Wampanoag
The Wampanoag (Wôpanâak in current orthography) are a Native American people. In 1600 they lived in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and had a population of about 12,000.
Wampanoag leaders included Squanto, Samoset, Metacomet (King Philip), and Massasoit. The tradition of Thanksgiving was adopted from this tribe and its interaction with the Pilgrims.
Wampanoag language
At one time the Wampanoag spoke an Algonquian language, sometimes called Massachusett. After contact with European settlers, the Roman alphabet was used to provide an orthography for Wampanoag. Surviving texts include the first Bible published in the Western hemisphere (a translation by John Eliot, published in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1663), and a large body of legal material. English words borrowed from Wampanoag include squaw, now only derogative; wampum, the old shell currency; skunk; and mugwump, as well as the geographical names of many places in Massachusetts, such as Aquinnah, Manomet, Hyannis, etc.
The language became extinct in the 19th century. Recently, serious efforts have been undertaken (as the result of a 1993 initiative of the Wampanoag tribe) to revive the language, on the basis of the surviving texts and evidence from neighboring Algonquian languages such as Passamaquoddy that are still spoken. The project has been carried out by with assistance from linguists of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including the late Ken Hale and his student Norvin Richards. At present, an active program of language classes is underway, and there are children being raised with Wampanoag as their first language (for the first time in almost two centuries).
Wampanoag culture
The Wampanoag subsisted, as did other tribes of the Eastern Woodlands, on the "Three *Sisters" (maize, beans, and squash) along with the fruits of hunting, fishing and gathering. Unlike tribes of the Iroquois, the Wampanoag lived in wetus instead of longhouses.
Prior to the advent of the Pilgrims in 1620, the population had been drastically reduced by epidemics spreading from the French colonies. Due to the influence of Massasoit, the Wampanoag maintained strained but peaceful relations with the Pilgrims until the violence of King Philip's War. King Philip declared war on the pilgrims for several reasons, his people were being displaced by the growing pilgrim population, some English Puritans were succeeding in efforts to convert the Wampanoag to their religion (reputedly sometimes by force), and the King was unhappy with the negative cultural influence on his society. At the end of that strife, most of the Wampanoag and their Narraganset allies had been eliminated. Survivors fled to other tribes in New England. Some of the tribe on the islands had not been involved in the dispute and provided shelter for their kinsmen. Wampanoag in the hands of the Colonial forces were either relocated or sold into slavery.
The Wampanoags today
Today, descendants, many of them also descended from the now-extinct Nauset tribe of the tip of Cape Cod, have a population of about 3,000 and live throughout Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts, with an important community in Mashpee and Aquinnah (Gay Head) on Martha's Vineyard, which is also a federally recognized tribe with a reservation.
President George Herbert Walker Bush and his son President George Walker Bush are believed to have Wampanoag ancestry.
References
- The Bush Family ISBN 059533269 book gives details of the Bush ancestors including Wampanoag ancestors of George H.W. Bush & George W. Bush.