The Wampanoag, originally a confederacy of 69 tribes inhabiting what is now southeastern Massachusetts, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Rhode Island, played a crucial role in the earliest days of contact between Native and European cultures on Turtle Island. Today, out of six Wampanoag communities, the Mashpee Wampanoag (People of the First Light), and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), are federally recognized sovereign tribes living in Massachusetts, Eastern Rhode Island, and Martha’s Vineyard, respectively. […]