Description
The Wampanoag (), also rendered Wôpanâak , are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island. Their territory historically includes the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Today, two Wampanoag tribes are federally recognized:
- Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
- Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
The Wampanoag language is a dialect of Massachusett, a Southern New England Algonquian language.
At the time of their first English contact in the 17th century, the Wampanoag were a large confederation of at least 24 recorded tribes. Their population numbered in the thousands; 3,000 Wampanoag lived on Martha's Vineyard alone. From 1615 to 1619, a leptospirosis epidemic dramatically reduced the population of the Wampanoag and neighboring tribes. Indigenous deaths from the epidemic allowed European colonists to more easily settle Massachusetts Bay Colony.
More than 50 years later, Wampanoag Chief Sachem Metacom and his allies waged King Philip's War (1675–1676) against the colonists. The war resulted in the death of 40 percent of the surviving Wampanoag. The English sold many Wampanoag men into slavery in Bermuda, the West Indies, or on plantations and farms run by colonists in New England.
Wampanoag people continue to live in their historical homelands and maintain aspects of their culture while adapting to changing socioeconomic needs of the mainstream society.
