In Little Compton, reconnecting with Sakonnet Wampanoag history, communities

The Little Compton Historical Society has opened a new garden and exhibition with a focus on Indigenous culture, past and present

Photos by Meredith Brower

Residents of Newport County are no stranger to the word “Sakonnet,” although some may be surprised to learn that the Sakonnet people can trace their roots here back 13,000 years; back to when the Sakonnet River was more of a stream, and the shores of what is now called Little Compton extended a mile west, in the direction of Newport. At one time along those shores, before they were swept some 80 feet under water, it would have been normal to see communities of Wampanoag people, the shoreline dotted with weekus — their rounded dwellings — and the waterway traversed by mishoons — dugout canoes.

Such was the way of life in this corner of the world for thousands of years.

And it was this way of life that was forever changed with the arrival of European settlers and the eventual creation of the American colonies. While the country readies to celebrate its 250th birthday, the town of Little Compton this August celebrated its 350th anniversary, which coincides with King Philip’s War and the first attempt at English settlement in Sakonnet.

King Philip’s War is also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narragansett War, and Metacom’s Rebellion. It was waged from 1675–76 and is named for Metacom, known as “King Philip,” the leader of the Wampanoag people. The war was a result of rising tensions and battles between Native communities and English settlers; fighting transpired across much of what is now New England and resulted in the loss of tribal lands and extreme causalities.

The present-day community of Little Compton sits on the traditional homelands of the Sakonnet Wampanoag and Acoaxet Wampanoag peoples. The Little Compton Historical Society is built on land that was once reserved for Awashonks, a Sakonnet sachem, and her people — an arrangement that dates to 1675 and Sakonnet’s first English proprietors.

Marjory O’Toole is executive director of the historical society, where she’s worked for 20 years. Under her leadership, a new garden has been created to honor Awashonks’ legacy and to offer a corrective course to recent history, one O’Toole hopes will be shaped by ongoing collaboration between residents and Wampanoag people.

A major fruit of this labor is the Sakonnet History Project, which commemorates the 350th anniversary of King Philip’s War and the first attempt English settlement in Sakonnet. The project marks a new phase in the town’s recognition of historical events.

“The stories we’d inherited were really flawed,” O’Toole says, noting the accounts were disrespectful of different races, women, immigrants, enslaved populations, and the poor and working classes. She, her staff, and the board have worked for the past ten years to correct these narratives to be more inclusive of Little Compton’s history — complications and all.

O’Toole and her colleagues uncovered primary sources about Sakonnet Wampanoag history, a topic they have continued researching. That has included meeting members of local and regional Wampanoag communities and building relationships founded on trust and collaboration, all in an effort to tell history from new and different perspectives.

“We knew this was a really important story… and didn’t want to rush it,” says O’Toole; most importantly, she adds, “was doing this work in conjunction with Wampanoag people,” in a way that is meaningful, not transactional.

Now, these Native collaborators are both advisors and partners in an ongoing project. The target audience is anybody who is open to visiting and exploring the garden and companion exhibit, although O’Toole notes that residents of Little Compton and members of the Native community are especially welcome.

Awashonks’ connection to the land was among the information the society unearthed during its research phase. “It’s something we learned about ten years ago, and doesn’t appear in older history,” says O’Toole.

Essentially, English settlers promised the land to Awashonks. But they reneged on the offer at the end of King Philip’s War “because of her perceived disloyalty to the English,” as O’Toole explains it. That more or less marked the end of Sakonnets living on their ancestral homeland, where they had dwelled for thousands of years.

Linda Jeffers Coombs, of the Aquinnah Wampanoags, was involved in the development of Awashonks’ Garden and has known O’Toole for about a decade.

“People have a limited and/or skewed view of colonial history,” says Coombs, noting that O’Toole has “done a lot of work to address that problem.”

Coombs has spent the better part of 50 years educating others about Native history. In the 1970s and ’80s she worked at Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts, where her experience was that people’s perception of history did not change. Now, though, she is noticing a shift, a willingness of people to listen to new stories and to learn other perspectives of Native history, including acknowledging that Indigenous stories have been relayed orally for centuries and respecting the knowledge inherent in those stories.

