Massasoit, ca. 1920s, courtesy of Library of Congress<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe first of these sachems is the leader with whom the Pilgrims formed an alliance in March 1621. English accounts referred to him as \u201cMassasoit,\u201d a Native word roughly meaning great leader or great sachem. The man\u2019s name was Ousamequin. Somewhat later seventeenth-century English documents, including deeds, use this name. Nevertheless, most historians \u2014 including Nathaniel Philbrick in his best-selling Mayflower<\/em> \u2014 have called him Massasoit. I did so as well, because I thought readers would be more familiar with that name. Even if they mispronounce Massasoit, it still looks more familiar than Ousamequin.<\/p>\nAfter Massasoit Ousamequin\u2019s death, his son Wamsutta succeeded him as sachem. At this time, Wamsutta and his brother Metacom requested the Plymouth General Court to bestow on them the names Alexander and Philip, respectively. The court granted the request, but its own records continue to refer to him as Wamsutta, as do many deeds. I saw no reason to depart from those records, so I used Wamsutta in my manuscript.<\/p>\n
By contrast, countless English records in the 1660s and 1670s refer to Wamsutta\u2019s brother as Philip, the Pokanoket sachem during what became known as King Philip\u2019s War. Beyond reasons of familiarity, it made sense to me to call this sachem Philip. A host of deeds and other documents from the time period refer to him as Philip. Moreover, while some English settlers and no doubt many Native people referred to the war by other names, I call it King Philip\u2019s War. So Philip seemed the best choice.<\/p>\n
I had twisted myself in knots, calling one sachem by his title, the next by his Native name, and the third by his English name. An entirely incoherent approach.<\/p>\n
Two interactions have caused me to do some rethinking. First, Paula Peters \u2014 a Wampanoag scholar \u2014 read my manuscript and asked if I could call her ancestors by their actual names. Why call Ousamequin by his title? I call refer to William Bradford as \u201cBradford\u201d or sometimes \u201cthe governor,\u201d not as \u201cgovernor.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It was also helpful to read Lisa Blee and Jean O\u2019Brien\u2019s Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit<\/em>. These scholars narrate the fascinating story of Cyrus Dallin\u2019s Massasoit<\/em> sculpture. [My career has stalked Dallin, in a way. The Utah-born and Massachusetts-based sculptor also created the Brigham Young monument on Temple Square and the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake City Temple]. Blee and O\u2019Brien carefully distinguish among 8s\u00e2meeqan (Ousamequin, they use the transliteration preferred by the W\u00f4pan\u00e2ak Language Restoration Project), \u201cthe Massasoit\u201d (when referring to his role as paramount sachem), and the Massasoit <\/em>monument.<\/p>\nIn 1913, the Improved Order of the Red Men, a \u201cfraternal order limited to \u2018physically, mentally, and morally sound\u2019 white men,\u201d resolved to install a monument to the Massasoit to be dedicated during the tercentenary of the Pilgrims\u2019 arrival at Plymouth. I knew nothing about the IORM before reading Monumental Mobility<\/em>. It was a large organization, with half a million members at its peak in the 1920s. The Pilgrim Society donated a tract of land on Cole\u2019s Hill, and the IORM commissioned Dallin to make the statue.<\/p>\nWhat should the Massasoit look like? Dallin had already sculpted many powerful, muscular Indians, including his Scout<\/em> and his Appeal to the Great Spirit<\/em>. For Massasoit, he used a model, but not anyone from the Mashpee or other Wampanoag communities in Massachusetts. Instead, he borrowed John Singer Sargent\u2019s African American model, Thomas McKeller. He gave Massasoit a feather (Ousamequin means \u201cyellow feather\u201d) and a peace pipe decorated with bears, corresponding with a pipe found in a burial ground.<\/p>\nDallin completed his plaster model, and the bronze monument that is still on Cole\u2019s Hill was cast in time for the tercentenary. Massasoit<\/em> was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1921, in a crowd that included Dallin, a descendant of Ousamequin (Wootonekanuske, or Charlotte Mitchell), and a sea of white people dressed as Indians. On this occasion and at a dedication the next year, white speakers extolled Ousamequin as a symbol of friendship and peace. They envisioned him welcoming the Pilgrims who had (probably not really) stepped on Plymouth Rock, on the shore below Cole\u2019s Hill. A tablet attached to the statue\u2019s pedestal memorializes the \u201cgreat sachem of the Wampanoags, protector and preserver of the Pilgrims.