The Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) Native American & Indigenous Issues Symposium showcases examples of Academic and Native Nations collaboration and envisioned future partnerships. The symposium also highlights the important history and impact of King Phillip’s War/Metacom’s Rebellion in honor of the 350th anniversary of the start of this conflict. Click here for the first of three videos from April 1-2, 2026 that were posted on June 22, 2026 by Harvard Indigenous. Links to three other presentations at the Symposium can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@harvardindigenous6911

(Above, left) Professor Joseph Gone welcomed the audience before Professor Philip Deloria introduced the keynote speaker, author and historian Linda Coombs of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). This program was made possible with the generous support from the Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery Initiative, Harvard Library, Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, the Office for Academic Culture and Community, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

This recording includes the Keynote Address from Linda Coombs: “No 50 Years of Peace: Events Leading to King Philip’s War”. Linda Coombs is program director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center. Born and raised in Martha’s Vineyard, Coombs lives with her family in the Wampanoag Community in Mashpee on Cape Cod. After she graduated from University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1971, she began a museum career in 1974, interning at the Boston Children’s Museum as part of its Native American Program. She and her peers, including Narragansett elder Paulla Dove Jennings, wrote children’s books for the Museum, illustrating Native American culture from a Native American perspective. Coombs later worked for nearly three decades with the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Patuxet Museums, including 15 years as the program’s associate director.

Following her talk, Coombs took questions from the audience, emceed by Professor Deloria, starting with “Here we have Metacom, Pometacom, Metacomet, King Philip. I wonder if you can walk us through the sort of the naming and the sort of issues surrounding the name that is attached to this person.”