In the ever-present condition of change among things and men, the name of Chappaquansett seems doomed to be forgotten, though once frequently heard the length and breadth of the Island. For few people mention today the Indian name of that curious, low area that lies between West Chop and Makonikey along the Sound shore.
True, the character of the place has greatly changed through the centuries and even through the past few generations. There are no more farms such as the early Vineyarders knew, and the encampments of Indians had disappeared long before that.
The work of dredging now going on at Tashmoo Creek focuses attention upon one of the historical landmarks of the Island and one of which very little is remembered or preserved. Indians called this locality Chappaquansett, and old records refer to the creek as Chappaquansett Creek, rather than Tashmoo. It is evident that the Indians frequented this place in the olden days, as sizable middens have been located nearby and others are presumably buried beneath the shifting sands or have been washed out to sea.
While the election of Mr. Vanderhoop last Tuesday was not unexpected, the size of the majority by which that result was secured was probably hardly anticipated even by his friends. The campaign for Mr. Vanderhoop developed into a regular craze as it progressed; he became a sort of Buffalo Bill-among-the-British-nobility. People began to glory in the notion of elevating a Gay Head Indian to in some respects the highest place in the gift of the county.
“Yea, those of the Isles of Capawack sent to make friendship.” With these words, Governor Bradford, recording in his history, “Of Plimouth Plantation”, a moral triumph over the surrounding savages, singles out for mention by name the most dreaded tribe under Massasoit, Sachem of the Warmanoag, of southern Massachusetts.
Mrs. Priscilla Freeman, formerly of Deep Bottom but now of Cottage City, one of the few remaining having Indian blood coursing in her veins, if her story is correct – and we believe it is – is a wronged woman.
The federal government Wednesday recognized the tribal status of the Gay Head Wampanoag Indians in a historic decision that opens the way to settlement of the bitter, 12-year-old land claim dispute.
When the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe received a telephone call from U.S. Department of Interior last week, formally announcing their federal recognition as a sovereign Indian tribe, members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) looked across to the Cape with a warm heart and a jaded eye.
They had lived through a similar moment almost 20 years ago to the day, when they celebrated their status as the first federally recognized tribe in the commonwealth.
When the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) broke ground on a community center building in the spring of 2004, tribal leaders envisioned it as an important gathering place, and said young members would be shooting hoops inside the new gymnasium by the end of the summer.
Three years later, the building is still unoccupied, sitting half-finished on tribal lands.
For more than a century on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod, the words of the Wampanoag were not their own.
“It was prophesied that language would go away from here for a time,” Jessie Little Doe Baird intones at the opening of filmmaker Anne Makepeace’s documentary We Still Live Here. “When the appointed time came, if the people here decided that they wanted to welcome language home then there would be a way made for that to happen.”