\u201d<\/p>\nAs it turned out, it proved impossible to fix memories of the Massasoit. First of all, he traveled. Dallin reluctantly donated his plaster model to the State of Utah, which displayed it in the state capitol and caused many visitors to wonder who it was and why it was thousands of miles from Massachusetts. The plaster model was replaced by a bronze cast at the Utah State Capitol in 1957.<\/p>\n
Somehow or other Brigham Young University acquired the plaster cast soon afterwards. Then, Blee and O\u2019Brien narrate, BYU\u2019s art acquisition director \u2014 Wesley Burnside \u2014 used the model as part of a \u201ctax shelter program in which artworks were overvalued so that buyers who intended to donate the object to a charitable organization could claim substantial tax deductions.\u201d Although it was by no means clear that BYU held the title to the model, BYU officials authorized a series of casts. These ended up on the campus of BYU, at shopping plazas in Missouri and Illinois, and at the Museum of Native American Culture at Gonzaga University. At BYU, the \u201cnaked Indian statue\u201d became a meeting place and the subject of many jokes about its brazen violation of the school\u2019s honor code.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, back in Plymouth, Wampanoags, other Native Americans, and allies contested the meaning that the IORM and the Pilgrim Society had placed upon Massasoit<\/em>. In 1970, the United American Indians of New England began gathering every November (on Thanksgiving morning) to mark a National Day of Mourning. They sometimes engaged in acts of protest, such as a 1995 burial of Plymouth Rock. In 1998, the Town of Plymouth installed a second marker near Massasoit<\/em>, which reads: \u201cMany Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.\u201d As Blee and O\u2019Brien conclude, statues \u201cmay be formed of stone and metal and appear set in place, but monuments are not fixed.\u201d While some monuments are simply ignored and forgotten, others become contested sites.<\/p>\nBack to names. What to call the Pokanoket sachems? Should I stick with Massasoit, or instead use Ousamequin or 8s\u00e2meeqan? I\u2019m disinclined to use 8s\u00e2meeqan, because I think it\u2019s simply too jarring for non-specialist readers. It is not clear when the sachem adopted the name Ousamequin. He may have done so a decade or so after the arrival of the Pilgrims. The earliest English sources, mostly by Edward Winslow, refer to him as Massasoit. Even if he adopted the name later, however, I\u2019m now leaning toward using Ousamequin, which appears in many records from the 1640s onwards.<\/p>\n
What about Wamsutta (Alexander) and Metacom (Philip)? I\u2019m inclined to stick with Wamsutta and Philip. Lisa Brooks uses Philip in her Bancroft-winning Our Beloved Kin<\/em>. I quote from English sources that refer to Philip, and I refer to the mid-1670s war as King Philip\u2019s War. To use Metacom or Metacom alongside those sources and references may confuse readers. And the sachem does seem to have embraced the name Philip, at least in his dealings with the English. In any event, I am confident that Philip alias Metacom cared far more about English encroachment on his land and authority than about what the English called him. Still, names matter. Thinking through names forces us to consider how we remember and write about individuals.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m putting the finishing touches on a history of Plymouth Colony and have been thinking through a cluster of issues regarding names. In a draft of my manuscript, I referred to the seventeenth-century Pokanoket sachems as Massasoit, Wamsutta (son of Massasoit), and Philip (son of Massasoit). These individuals lived at Sowams and then Mount Hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5583,3538],"tags":[5586,5589,314],"class_list":["post-47232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-turner","category-native-americans","category-pilgrims","tag-massasoit","tag-ousamequin","tag-pilgrims"],"yoast_head":"\n
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