45 1/2 Commonwealth Ave
Concord, MA 01742
Their Marks
Piambo. Pyambow. Piamboho. Piambowhow. His Mark.
Nipmuc. His home at Hassanamesit (present day Grafton, MA and surrounding areas) and later at Natick. Interred on Deer Island during the First Indian War (King Philip’s War). Leader in praying town at Natick, with Waban. Translator for John Eliot.
His mark appearing on deeds relative to land transfers and land disputes against settlers in Nipmuc country.
This deed, for land at a place today called Sherborn, Massachusetts, marked on June 20, 1682.
Seen @ Massachusetts Historical Society.
**Content Warning:
Racist/Misogynistic Slur**
Squaw Sachem. Squaw Sachem of Mistick. Saunkskwa of Missitekw. Skosachoms mark.
Her homelands spreading across the areas of present day Charlestown to Concord, MA. and across Massachusett, Nipmuc and Pawtucket territories. This land deed for a tract of land from so-called Charlestown and Cambridge, Massachusetts, “against the ponds at Misticke” to Jotham Gibbons. Marked on the 13th of November, 1636. Leader across several Massachusett and Pawtucket communities before, during and after the death of her first partner, Nanepashemet (d. 1619). She died in 1667.
Her Kin: Nanepashemet, a partner. Their sons, Wonohaquaham (or Sagamore John), Montowampate (or Sagamore James), and Wenepoykin (or Sagamore George). Wompachowet or Webcowit, a partner. Their daughter, Yawata (or Sarah).
This mark offers an opportunity for reflection and discussion around the appropriation and derogatory meaning the Algonquian word (and once honorific term) “squaw” or “sonksqua” now holds. This document also calls to attention the lack of documentation of this leader’s Massachusett name. Despite her mark appearing on many ‘legal’ documents in the 17th century, her given name was never recorded. Perhaps Saunskskwa/Sonksqua was her chosen identity; perhaps colonizers weren’t concerned enough to record her other name(s).
Muttawamp. Mattawmp.
The mark of Mattawamppe.
Nipmuc. His home in and around Quabog, (present-day New Braintree, the Brookfields, and surrounding areas), part of Memamesit.
Led attacks at New Braintree + Brookfield (or Wheeler’s Surprise + the Brookfield Siege) against Massachusetts Bay Colonizers in August of 1675. Led attacks at present-day “Sudbury,” “Hadley,” “Hatfield,” and “South Deerfield” (Battle of Bloody Brook), Massachusetts, during the War. Mugquompoag (poorly translated in the English to military leader). Executed by colonizers in September 1676.
Place names used in this document: Masquabanick, Nanantomqua, a hill called Asquooch, a brook called Naltaug, Quabaug, Podunk, Lashaway, Massaquoukcumis, Nacommuck, Wullamannuck, Masgpabbanisk and a hill called Agnoack. Spelled as they appear.
Mattawammppe’s mark, a thunderbird, seen here on a deed from 1673 for lands at Quabog. Muttawamp appeared to challenge the sale of the land, staking claim for his own interest in the transaction.
Brookfield, MA Papers at American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
A Pitteme (Andrew Pittimee, Pittomo or Pittame)
Nipmuc. At home in and around Natick. A “Christian Indian,” members of Pittimee’s family including several children murdered by four white settlers in the massacre at Hurtleberry Hill, in 1676, in the midst of the First Indian War, or King Philip’s War (google the massacre at your own risk). Pittimee interred on Deer Island (and survived) also in 1676.
Following the War, Pittimee appears across several land transfer documents across Nipnet (Nipmuc country) and acts as an interpreter and counselor to Waban and other Nipmucs.
This deed, for land at a place today called Sherborn, Massachusetts, marked on June 20, 1682. This copy of the original seen @ Massachusetts Historical Society.
Statement
Miswaban. Waban. His Marke.
His homes at Nonantum (present day “Newton, Massachusetts”) and at Natick, at the confluence of Nipmuc and Massachusett homelands. Probably born at Musketaquid, near present day “Concord, Massachusetts.” Primary records and contemporary research both confuse and misidentify(?) his tribal identity. Active as a leader in various Praying Towns in Massachusetts. Despite this, Waban and his family were interred at Deer Island during the First Indian War (or King Philip’s War). Contested the “sale” of some lands in and around Natick. Died 1684.
The Algonquian word waban can be translated to the English word for wind.
Some kin: a partner, called Tasunsquaw, their son, Weegramomenit or Thomas.
This document signed June 12, 1682. Seen @ Massachusetts Historical Society.
Statement
Since the 1620’s, the time of first interaction between English settlers and Native peoples of the Northeast, the settler colonial project has focused primarily on the dispossession of Indigenous lands. There were many methods employed by colonials to forcibly assimilate or remove Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Mohican and other native people from their homelands in the place that would come to be called Massachusetts.
Early land deed or transfer documents represent perhaps the most audacious form of land dispossession in the Native Northeast. They were drawn up as legal and binding documents connected to foreign (English) cultural practices imposed upon the land and her peoples. Native community leaders or officials (as designated by the very colonists seeking claims to land) relied on translators and interpreters to outline the terms for the deeding of land to settlers. Many colonizers and Native folks alike were not literate in each other’s languages (oral or otherwise), and so many Native signatories used pictographs or “marks” to sign the documents.
The land deeds themselves invite connection to Algonquian-language place names appearing on the hand-written documents, including Assabet, Copassanatuxett, Shawmut, Kwinitekw, Wequomps, and others. Many of these important and descriptive Algonquian-language places names have been replaced or erased by English words. Just as importantly, these documents remind us of the names of, and kinship relationships between relatives and ancestors whose voices and stories have been marginalized across time and space.
In some cases, the pictographs or signatory marks connect to the signer as representations of themselves, their community(ies), or their relationships with more-than-human relatives. An exploration of the documents, the circumstances surrounding the taking of territory in the place now known as Massachusetts, and the remembering of the ancestors who left their marks on paper, offer us the opportunity to reconnect, reimagine and restore their place(s) on the landscape. Their marks offer us an opportunity to ask questions beyond the words on the paper and to think of our enduring responsibilities to them and to the land.
What do you see in these marks?
How do you remember and connect to this land?
-Kimberly Toney, November 2024