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Rhode Island
Brown University transfers 225 acres of land to Pokanoket tribe in Rhode Island
Local News
The land was the ancestral home site of a historic leader of the Pokanoket Tribe who died during King Philip’s War in 1676.
Brown University transferred 225 acres in Bristol, Rhode Island to a preservation trust established by the Pokanoket Tribe, an Indigenous tribe with historic and cultural ties to the property.
Brown acquired a 375-acre property in 1955 at Mount Hope, where the university has its Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and an outing center. The museum will be moved to Providence, the Ivy League university said.
Mount Hope is also the ancestral home of Metacom, a leader of the Pokanoket also known as King Philip who died there during King Philip’s War in 1676. Metacom was the chief sachem of the Wampanoag when the English purchased their land in the 1670s.
The transfer comes after a 2017 agreement that ended a month-long Pokanoket encampment at the site.
The Pokanoket Tribe’s sachem (or chief), Tracey “Dancing Star” Trezvant Guy told The Boston Globe that the tribe plans to get an assessment of the land, which is known as Potumtuk, meaning “the lookout of the Pokanoket.”
“The significance of this land goes back to time immemorial for our people,” she said in a statement to the Globe. “For the first time in over 340 years, we unlocked the gates to the property for ourselves and walked onto our land. That is significant. It is historical.”
The land transfer, which can’t be amended, says the Pokanoket “shall at all times and in perpetuity provide and maintain access to the lands and waters of the Property to all members of all Tribes historically part of the Pokanoket Nation/Confederacy, and to all members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation, the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe and the Pocasset Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.”
Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy at Brown, said the original donation to the university asked for the university to be mindful of “the property’s great natural beauty, its historical background or the best interests of the Bristol community.”
“Those words remain as true and relevant today as when they were written nearly 70 years ago, and the steps we are taking to preserve the land in perpetuity are, we believe, fully consistent with that vision,” Carey said.
Brown is selling the rest of the property to the Town of Bristol for preservation and conversation. The sale will be finalized in early 2025.
