The word caratunk in the Algonquin language means “where the rivers meet.” It’s an apt name for Audubon’s very popular wildlife refuge in Seekonk, where Cole’s Brook intersects with an unnamed stream amid ponds, forests, meadows and wetlands. Click here for a 90-second video of the Refuge trail. Located at 130 Brown Avenue […]
(Above) Pokanoket Sachem Tracey “Dancing Star” Brown (Po Pummukoank Anogqs) tells the story of the Three Sisters along the shore of Mount Hope Bay. Click here for a two-minute video by Roger Williams University of the story of the Three Sisters in her own words. (Above) The Three Sisters sit along the shoreline […]
The Town Council of Warren, RI established an American Indian Study Committee to: 1) examine the history and culture of the Pokanoket Tribe in the formation of the Town of Warren and to create an historically accurate narrative of that history; 2) evaluate how that history is currently portrayed within the Town of Warren; 3) […]
After 400 years of colonization of Massachusetts by Europeans, we enter a period of town anniversaries. How can we use them as an occasion to start addressing that “settlement” in Massachusetts also meant “displacement”, the beginning of attenuated conflict, and the “disappearing” of Native American presence and history, often in plain sight? As some leading […]
Carl Ferreira of Tiverton describes the stones on the Pocasset Ridge Trail that he believes held special significance for the Native American people who occupied the land. The two-mile trail leads to several rocks, one of which on the left can be rocked to produce a drumming sound that can be heard at great distances. […]
After 10,000 years of living in today’s New England Area, it’s not difficult to understand why Sowams was the ideal place for the 12,000 Pokaonket people who were known to be living there before the Europeans arrived. Jordan E. Kerber, writing in “Where are the Woodland Villages in the Narraganset Bay Region?” (Bulletin of the […]
We know that the Pilgrims encountered a brutal winter, and half of them died during that first winter. But, was that weather typical of the time? Was it what they expected to find? in this 22-minute video Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator describes the effect that changes in climate had on both English colonists and members […]
Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures is a historical fiction account of the very real men, women, children, crew, and two dogs that sailed from Plymouth, England to what became Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. It is also the story of the Natives who watched them build Plimoth Plantation and then came calling on the new […]
The Seekonk Land Conservation Trust has created a fabulous walking trail that begins behind the Newman YMCA and Seekonk Town Hall, goes through deep woods, and crosses the Runnins River before opening out onto Arcade Avenue. The trail comes close to what the woods must have been like in the 17th century in this region before Europeans began to clear […]
Myles Standish was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims as military adviser for Plymouth Colony. He accompanied them on the Mayflower journey and played a leading role in the administration and defense of Plymouth Colony from its inception. On February 17, 1621, the Plymouth Colony militia elected him as its first commander and continued to re-elect him […]