miles. We had to get out of ferry lanes, a 7 mile paddle. Ill give you the elements, tell me how long it took. And ill tell you the most experienced paddles, including myself, everybody is saying three hours. Theres nobody living who could say this is how long its going to take you. Any guesses in the crowd . Hour and a half, correct. When we made this trip, we kind of beat the perry. We saw a few hundred people saw us leave. And those people had to take a shuttle to the ferry, take the ferry over to Vineyard Haven and take a shuttle to tashmu beach and we had beaten them there by a half hour. So they were telling us, were going to have a big celebration, were going to be dancing and singing when you guys arrive into the port. Were excited, even a clam bake maybe, you know, so i remember paddling in, that day, when we left, it was really cloudy. And when we were coming to tashmu all the fog broke and im paddling in, where is everybody. We werent wearing watchings, so we didnt know how long it was taking u taking us, and we saw people on the beach, eight sunbathers from nebraska. So once we landed, because we were dressed in 17th srccentury skins, the first thing out of their mouths was you guys do this every day. I go this hasnt been done in a couple hundred years. Like i said, weve got this 40 foot boat were going to be making. A lot of things we want to do with this next year, and have nantucket involved. We have some ideas so stay tuned. Leaping up to 1870, thats when a lot of communities got incorporated, mine being one, mashpee and what that meant for our people is, okay, now its considered to be a township so whats happened, they gave you 25 acres of your own land but now were going to tax you on it. Congratulations. So that word incorporation means a different term in my language. So we lost a lot of our land like that. Fast forward to the 1900s. On cape cod became cape cod, tourist attraction. Where i live in mashpee, nobody really moved to mashpee, not until probably the 90s. And mashpee was the fastest developing town in massachusetts in the 90s and today, let me go back, today we have our we literally got fully recognized by the u. S. Government in 2007 as a people. Okay. And what we do today, we have health services. We have programs for housing, health, education. We do our pow pwow, which is juy 4th weekend. This right here is a special dance we did this past pow wow. This is a lot of my family. We did it for my brother who passed away back in 97. He got killed in rhode island. His name was melvin coombs, and we danced for him. I havent visited here in eight or ten years, but my daughter and myself, we went out to the cemetery up the road where my family is buried, a lot of my family. My father was raised here. My aunt was raised here. My grandparents were raised here. My grandfather was coombs, ii, the first being driest coombs the first from mashpee. My grandfather moved here from mashpee. You got my grandmother ruth west, born in 1895. Passed away in 1964. And she had a stillborn son 1919. So i visited grounds yesterday, right, and i was i googled indians of nantucket, and i came across a picture that i have in my living room. This is my grandmother. And you guys, the Nantucket Historical site has it right here. Im like, and there wasnt a name underneath it. Thats ruth west. Thats my grandmother. She passed away in like i said, 1964. But yeah, do more digging to see where her actual roots are from. This is one woman, i heard its not mashpee. She doesnt show up in the records in mashpee, i cant find her in the records in quinner, im going to keep on digging. Thank you, guys, any questions, thats my story, guys. American history tv is on social media. Follow us at cspan history. You can watch a