The few remnants of Wampanoag oral tradition are vague on the point
of tribal history and origins. Most often mentioned is the idea that
they came from somewhere to the south and west of their present home.
Indeed, this may, according to the thinking of anthropologists,
be the direction from which they received the corn that they were
cultivating in at least the 16th century. However, the question of a
true tribal history must, as is so often the case with pre-literate
peoples, remain unanswered.
Early explorers and settlers had their own ideas as to the origins
of the Indians they found in the New World. A popular belief was
that these were descendants of one of the Biblical “lost tribes of
Israel”. Some scholars went to great lengths to show that this was so
by comparing the languages and religious concepts of the two groups.
Along with this idea went a belief that the skin of the Indians
was actually light, but that it was dyed brown during infancy.[16]
Whatever may have been the course of their pre-contact history, the
arrival of the white man was certainly a significant event for the
culture of the Indians of southeastern New England.
Changes were being introduced into Indian culture long before the
arrival of the first permanent European settlers. Fishing and whaling
industries brought large numbers of ships (nearly four hundred in
1578) to the vicinity of Newfoundland and Cape Breton; incidental
trade in furs between the Indians and these vessels covered a
six-hundred mile range that undoubtedly included New England.[17]
Indian graves which date from this period contain European trade
items—the first evidence of the changes being introduced into native
culture.[18] The Indians seem especially to have appreciated the
value of the metal tools which the Europeans brought.[19] Their own
use of metal had been limited to the making of ornaments out of
native copper. For heavy work, such as felling trees and dressing
game, stone tools were used.
The increasing substitution of metal tools for stone ones brought
about changes in Indian technology that continued through the
seventeenth century. The situation for New England Indians in general
is summarized by Willoughby:
After and during the first two or three decades of the seventeenth
century the Indians received from European traders, especially
from the French and Dutch, cloth, kettles, hatchets, and many
other objects, and the graves of that period have yielded numerous
articles of this nature. The native industries of the people
rapidly declined. It was principally among the women that the finer
arts survived for a time, such as the better class of bag and
basket making, porcupine and moose-hair embroidery, etc., although
the men continued for a period the production of their excellent
wooden bowls and drinking cups.[20]
Technological change was not, however, only a matter of the loss of
skill at aboriginal crafts. The Indians were quick to learn useful
new techniques from the English settlers. They learned the art of
pewter casting, and thus produced pipes and buttons.[21] A further
use for their new-found knowledge of metallurgy was noted by Governor
Bradford:
They have also their moulds to make shotte, of all sorts, as
muskett bulletts, pistoll bullets, swan and gose shote, and of
smaler sorts; yea, some have seen them have their scruplates to
make scrupins themselves, when they wante them, with sundery
other implements, wher with they are ordinarily better fited and
furnished then the English them selves.[22]
The history of contact between primitive peoples and Europeans has
tended to be similar throughout the world, in that the first to
contact and deal with the natives were usually entrepreneurs looking
for new profits, followed by missionaries looking to save souls. The
Wampanoags likewise experienced this phenomenon. While it was the
intention of those who went there to settle to bring Christianity
to the Indians, preparations for such a monumental task were not
very well laid. English colonists had their hands full for a number
of years just getting a living. They had made no provisions for the
maintenance of missionaries to the Indians, and English congregations
were not eager to spare their own ministers for the task. Thus, it
was not until the middle of the seventeenth century at least before
systematic attempts to change the Indians’ belief system were begun.
Notable among those who took up the mission to the Indians of
southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island were Roger Williams,
John Elliot, and the Mayhews, father and son. Quite a number of
converts were made.[23] Converted Indians were encouraged to dwell
together in what came to be dubbed “praying towns”. Such Indians were
required to adopt European culture wholeheartedly in terms of dress,
housing, habits, etc., and they were required to learn to read as
part of their conversion so that they could study the scriptures. The
majority of Indians seem to have refused conversion; however, the
change on the part of some of them can hardly but have had influence
upon the rest.
Another introduction from European culture was alcohol, previously
unknown to the Wampanoags and their neighbors. This became a popular
item of trade, and some Indians undertook the cultivation of apples
for the purpose of making cider.[24]