Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe
A Brief History
"There is no question that the Wampanoag people were the first inhabitants of "old
Seaconke", and that the local tribes were the Wochomoqts, the Seaconkes, the Pawtuckets, and the Wannamoisetts". Dr. John G. Erhardt (1)
On April
25, 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano sailed into a bay we today call Narragansett. In his journal Verrazano describes his
meeting with "two kings more beautiful in form and stature than can be described". "We made a great friendship
with them", he says of this first contact in modern written historical record.
The Wampanoag, people from the east or chldren of
the first light, were the tribe of dominance at this time in and around the eastern, northern, and part of
the western portion of todays Narragansett Bay. This first contact took place off of Aquidnick Island, situated
in the eastern part of the bay, the kings were more than likely close relations to the soon to be born Ousamequin, yellow
feather, Massasoit friend of the Pilgrims.
In his journal Verrazano describes how he and his men traveled
to the interior. "They found the country as pleasent as possible to conceive" though mostly dense with forest the land
was "adapted to cultivation of every kind ... there were open plains twenty five to thirty leagues in extent. Entirely
free from trees or other hidrances, and so great in fertility, that whatever is sown there will yield excellent crop".(2)
John Bliss writes almost 300 years later in his "history
of old Rehoboth" that one such area as described by Verrazano, was called by the first english settlers the "Seacunke
Plain". Which was an English adaptation to the area the Pokanoket, Wampanoag called Seaconke.(3)
"Seaki" means black
and "honk" goose in the english understanding of the local dialect of the Massachusetts language, in the Algonquin family
language group. The home of the Black Goose exists at the entrance of the "Ten Mile" River into the "Seaconke River".
In the early 1600's the people that inhabited the Seaconke
Plain were described by the English as having "brown skin, with long black hair, brown eyes" and "high cheek bones".
They "were hunters, fisherman, trppers, and warriors. They had fish weirs set up at the Pawtucket falls, and the Ten Mile
rivers. The squaws planted a garden of corn, beans, squash, and potatoes"(4) Seafood
especially shellfish were a staple of thier diet and the clambake an art form.
The
Vikings, Dutch, Irish, Portugeese, and even the Phoenicians may have made contact at an earlier time. The
Vikings established villages and explored inland waterways as early as 1000AD. Miguel Corte Real a Portugeese ships
captain, shpwrecked while in-search of his brother who was lost on an earlier voyage, is said by Professor Delbarre of Brown
University to have made it as far as the Taunton (Titticut) river, in 1511. Professor Delbarre says "Miguel Corte Real,
left his mark on what we call today Dighton Rock".
It can be concluded, that the Wampanoags knew more of
the peoples of far off lands long before the explorers of the post Columbus era, knew of the Wampanoags. On this
day of record the two kings of the Wampanoags were more knowledgable of the world than the great explorer Verrazano!
(to be continued...)
[Footnotes:
1. John G. Erhardt "History of Seekonk Mass. Volume I Seacunke 1500's to 1645" 1982 Page
1.
2. Ibid. page 3
3. Ibid. page 3
4. John Bliss "History of Old Rehoboth" 1898
