Nelson Drue Simons (also known as Wabum Annug (Morning Star) and Chief Morning Star and Nelson D. Simon) [1] (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. [2]
Nelson Drue Simons was born on November 23, 1885 [3] to Isaac Simon, a seaman, [4] whaler, [5] and farmer [6] and Ella Frances Mingo Simon of Mashpee, Massachusetts, and Nelson had at least five siblings (including Edward, Lily, Zepheniah, Ellen, and Eva). [7] In addition to his Wampanoag heritage, Simons was also of at least partial Pequot ancestry and was purportedly a descendant of Sassacus. [8] From 1896 to 1904 he attended the Mashpee Public Schools. [9] After his father's death in 1905 Nelson Simons and his siblings attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Simons attended Carlisle from 1909 to 1914 and was president of Carlisle YMCA, a Lieutenant of the school's Company B, and attended the Second Presbyterian Church. [10] and published articles in the Carlisle Arrow. [11] Simons provided written testimony to Congress supporting the YMCA at Carlisle. [12] At Carlisle Simons trained in plumbing and pipe fitting. [13]
After graduation, Simons returned to Mashpee, Massachusetts and succeeded his maternal great-uncle Watson F. Hammond as town clerk in 1915 and as tribal chief the upon his uncle's death the following year. [9] From 1914 [13] to at least 1917 he reported his occupation as "cranberrying," [3] but by 1920 Simons was working as a plumber. [14] He also had a small farm with a cow and requested a Carlisle student to work for him during the summer of 1915. [13] Simons was leader of the Mashpee tribe from approximately 1916 through the 1920s and helped lead a cultural revival there working closely with Eben Quippish, another tribal leader, and Simons re-dedicated the Old Indian Meeting House in 1922. [15] Simons also served as Mashpee's tax collector, and he was appointed postmaster after petitioning for U.S. Mail service in Mashpee. He matriculated at Suffolk University Law School in Boston in 1921 and graduated in 1925. At Suffolk he published an article in the 1921 Suffolk Register entitled, "Possibilities of Spare Moments." [16] Simons was also a poet and published at least one poem in 1922 about Mashpee. [17] Simon's sister Lillian, also was a published poet. [18] As a tribal leader in 1928, Simons helped unite the Mashpee, Herring Pond, and Gay Head communities with their first joint powwow. [19] Simons purportedly left Mashpee around 1929, and his cousin, Lorenzo Tandy Hammond, became the tribal leader, and for the rest of his life Simons lived around Cambridge, Massachusetts working various jobs, including as a chaffeur, carpenter and janitor [20] until his death in 1953. [21] He was never married according to the 1950 U.S. Census.
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.
Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The town motto is Post tot Naufracia Portus, "after so many shipwrecks, a haven". The population was 20,259 at the 2020 census.
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.
Lloyd "Sonny" Dove was an American professional basketball player. As a star at St. John's University in New York, in his last season of 1967, Dove won the Haggerty Award. That year he was part of the United States basketball team that won the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg.
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.
The Patuxet were a Native American band of the Wampanoag tribal confederation. They lived primarily in and around modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, and were among the first Native Americans encountered by European settlers in the region in the early 17th century. Most of the population subsequently died of epidemic infectious diseases. The last of the Patuxet – an individual named Tisquantum, who played an important role in the survival of the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth – died in 1622.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Watson F. Hammond was the first Native American to sit in the Great and General Court of Massachusetts.
Everett Gardiner Weeden Jr., or Tall Oak, was an artist, activist, survivalist, and historian of Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe stated that Weeden was "a documented descendant of the Mashantucket Pequot, Narragansett, and Wampanoag tribes".
Lorenzo Tandy Hammond (1871-1959) was a Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe chief, plumber, and inventor.
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.
Leroy C. Perry (1873–1960) was a Baptist minister from Rhode Island and Massachusetts who served as the first modern sachem of the Pocassett (Wampanoag) serving from 1928 to 1960.