Members of the newly formed Rhode Island American Indian Heritage Commission met with Executive Vice President of Strategy & Community Investments Jessica David of the Rhode Island Foundation on February 10, 2020 to talk about ways they might collaborate to increase public awareness of the American Indian tribes in Rhode Island. Ideas expressed included speaking […]
Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator Dr. David Weed was interviewed by Bob Poniatowski on East Bay Today at the Portsmouth RI cable TV station on February 4, 2020. They taped a 10-minute interview for the “East Bay Today” show and then the half-hour “Time Capsule” show that each covered how the Sowams Heritage Area Project […]
Marc Kohler, the founder of the Roger Williams Educational Foundation, spoke at the Cranston Public Library’s Central Library on January 25, 2020 in conjunction with the “Roving Roger” exhibit. Sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of State, the exhibit features a 7-foot statue of Williams along with a range of educational materials. Included in the exhibit was a copy of […]
The Providence Cultural Equity Initiative’s Institute for Social Cohesion organized a panel discussion highlighting and celebrating Indigenous Women Leaders as “Warrior Women” at Providence College on January 31, 2020 where attendees were given the opportunity to hear contemporary perspectives on the role of women warriors in indigenous culture and society. Anjel Newman, Director of Programs at AS220, facilitated the […]
A contemporary painting by artist Ruth Major of the Massasoit Ousamequin, who met the Pilgrims in 1621, and who was reburied at Burr’s Hill Park in Warren, RI in 2017, is now on display at the George Hail Library in that town. In the portrait, we see a red horseman’s coat given to him as a gift […]
State archaeologist Timothy Ives spoke at the Annual Meeting of the Barrington Preservation Society on the topic of “Stone Heaping Practices of Nineteenth-Century Farmers: New Insights from Archival Sources” on January 26, 2020 held at the Wharf Tavern in Warren, RI. Dr. Ives, who works as one of two archaeologists at the Rhode Island Historic […]
Writing in the January 2020 edition of the Seekonk Reporter, feature writer Leslie Patterson published an article about the Sowams Heritage Area project on page 46. In the article, she describes the goals of the project to help people explore the history of Sowams, the original homeland of the Pokanoket Tribe. She includes a link […]
Over fifty videos from the past year on the Sowams Heritage Area website have started to air once a week on the statewide Rhode Island PEG interconnect system. The one-hour shows will air on Channel 13 on Cox or Full Channel connections and on Channel 32 on Verizon cable connections. Currently the air times are […]
East Providence Mayor Bob DaSilva welcomed about 75 people to a forum at Tockwotton on the Waterfront to present preliminary plans for the revitalization of the Watchemoket Square waterfront gateway district in East Providence, Ri and to solicit input from local citizens. The project will take advantage of new exits from Route 195 that will […]
Eight members of the Sowams Project Steering Committee met on January 14, 2020 to consider ideas for the next steps leading to establishing a National Heritage Area within the eight project communities over the next eight years. The group reviewed the progress-to-date on interpretive signage, brochure and pocket tour guide distribution, cable TV programming, collaboration […]