For the first time in about a decade, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has been elected to the town of Mashpee’s board of selectmen. Mashpee is located on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
David Weeden, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, who is also that tribe’s historic preservation officer, was elected last month. Many people hope his election will indicate a thawing in a period of tense relations between tribe and town.
The board of selectmen and the tribe have been at odds for several years over the tribe’s building of a Class II casino on its reservation, which is located within the city limits.
Weeden ran on the promise of doing his best to protect local waterways, like the Mashpee River, which he said is important to the tribe’s cultural heritage. During the campaign he recalled herring fishing on the river as a child, before the town was developed. “You could come over to the edge of the retaining walls and look down and see the river would be black with herring.”
His election was the first time since 2009 that a tribal member was elected to the board, and previous to that there was a long interval.
In an interview with WGBH News, he said, “Because of my role as the Historic Preservation Officer, I’m constantly reminded that in the town, earlier on, all the seats of the board were filled by tribal members.”
That was before the town was developed and people from the mainland began moving there.
Another Mashpee tribal member, historian Paula Peters, said, “Historically, the town was a Wampanoag town. Even though early in the last century there were non-natives who moved into the town, they were primarily here as visitors, living seasonally in Mashpee, and really weren’t interested in the governance of the town.”
By the mid-1970s only one tribal member remained on the board and the population had shifted in favor of non-natives. Peters recalls this as a time of open racism, something that led to “combative town leaders and combative people in town government that we’ve had to fight for our rights with.” Peters has written a book, The Mashpee Nine, that details of a police raid, arrest and court trial of nine tribal members who were drumming on the Mashpee Pond campsite in July 29, 1976.
The last tribal member to serve on the board was George “Chuckie” Greene, who served from 2000 to 2009.
Peters remains skeptical that the town will make an effort to get along with the tribe, or that the tribe’s mistrust of the town government will abate.
The current Board of Selectmen Chairman, Andrew Gottlieb, concedes that rebuilding ties will be a challenge. He told WGBH, “Those of us who have been around town for a while, dating back to the 1970s, have pretty strong memories of tumultuous times in the communities.” He added, “We’d be kidding ourselves if we pretended that those things did not linger in some peoples’ minds.”
One sign of changing times: A nephew of the new selectmen persuaded the town meeting to pass a resolution recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
