Beyond Conquest: Native Peoples and the Struggle for History in New England

Acknowledgments

BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page xiii / / Beyond Conquest / Amy E. Den Ouden 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 [-13], (5) Lines: 40 to 53 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-13], (5) Acknowledgments For their patience, generosity, and wisdom, I would like to thank the elders who have been important mentors and most gracious friends to me since this project began, especially Alton Smith Sr., Chief Hockeo, Trudie Lamb Richmond, Mary Sebastian, Betty Jackson Fletcher, and Chief Big Eagle. It is in their honor, and with deep respect and gratitude for what they have fought for, that I devote the proceeds from this book to the Native American Rights Fund. Initial research for this book was funded by a 1996 Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship Award and by a grant from the Philips Native American Fund of the American Philosophical Society. As a part of my work for the Golden Hill Paugussett and Eastern Pequot federal acknowledgment projects throughout the 1990s, I conducted ethnographic and documentary research as well as oral history interviews. I was always welcomed with warmth and honesty by the members of these Native nations, and through both informal and formal discussions with Eastern Pequot and Paugussett people over the past decade, and more recently with members of the Mashpee Wampanoag nation, I have learned a great deal more about the twentieth-century history of southern New England’s Native peoples and the complexity of their struggles for justice than I can properly convey. Through their tireless generosity, and in the stories and anecdotes of their own and their ancestors’ lives that they have candidly shared, I have learned something of the depth of the tolerance and wisdom that lies at the core of their shared historical experience. I am forever in their debt, and wish especially to thank Kathy Sebastian, Darlene Hamlin, Mark Sebastian, Marcia Flowers, Lillian Sebastian and Idabelle Sebastian Jordan, Anne Foxx, John Peters, Jr., Dr. Louis Randall, Burne Stanley Peters, Bobby Sebastian, and Ron Wolf Jackson. A graduate assistantship in the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut was immensely helpful to me as I conducted research in the early stages of this project. For their support and friendship, I wish to thank Professor Ronald Taylor, then the institute’s director, and Rose xiii BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page xiv / / Beyond Conquest / Amy E. Den Ouden Acknowledgments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 [-14], (6) Lines: 53 to 59 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [-14], (6) Lovelace, the institute’s administrator. As I began my research and writing for this book, I was fortunate to have been encouraged and guided by scholars for whom I have long held great respect, especially Professors James Faris, Bernard Magubane, Hugh Hamill, Irene Silverblatt, Francoise Dussart, and Robert Bee. I wish also to extend special thanks to Professor Kevin McBride, who may remember that it is now over a dozen years ago that we sat with Chief Hockeo of the Eastern Pequot Nationintheagingtrailer–thentheTribalOffice–ontheEasternPequot reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut, to discuss research for the Eastern Pequot federal acknowledgment project. It was at that moment that I was first struck with the historical power of reservation land, and thus it is that moment that most accurately marks the launching of this project. I also extend my most sincere thanks to Paul Grant-Costa, a longtime friend and co-researcher. His transcriptions of documents from the Connecticut Archives collection known as the “Indian Papers” were an invaluable resource. Professor Gerald Sider, whose Lumbee Indian Histories remains a crucial source of inspiration for my own work, was generous enough to read – on the spot – the manuscript I sent to him several years ago. In fact, no more than three days after I sent it to him, the phone in my kitchen rang. While I had hoped for but never expected such a response, Gerald was on the other end of the line, telling me how much he liked the project and how well he though it would fit into the Fourth World Rising series that he and Kirk...