Herring Pond Wampanoags
The Herring Pond Wampanoags also identified in historical documents as Patuxet, Comassakumkanit, The Herring Pond Indians, The Pondville Indians and Manomet. The tribe was established on one of the "praying towns" set up in the colonial era by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
For thousands of years the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe has continuously occupied this region. Of all the historic tribes remaining in Commonwealth of Massachusetts today the “Herring Pond Indians” are the only Tribe to have had lands in the Town of Plymouth and Bourne allotted to them and have never ceded its ancestral rights to these homelands by treaty or sale.
Herring Pond's sacred places include cemeteries, Dina Path property (a 6-acre parcel deeded back to the Tribe by the Town of Plymouth in late 2019) and Pondville Meetinghouse (Pondville Indian Church) located in Cedarville a small village at the Southern borders of Plymouth adjacent to Great Herring Pond. Built from an 1838 Petition by “John Conet and the Herring Pond Indians” the Meetinghouse at that time was at the center of our tribal existence and is so today. Although the original 200-acre lot has been greatly diminished.
The largest challenge is preserving what remains of historical reservation lands which previously contained three separate parcels, mostly in Plymouth but partly in Bourne which in total was about 3,000+ acres, namely the Great Lot (about 2,600 acres), the Meetinghouse Lot (about 200 acres) and the Herring River Lot known to the tribe in the 21st Century as “The Valley” (about 400 acres) of which most of it was lost, stolen or conveyed for reasons unknown to the Tribe.
The Herring Pond Wampanoags also identified in historical documents as Patuxet, Comassakumkanit, The Herring Pond Indians, The Pondville Indians and Manomet. The tribe was established on one of the "praying towns" set up in the colonial era by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
For thousands of years the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe has continuously occupied this region. Of all the historic tribes remaining in Commonwealth of Massachusetts today the “Herring Pond Indians” are the only Tribe to have had lands in the Town of Plymouth and Bourne allotted to them and have never ceded its ancestral rights to these homelands by treaty or sale.
Herring Pond's sacred places include cemeteries, Dina Path property (a 6-acre parcel deeded back to the Tribe by the Town of Plymouth in late 2019) and Pondville Meetinghouse (Pondville Indian Church) located in Cedarville a small village at the Southern borders of Plymouth adjacent to Great Herring Pond. Built from an 1838 Petition by “John Conet and the Herring Pond Indians” the Meetinghouse at that time was at the center of our tribal existence and is so today. Although the original 200-acre lot has been greatly diminished.
The largest challenge is preserving what remains of historical reservation lands which previously contained three separate parcels, mostly in Plymouth but partly in Bourne which in total was about 3,000+ acres, namely the Great Lot (about 2,600 acres), the Meetinghouse Lot (about 200 acres) and the Herring River Lot known to the tribe in the 21st Century as “The Valley” (about 400 acres) of which most of it was lost, stolen or conveyed for reasons unknown to the Tribe.