Smoke curls gently out of the wetu. Under a bright blue sky, a warrior holds up a spear with a fish pierced on the end. The gray fish has an “x” for an eye, no fins and a toothy grin — the artistic work of an elementary schooler.
It’s one of six pictures drawn by third graders at the Mashpee Wampanoag Weetumuw School last spring showing what a warrior means to them. Some students depicted both female and male warriors. Others drew warriors hunting and gathering berries, or simply smiling next to a wetu.
Tia Pocknett, a lead teacher at the Weetumuw School, said the assignment did not lead to images of fighting. For the students, she said, “the idea of being a warrior was somebody that did good things.”
The artistic representations are included in a 32-page booklet titled “The Ultimate Sacrifice: Mashpee in the American Revolution,” which students at Mashpee Middle-High School created in collaboration with the town’s historical commission to share the lives of the 15 Mashpee Wampanoag men who died fighting for American independence.
Richard DeSorgher, a retired history teacher and member of the Mashpee Historical Commission, said the tribe members were fighting for a freedom they wouldn’t end up benefiting from.
“Many Wampanoags hoped if the war was successful, the Wampanoags would gain this full recognition as citizens in this new nation,” said DeSorgher. “But they were bitterly disappointed, sadly. While the colonists did gain independence, the Mashpee lost theirs.”
As the country prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, local tribes and historians want to fully recognize the sacrifices of Native Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War.
The booklet, now available upon request at the town’s library, is part of one such effort. It was based on years-long research conducted by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and town’s historical commission to create a memorial honoring the town’s veterans.
The monument, unveiled in 2023, spans the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War. It names every veteran from the town who served, including many from the tribe.
“ I thought it was so important that when a monument goes up, those individual names should be there, so family members can kind of trace their fingers over the names and later generations can look and see the actual individuals that sacrificed,” said DeSorgher.
Finding each name was a “huge undertaking,” DeSorgher said. He had worked on a similar memorial in his hometown of Medfield, and said researching and confirming names was much more complicated for the Mashpee project.
Some of the information had already been collected by Rita Lopez, the tribe’s enrollment director. As part of her role, Lopez keeps records on all tribe members, living and deceased.
Together, DeSorgher, Lopez and other members of the tribe and commission combed through information from the New England Historic Genealogical Society, yellowed hand-written documents, old books and records from the Massachusetts Military Records office.
“ I poured through volumes and the volumes, I can’t even remember how many volumes,” Lopez recounted. “I went through, because I had all the names, historic names of our tribe, and pulled out a lot of records.”
Complicating the search were the disparate spellings of historic names, duplicate names of father and son, or records that told only a part of a person’s identity. And Mashpee was only incorporated as a town in 1870, meaning those who wanted to serve in the Revolutionary or Civil wars had to go to neighboring towns to enlist. Much of the work required connecting the dots across documents.
“ I’m one of those people like, give me a puzzle and I want to finish it,” Lopez said.
All told, the researchers were able to name 67 people from Mashpee who fought in the Revolution — the vast majority members of the tribe.
Along with every name, the granite memorial reads, in both English and Wôpanâak, “Forever Defend the Things that are Sacred.”
But after defending their homeland, those who fought were often unable to get veterans pensions, or families of the deceased unable to get survivor benefits, said DeSorgher.
Because of traditional housing practices, many Mashpee Wampanoags lacked a permanent address required to receive benefits. And, DeSorgher said, white veterans were often unwilling to give testimony to support their Native colleagues, further stymying efforts to get pensions. DeSorgher said he knows of only two veterans from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe who received pensions.
Such was also the case for citizens of Nipmuc Nation, said Peter Silva, chief of the Hassanamisco Tribe of the Nipmuc Nation. Silva said he knows of at least six Nipmuc men who joined militias to fight in the American Revolution.
The tribe’s original homeland spanned what is now central and western Massachusetts, and dipped down into Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Like many New England tribes, the Nipmuc Nation suffered great losses in King Philip’s War in the 1670s. Following the war, colonists captured Nipmuc tribe members and interned them on Boston’s Deer Island, selling many into slavery.
Despite this history, men including Silva’s ancestor, Joseph Anthony, joined the fight for America.
“ He was willing to sacrifice, in the tradition of our people, everything in order to secure our family’s wellbeing and the nation’s wellbeing,” Silva said.
Anthony served at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, along with the Battles of Saratoga, said Silva. When Anthony died, Silva said Anthony’s family was not notified of his death, rather reported by the military as “missing.” Anthony’s family did not receive survivors’ benefits, Silva said.
To Silva, lack of proper death notice represents a larger pattern of ignoring the contributions of Indigenous soldiers in life and after death. He believes there are more from the Nipmuc Nation who likely fought in the Revolutionary War, but that their stories have been lost as a result of enslavement and improper burial.
“I’m concerned that there are also many unmarked graves throughout the battle lands of New England, that Native Americans fought and died in, and their bodies specifically left in shallow graves or no grave at all,” said Silva.
The Nipmuc Nation is planning a memorial event next summer to honor the tribe’s veterans, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of American independence, Silva said.
As a descendent of a Revolutionary War veteran himself, Silva hopes the stories of more patriots of color brought to light.
“I’m concerned that the people of color story has been hidden in history and their descendants don’t even know of the valuable contribution that they’ve made to the birth of this country,” he said.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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