A land block of 255 acres in Bristol RI was recently returned to its Indian owners, when Brown University transferred it to a preservation trust controlled by the Pokanoket Indian Tribe.
The property overlooks Mount Hope Bay in Bristol RI. It is part of a land mass owned by the Haffenreffer family who donated it to the university in 1955.
The Boston Globe reported the land is the ancestral home of Metacom, the leader of the Pokanoket Wampanoag people who was also known as King Philip, and it’s the site of his death in 1676 during King Philip’s War.
Metacom was a son of Massasoit, the chief who first welcomed the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in 1621.
The new purpose of the land is that Pokanoket management “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 and others…
