Ousamequin of Pokanoket, the Massasoit “great sachem” (sôgemak).  Weetamoo, also known as Namumpum, female leader/sachem (sôgeskwak) of Pocasset. Wamsutta of Pokanoket, son of Ousamequin, husband of Weetamoo. Wootonakanuske, sister of Weetamoo, wife of Metacom. Metacom also known as Philip, son of Ousamequin, husband of Wootonakanuske. Tuspaquin of Nemasket, son-in-law of Ousamequin, husband of Amie. Amie of Nemasket, daughter of Ousamequin, wife of Tuspaquin. Awashonks of Sakonnet, Conbitant, father of Weetamoo, sachem of Pocasset. Nanamocomuck, Penacook, son of Passaconaway, Penacook. (Wampanoags)

I have been reading Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War, by Lisa Brooks. It is an amazing narrative, in which she goes back to original documents and source material, combined with local Indigenous knowledge to reexamine the stories of the New England colonies and the Indigenous peoples during the later 1600s, particularly the unfolding of hostilities that came to be known as King Philip’s War.

Reading this book has unlocked a deeper process of decolonizing my mind. What I have been most struck by are the individual stories, the actual names of individual people and the places in which they lived, planted, fished, traveled, escaped, returned.  How they were related and how they negotiated and were ambassadors on behalf of their relatives. How they adapted and resisted and strategized. Their names and their stories.

Warrabitta (female leader) of Owaskoag. Skitterygusset, her brother. Sagawetton, her brother, who lived with his wife on the Saco River.  (Wabanaki leaders around Casco Bay).  Canonicus, Miantonomo, sachems, Quaiapin of Woossowenbiskw, female sachem. Mixxano her husband, Scuttup and Quequegunent, her sons. Ninigret, her brother, leader of Niantic. Cojonoquant, cousin of Mixxano. (Narragansett leaders). James Printer, or Wawaus, a Nipmuc scholar from Hassanamesit.

Brooks brings to light people who had been hidden in the narratives told by the English settlers, people who had been hidden in the shadows as “Native people in the wilderness who were conquered by the English settlers.”  But–of course–they had names.  They had towns and regions and farms. They had families, with names.  Our Beloved Kin is a dense and long book (346 pages not counting the notes), slow reading, ultimately devastating because of the betrayals of the colonists which we anticipate throughout. But even the betrayals are identified specifically to people with names, betrayed by other people with names. I have only listed a few of the hundreds of people she identifies.

Because I speak English, I have had to say “female leader” in these lists to note that in fact there were female leaders. Among the Indigenous peoples of this region, the words for Sachem, or leader, were gendered, (sôgemak) (sôgeskwak) but to have a female leader was no more unusual than to have a male leader.  Just thought I should note that.

There is no way to convey here the immensity of what Lisa Brooks brings from out of the shadows into the light. I imagine that a lot of people won’t try to navigate this exposition. But if you care about our relationship to this land, and to the people of this land, it is mind-blowing.