Pokanoket

The Pauquunaukit Wampanoag (anglicized as Pokanoket, literally, "land at the clearing" in Natick) is an indigenous group in present-day Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Prior to European colonization, the Pokanoket were the leadership of the groups that make up the modern-day Wampanoag Nation. However, ethnically Pokanoket groups and their neighbors did not begin to refer to themselves as Wampanoag until after King Philip's War, when Pokanoket identity was criminalized in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Thus, while all Pokanoket are Wampanoag, not all Wampanoag are ethnically Pokanoket. The Pokanoket are the indigenous group in the first Thanksgiving story, although no meal was shared between the Pokanoket and English settlers and the former did not welcome colonization.

Prior to colonization, the political seat of the many bands that are collectively known as the Wampanoag Nation was located in the realm of Pokanoket, where one of the most significant historic sites is found on Mount Hope (Potumtuk, the lookout of Pokanoket in present-day Bristol, Rhode Island). At the time of the pilgrims’ arrival in Plymouth, the realm of Pokanoket included parts of Rhode Island and much of southeastern Massachusetts. Pokanoket social organization developed in a manner that differed from neighboring groups, since Pokanoket was more socially striated and politically complex. Archaeological excavations of Pokanoket burial sites indicate that wealth, such as wampum, was concentrated among a few individuals. European historic accounts of Pokanoket social life noted the political authority of the Massasoit (Great Leader). Unique to the Pokanoket was the spiritual and military elite known as the pniese (Pine E' See) who protected and served this Great Leader.

The realm of the Pokanoket was extensive and known to the Pilgrims before they arrived at Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620. The leader of the Pilgrims, William Bradford, wrote of advice 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 [in Maine]. Their desire of revenge was occasioned by an English man, who having many of them on board [a ship], made a great slaughter with their murderers and small shot, when (as they [the Pokanoket] say) they offered no injury on their part.” Sowams, consisting of modern-day Bristol, Barrington, and Warren, Rhode Island, 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, etc.”, giving hint of the conflicts over land that would soon develop.

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