Elizabeth James-Perry, also of the Aquinnah Wampanoags, created a garden installation in the shape of a turtle, a reference to the coastal nature of local Native communities and to “Turtle Island,” the name many Indigenous groups use to refer to the North American continent. Like other aspects of the garden, the plants incorporated in the design are native and intentional, making the piece a small-scale introduction to Native ways of land stewardship.

James-Perry also has a piece of beaded work included in “Sakonnet Belongings: Wampanoag Art Past & Present,” a companion exhibition on view inside the historical society’s museum space. Her “Friendship Collar” is made of wampum beads, which are crafted from whelk and clam shells and known for their purple and white coloring. The Little Compton Historical Society purchased the piece in 2024, and it is now part of its permanent collection. The work holds cultural importance within local Native communities and integrates James-Perry’s love of weaving with her love of shells.

“It’s nice to make some wampum to honor Indigenous past and continuance,” she says, noting that wampum beads, when made correctly in the traditional way, can last for hundreds or thousands of years. “It goes way back in our traditions.”

The collar is an example of the sort of status piece that represents community care, she explains, and typically is earned and gifted as a sign of reverence or respect; in the Wampanoag sense of the word, “friend” in this context refers more to an ally or a level of friendship.

Working with the historical society is a positive example of the ways institutions and Native communities can work together, James-Perry says. “As an Indigenous artist, and an Indigenous gardener, and an Indigenous researcher, I appreciate long-term relationships.”

Her brother, Jonathan James-Perry, was the 2024 Little Compton Historical Society Artist in Residence. For that project, he constructed a traditional 16-foot mishoon, or dugout canoe, which is now on display in Awashonks’ Garden. During a ceremony last September, on what O’Toole describes as “a very special day,” the mishoon was launched from Squant Rock at Sakonnet Point. Now known as Llyod’s Beach, it has been a sacred site for Native communities for centuries; the launching marked the first time Wampanoag people had gathered in ceremony there in 200 years.

“There are really storied places on the land that tribal people get to come in and reconnect with,” says Elizabeth James-Perry, referring to positive outcomes of these collaborations.

Her brother led a gathering of song the evening before the launch. “The Ancestors have not heard these songs in Sakonnet in over 200 years, and tonight they are very happy,” O’Toole recalls him saying.

She has been working on “Reconnections,” a two-volume collection of Native essays, art and history. The title, inspired by Jonathan James-Perry, “reflects the idea that we want to carry forward,” O’Toole says, as well as the nature of the historical society’s work. The first volume, published earlier this year, is called “Reconnections: Essays & Artwork by Wampanoag & Narragansett Knowledge Keepers.” The second volume, which will be focused on history, will be released within the next year.

“If we can help Wampanoags reconnect with their Sakonnet homelands, that’s a very good use of our resources,” says O’Toole, as is “helping non-Native people reconnect with history.”

Another central feature of Awashonks’ Garden is a summer weeku, constructed by Darius Coombs, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoags. A weeku (pronounced we-que) is a Wampanoag home, traditionally covered with a cattail-mat during spring and summer, and bark in the fall and winter.

In an essay he wrote for the “Reconnections” collection, Coombs notes that at one time, “if you were in a mishoon, a dugout canoe, going up and down the Sakonnet River in the summertime, you would see a cattail-mat-covered weeku surrounded by corn fields, then another mat-covered weeku, and then more corn fields, all up and down the shore.”

Awashonks’ Garden is free and open to the public from sunrise to sunset every day, and this summer and fall the historical society offered Native-led tours along with the “Belongings” exhibition.

The book projects, garden, and exhibition all represent a “far more accurate, far more complicated, and far more difficult history,” says O’Toole. “It’s not just the fairytale.”

For more information about the society’s ongoing programs and events, or to purchase the “Reconnections” collection, visit www.littlecompton.org.