Paulla Dove Jennings | |
|---|---|
 Paulla Dove Jennings (2012) | |
| Born | 1940 |
| Nationality | Narragansett Indian Tribe, American |
| Education | Community College of Rhode Island |
| Occupation(s) | Professional story teller, educator and children’s book author, curator |
| Employer(s) | Boston Children's Museum, Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum |
| Known for | Book, Strawberry Thanksgiving, lawsuit regarding a raid on a tribal smoke shop |
Paulla Dove Jennings is a Narragansett storyteller, educator, and children's book author.
Paulla Dove Jennings was born in 1940 in Providence, Rhode Island. [1] Her parents are Eleanor and Ferris Dove, and her family is Narragansett with Niantic ancestry. [2] Jennings is an enrolled member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe [3] and belongs to the Turtle Clan. [4]
Jennings' father was a Narragansett war chief and graduated from Bacone College. [5] He and his wife ran a popular restaurant and trading post for many years called Dovecrest. The site later became a school teaching a curriculum of Native American history and values. [6] Jennings was one of four children, she learned her tribal and family history from her grandmother.
Jennings also obtained a degree from the Community College of Rhode Island and has worked as a curator for both the Boston Children's Museum and the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. [7] She has performed as a storyteller at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. [8] In 2010, Jennings served as the Tribal Historian in Residence for the certificate program in Native American Studies at the UMASS Amherst. [9]
In addition to her work as an educator and storyteller, Jennings has been politically active in her tribe. She has served on her tribal council, and in 2007 ran an unsuccessful campaign for the position of chief sachem. [3] [10] She and her son Adam were among the plaintiffs [11] in a lawsuit against Rhode Island State Police, which in July 2003 raided a tribal smoke shop. The raid resulted in eight arrests and eight injured, [12] including Jennings's son. [13] Jennings herself has spoken publicly about the case as an infringement on Narragansett tribal sovereignty. [14]
Strawberry Thanksgiving was written for the Multicultural Celebrations at the Boston Children's Museum, part of a series of books designed to educate children about different cultures. Written by Jennings and illustrated by Ramona Peters, the book tells how a young boy, Adam, learns to forgive his sister by hearing his grandmother tell the story of Strawberry Thanksgiving.
The Narragansett people are an Algonquian American Indian tribe from Rhode Island. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe. They gained federal recognition in 1983.
Ellison Myers Brown, widely known as Tarzan Brown, a direct descendant of the last acknowledged royal family of the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island, was a two-time winner of the Boston Marathon in 1936 (2:33:40) and 1939 (2:28:51) and 1936 U.S. Olympian. He ran the marathon in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and also qualified for the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were ultimately canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.
Melvin Coombs was a Wampanoag dancer, cultural educator, and cultural interpreter.
The Great Swamp Conflict was one of the most consequential episodes of what has come to be known as King Philip's War. The war pitted Indigenous communities throughout New England against the United Colonies of New England and their Native allies. On 19 December 1675, the United Colonies attacked a Narragansett stronghold located in a large swamp in what is now known as South Kingstown, Rhode Island. The clash at the Great Swamp was described as "one of the most brutal and lopsided military encounters in all of New England's history." Because Indigenous peoples throughout the Dawnland used swamps as areas of refuge during times of war, it is believed that many of the Narragansetts killed during the attack were non-combatants.
Gertrude Alice Lamb-Richmond was an American educator and author belonging to the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, a state-recognized tribe in Connecticut. She was involved in Native American educational and political issues.
The Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum is an Indigenous museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. The museum was founded by anthropologist Eva Butler and a Narragansett and Wampanoag woman named Princess Red Wing in the 1950s.
Cheryl Savageau is a writer and poet who self-identifies as being of Abenaki descent.
The Narragansett Dawn was a monthly newspaper that discussed the history, culture and language of the Narragansett tribe. It was produced in 1935 and 1936, with a total of seventeen issues. Princess Red Wing and Ernest Hazard were the paper's founders and editors. Both were Narragansett tribal members.
Lorén M. Spears (Narragansett/Niantic) is an educator, essayist, artist, and two-term Tribal Councilwoman of the Narragansett Tribe in Providence, Rhode Island, where she currently resides. Spears has taught for over two decades, including 12 years in the Newport Public School system working with at-risk children in both first and fourth grades. In 2010, Spears was chosen as one of 11 Extraordinary Women honorees for Rhode Island in the area of education.
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.
Princess Red Wing, aka Mary E. (Glasko) Congdon, was a Narragansett and Wampanoag elder, historian, folklorist, and museum curator. She was an expert on American Indian history and culture, and she once addressed the United Nations.
Cheryll Toney Holley is a First Nations American historian, genealogist, and museum director. She serves as the chief of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc, part of the Nipmuc Nation, a Massachusetts state-recognized tribe.
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.
Zara Cisco Brough, also called Princess White Flower, served as the Chief of the Nipmuc Nation, a state-recognized tribe in Massachusetts, from 1962 until 1987. She is best known for her work to preserve Nipmuc heritage.
Jesse Bowman Bruchac is an author and language teacher from the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, a state-recognized tribe in Vermont. He has dedicated much of his life to studying the Abenaki language and preserving the Abenaki culture. He created the first Abenaki language website.
Wowaus, also known as James Printer, was an early Nipmuc writer who helped create the first Indian Bibles in the Massachusett language, which were used by English colonists in the cultural assimilation of Native Americans.
The Reverend Harold Mars was a prominent Narragansett Native American Christian preacher in Rhode Island and Upstate New York. He was a pastor at several evangelical churches in Kingston, Rhode Island and Rochester, New York. Besides these posts, Mars also travelled as a visiting preacher across the United States. He held the title of prophet for the Narragansett tribe.
Ella Wilcox-Thomas Sekatau, or Firefly-Song of Wind, was a poet, historian, and Ethnohistorian and Medicine Woman of the Narragansett Indian Nation. Instrumental in the Narragansett's federal recognition in 1983, she was a powerful cultural and political presence in her community and across the Native American community of New England. Sekatau was one of the first Native American interpreters to partner with Brown University's Heffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in their education program, and was also a key figure for the Wampanoag history program at Plimoth Plantation, now Plimoth Patuxet.
The Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island is an unrecognized tribe in Rhode Island, founded by formerly enrolled members of the federally recognized Narragansett Tribe, who were removed from the tribal rolls in the group removals of 1993 and 2006. The tribe acquired 501(c)(3) status in 2010.