In The News

December 28, 2024 (Substack)
by Heather Cox Richardson

December 28th was the 51st anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. One of the curses of history is that we cannot go back. But it is never too late to change the future.

December 26, 2024 (Mashpee Enterprise)
by Lauren Surbey

Mashpee Assistant Conservation Agent and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council chairman are working together to establish a focus group for the town and the Tribe’s co-stewardship of land in Mashpee.

October 24, 2024 (Vineyard Gazette)
by Gwyn Skiles

After strong public outcry, a Montgomery (Texas) County judge ordered that Linda Coombs’ history book  about Colonization and the Wampanoag Tribes be reinstated as non-fiction from its wrongful classification as fiction.

Sept.28, 2024 (Cape Cod Times)
Rachael Devaney

Article describes the history of the day and how the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation will celebrate the 3rd annual Orange Shirt Day, The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. Along with gathering at the Mashpee Rotary and a social at the Wampanoag Government Center, all children in the Mashpee Schools will be given an orange shirt to wear to remember what happened so it never happens again.

A Federal Commission is needed to locate and analyze records from known Indian boarding Schools. Other tasks include investigating the impacts and ongoing effects, and discontinuing the removal of Native children.

This page lists resources for further information and actions needed for solutions going forward.

The 2023-2024 MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda includes 5 priorities: Remove Racist Mascots, Honor Indigenous People's Day, Celebrate and Teach Native American Cultures & History, Protect Native American Heritage, and Support the Education and Futures of Native Youth.

June 16 2023 (NYTimes)
by Abbie VanSickle

The Supreme Court upheld a 1978 law aimed at keeping Native American adoptees with their tribes and traditions, handing a victory to tribes.

History of the Seal and Flag of the State of Massachusetts. For decades, legislation has failed to replace the Massachusetts State Flag and Seal, seen by many Native people and other residents as offensive. Here is the historical background of the controversy.

In July, Governor Healey signed a budget amendment to change the state flag and seal of Massachusetts. She now appoints an advisory commission that has a year to present the legislature with a finished design for a new, aspirational flag and seal for the Commonwealth.

July 3 2024 (Bourne News)
Kelly Border

Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe chairwoman Melissa Ferretti, pictured here in front of Bourne Pond, is working to buy back land at Triangle Pond in Plymouth.

August 19, 2022 (Cape Cod Times)
by Rachael Devaney

PLYMOUTH — A long, winding, dirt path through Plimoth Patuxet Museums leads visitors to the Historic Patuxet Homesite, where they can find a traditional, indigenous hickory bark-covered wetu, a cooking arbor and replicas of customary mishoon canoes…

April 31, 2023 (Mashpee Enterprise)
by Mackenzie Ryan

Mashpee Select Board had mixed opinions on Town Meeting articles requesting transfer of land to expand the Old Indian Meeting House Cemetery and provide land for a traditional Wampanoag village and living museum.

April 4, 2024 (Cape Cod Times)
by Rachael Devaney

Since 2021, a group of Taunton residents has been seeking to reverse a decision allowing the federal government to take 321 acres into trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

October 5, 2023 (Falmouth Enterprise)
by Gilda Geist

A panel of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal members spoke at Mashpee Community Park on Sunday, October 1, about the tribe’s aboriginal rights to hunting, fishing and gathering natural resources on Cape Cod.

September 26, 2023 (The Point)
by Mindy Todd

We hear about the genesis of L.I.N.K. and some educational events. Members of the Wampanoag tribe talk about indigenous people’s hunting and fishing rights barriers tribal members face when trying to exercise those rights.

March 31, 2020 (Youtube)
by Issac Goeckeritz | Filmmaker

As pressures on ecosystems mount and as conventional laws seem increasingly inadequate to address environmental degradation, communities, cities, regions and countries around the world are turning to a new legal strategy known as The Rights of Nature.

December15 2023 (Cultural Survival Magazine)
by Hartman Deetz

In Mashpee, Native Environmental Ambassadors (NEA) are a group of Native youth leading the way for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in advocating for solutions.

The newly formed youth group Mashpee Wampanoag Native Environmental Ambassadors drafted and presented a Declaration of the Rights of Herring, which recognizes that Herring have “the right to migrate freely, procreate abundantly, and safely make their journey back to sea.”

March 20, 2023 (Cape Cod Times)
by Rachael Devaney

A muskrat splashed and played in Santuit Pond as Earl "Chiefy" Mills Jr. shared a story about Ahoo, a Wampanoag woman from long ago, who could still the area into silence, just by singing a song…

September 1, 2024 (CNN)
by Rachel Ramirez

The largest U.S. dam removal project is completed, after crews demolished the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. A significant ecological win for tribal nations on the Oregon-California border.

September 3, 2024 (BBC)
by Lucy Sherriff

Removing the dams is one thing, restoring the land is quite another. Most important about restoration is ensuring high diversity. Tribal elders of the Yurok Reservation harvested native seeds, by hand, collecting 98 species.

August 21, 2024 (Civil Eats)
by Emma Glassman-Hughes

Not everyone respects that right. But the Wampanoag are determined to continue, saying their work is an essential expression of 12,000 years of heritage, sovereignty, and lifeways.

September 11, 2024 (Yes Magazine)
by Peter Yeung

This article discusses how Ecuador's constitution protects nature, and how this has helped to keep the Los Cedros forest safe for years.

June 1, 2022 (Cultural Survival Magazine)
Sheldon Ferris and Rebecca Kirkpatrick

Hartman Deetz, Mashpee Wampanoag, and Michelle Cook, Dine, discuss the importance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ wampum belt and the distinctive history of wampum and wampum belts.

September 19, 2024 (Boston Globe)
Ivy Scott

A handful of prominent institutions are blending their research strategies with Indigenous knowledge to better conserve and restore the state’s forests and wetlands.