Mashpee is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, on Cape Cod. The population was 15,060 as of 2020. The town is the site of the headquarters and most members of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, one of two federally recognized Wampanoag groups.
The Wampanoag, also rendered Wôpanâak, are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands currently based in southeastern Massachusetts and formerly parts of eastern Rhode Island. Their historical territory includes the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family that was formerly spoken by several peoples of eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. In its revived form, it is spoken in four communities of Wampanoag people. The language is also known as Natick or Wôpanâak (Wampanoag), and historically as Pokanoket, Indian or Nonantum.
Mashpee Middle-High School is a public high school located in Mashpee, Massachusetts, United States. It is located at the intersection of Old Barnstable Road and Route 151, has an approximate enrollment of 700 students in grades 7–12 and is the home of the Technology "Center of Excellence". The school's mascot is the Falcons, and the school colors are Blue, White, and Black.
The Old Indian Meeting House is a historic meeting house at 410 Meetinghouse Road in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Built in 1758, the meetinghouse is the oldest Native American church in the eastern United States. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
The Avant House, also known as the Timothy Pocknet Homestead is an historic house on Massachusetts Route 130 at Mill Pond in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Built in the late 18th or early 19th century, it is one of the town's oldest surviving buildings. It is now owned and operated by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe as the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
Native American tribes in Massachusetts are the Native American tribes and their reservations that existed historically and those that still exist today in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Narragansett term for this region is Ninnimissinuok.
The Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge in the state of Massachusetts. Established in 1995, it is administered by the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Complex. The refuge includes a surface area of 537.12 acres (2.1736 km2) managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The refuge encompasses a total of 5,971 acres (24.16 km2), as established by the United States Congress.
Cedric Cromwell, also known as Qaqeemasq in Wôpanâak, is the Former Tribal Council Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts. Elected in 2009 as chairman, Cedric Cromwell was the head of the official elected government for the 2,600-member federally recognized tribe.
Jessie Little Doe Baird is a linguist known for her efforts to revive the Wampanoag (Wôpanâak) language. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010. She founded the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project.
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is one of two federally recognized tribes of Wampanoag people in Massachusetts. Recognized in 2007, they are headquartered in Mashpee on Cape Cod. The other Wampanoag tribe is the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) on Martha's Vineyard.
Joan Tavares Avant, also known as Granny Squannit, is an educator, Mashpee Wampanoag tribal leader, historian, and writer living in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Avant served as the Mashpee Public School Director of Indian Education and was a founding Trustee of the Wôpanâak language immersion program. As a tribal leader, Avant has served as Tribal President, Tribal Housing Commissioner, Clan Mother, and Professional Tribal Elder. Her writer's credits include a long-running column in the Mashpee Enterprise, editing the National League of American Pen Women's newsletter, and People of the First Light (2010).
Linda Jeffers Coombs is an author and historian from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Coombs is the former program director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) (Wampanoag: Âhqunah Wôpanâak) is a federally recognized tribe of Wampanoag people based in the town of Aquinnah on the southwest tip of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, United States. The tribe hosts an annual Cranberry Day celebration.
Adrian Haynes was a chief of the Mashpee Wampanoag and a United States Navy veteran of World War II.
Paula Peters is a journalist, educator and activist. A member of the Wampanoag tribe, she has spent most of her life in her tribal homeland of Mashpee, Massachusetts. She hails from a prominent Mashpee Wampanoag family, including Tribal Chairman Russell "Fast Turtle" Peters, and was active in the tribe's long and contested push for federal recognition. In a 2006 interview with NPR, Peters recalled a time when "nobody in Washington cared much about which tribes were recognized." Like her father before her, Peters served on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council. In 2005, she ran against Glenn Marshall for Council Chairperson.
The Massachusett dialects, as well as all the Southern New England Algonquian (SNEA) languages, could be dialects of a common SNEA language just as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible languages that essentially exist in a dialect continuum and three national standards. With the exception of Massachusett, which was adopted as the lingua franca of Christian Indian proselytes and survives in hundreds of manuscripts written by native speakers as well as several extensive missionary works and translations, most of the other SNEA languages are only known from fragmentary evidence, such as place names. Quinnipiac (Quiripey) is only attested in a rough translation of the Lord's Prayer and a bilingual catechism by the English missionary Abraham Pierson in 1658. Coweset is only attested in a handful of lexical items that bear clear dialectal variation after thorough linguistic review of Roger Williams' A Key into the Language of America and place names, but most of the languages are only known from local place names and passing mention of the Native peoples in local historical documents.
Nelson Drue Simons (1885-1953) was a Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe chief from 1916 to 1928 and government official who was also the first known Native American graduate of Suffolk University Law School in Boston.
Ebenezer Quippish (1859-1933) was a leader of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in Mashpee, Massachusetts. He was known for helping to led a cultural revival in Mashpee in the 1920s, and was also a traditional basket weaver, chef, hunting/fishing guide, seaman/whaler, and member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
