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The Pokanoket (also spelled PakanokickKathleen J. Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, page 21) are a group of Wampanoag people and the village governed by Massasoit (c. 1581–1661), chief sachem of the Wampanoag people.
The village was located on what is now called Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island. Later the term Pokanoket broadened to refer to the peoples and lands governed by Massasoit and his successors, which were part of the Wampanoag people in what is now Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The realm of the Pokanoket was extensive and known to the Pilgrims before they arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620. William Bradford wrote that he had received before the Pilgrims sailed: "The Pokanokets, which live to the west of Plymouth, bear an inveterate malice to the English, and are of more strength than all the savages from there to Penobscot. Their desire of revenge was occasioned by an English man who, having many of them on board, made a great slaughter with their murderers and small shot, when (as they say) they offered no injury on their part."
The area in Rhode Island consisting of Bristol, Barrington, and Warren (the latter named Sowams by the natives) was the main settlement of the Pokanoket when the Pilgrims arrived. Bradford had been told that the land of the Pokanoket had "the richest soil, and much open ground fit for English grain".William Wallace Tooker, review of Virginia Baker's "Massasoit's Town Sowams in Pokanoket: Its History, Legends, and Traditions" (1894) in American Anthropologist, Vol. 6, No. 4, July–September 1904, pp. 547-548 (); and William Bradford, Of Plimouth Plantation, Book 2.
Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into Narragansett Bay in 1524, and people appeared on the shores, most likely Pokanokets. The navigator's recorded latitude of 41°40′ north corresponds to Mount Hope Bay, where the seat of the Pokanoket is located. Verrazzano wrote of these Rhode Island Native Americans whom he encountered: "These people are the most beautiful and have the most civil customs we have found on this voyage."Brasser, T. J. (1978). "Early Indian-European Contacts", in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant, Washington: Smithsonian Institution, V. 15, p. 80.Morison, Samuel Eliot (1971). The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages: A.D. 500-1600, p. 307.
The Pilgrims lost more than half of their people due to sickness and starvation over the first winter. The Pokanoket taught them how to plant crops and live in this country. Despite the fears initially felt by the Pilgrims, the Pokanoket quickly made a pact of peace with the new settlers. Bradford referred to the Pokanoket leader Ousamequin as "their great Sachem, called Massasoit". Ousamequin was succeeded as Great Leader of the Pokanoket by his sons, first by Wamsutta, (also known as Alexander), and then by Metacomet (also known as Philip), who was killed in the King Philip's War (1675–76).
Natick, sometimes referred to as Pokanoket, is the dialect of Massachusett spoken among the Pokanoket.Moseley, Christopher and R. E. Asher, ed. Atlas of the World's Languages (New York: Routledge, 1994) Map 3.
Today, the area includes cities and towns on the Massachusetts and Rhode Island border such as Bristol, Warren, Barrington, East Providence, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Attleboro, Cumberland, North Attleboro, Norton, Mansfield, Dighton, and Somerset.
At least two unrecognized organizations, the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation and the Pokanoket Nation claim to descend from the Pokanoket people. They are not federally recognized; state-recognized by Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or any other state; or recognized by Wampanoag tribes. "The Pokanoket Encampment", Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, Brown University, August 24, 2017 The town of Warren, Rhode Island, lists a land acknowledgment on a town sign.
Name
Pokanoket is also spelled Pauquunaukit, and translates as "land at the clearing" from the Massachusett.
History
At the time of the pilgrims' arrival in Plymouth, the realm of Pokanoket included parts of Rhode Island and much of southeastern Massachusetts. European accounts of Pokanoket social life noted the political authority of the Massasoit (Great Leader).
List of Pokanoket leaders
Massasoit Wasanegin 1525 1577 Massasoit Ousamequin 1581 1661 Massasoit Wamsutta (English name "Alexander") 1661 1662 Massasoit Metacomet (English name "Philip") 1662 1676
Historical territories
The Pokanoket's conceded territory shown in the map featured here is a reconstruction of Pokanoket ancestral boundaries based on a political and topographical map from 1895, which itself drew on 17th-century topographical descriptions of political borders.
Map points
Descendants
Today, descendants from the Pokanoket village are part of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, a federally recognized tribe in Massachusetts.
Notes
External links
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