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The tribal confederacy of the Wampanoag wielded power from the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay to Cape Cod and the islands. The tribes of the Wampanoag nation included the Pokanokets, the lead tribe of the Wampanoags. Their territory included what is now Bristol, Warren, Barrington, Rehoboth, Seekonk and Swansea, except for Gardners Neck. The Pocassets were the next most powerful of the Wampanoags. The Sakonnets were based in Little Compton. The Nemasket territory included the upper reaches of the Taunton River.

Along the lower reaches of the Taunton River, the dominant native tribe was the Pocassets, whose territory straddled the Taunton River and extended from Gardner’s Neck on the west to the Westport town line on the east, from the southerly boundary of Tiverton on the south to all of Freetown on the north. It included the present-day towns of Fall River, Somerset, the Gardner’s Neck section of Swansea, Tiverton and Freetown. The principal village of the Pocassets was Mattapoisett or Shawomet in today’s Somerset. Map 3 shows the concentration of native tribal settlements along the Taunton River corridor.

In his “History of Fall River,” Arthur Phillips says that Weetamoe’s main camp in the 1670’s was on the banks of the Quequechan River, probably near Hartwell Street where the skeleton in armor was found. Several other camp locations on the Taunton River were definitively located. These include locations near the Brightman Street Bridge; at the base of the Quequechan River (now occupied by the Tillotson Company); along the shore of South Watuppa Pond near its outlet; in the vicinity of Ruggles Park (then on the shores of the Quequechan River) where at one time there was a sizable spring in the hillside (in his “History of Somerset,” William A. Hart mentions that the Indians did not drink from surface streams but from springs); at the Wigwam lot next to the Valentine house on North Main Street; among other locations.

Tribal Use of the Land and the Taunton River

The Algonkians were most populous in southern New England. Here, the native tribes did not passively live off of the land but actively managed it for their own purposes and to maximize its productivity. These tribes practiced both an extensive and an intensive form of husbandry. The extensive form of land management involved the yearly burning of woodland understory growth to accomplish several purposes: it provided easier travel, more efficient hunting, lush grass growth that supported larger wildlife populations, and the reduction of diseases and pests. The salt water marshes were also burned annually to maximize meadow grass growth and therefore encourage wildfowl productivity.

According to one early historical account :

“From early times the Indians has been accustomed to burn over the whole country annually in November, after the leaves had fallen and the grass had become dry, which kept the meadows [marshes] clean, and prevented any growth of underbrush on the uplands. One by one the older trees would give way, and thus many cleared fields, or tracts with only here and there a tree, would abound, where the sod would be friable, ready for the plow; or already be well covered with grass, ready for pasturage. The meadow lands thus burnt over, threw out an early and rich growth of nutritious grasses, which if let alone, grew ‘up to a man’s face’”

Because of the primitive nature of their stone tools, the Pocassets avoided the dense, silty clay soils of glacial lake bottoms because they were more difficult to work and because they tended to remain wet longer into the spring season. They also avoided the stony till soils of the upland areas (prevalent in most of Fall River), because of their difficulty to cultivate, and the upper kame terrace soils (in Assonet) because of their dryness.

The soils most prized by the Pocassets were those low-stage kame terrace and kame delta deposits prevalent along much of the Taunton River in Swansea, Somerset and Freetown (in Assonet Bay and at the mouth of Mothers Brook). These soils were neither too wet nor too dry, easily workable with simple tools and with adequate topsoil. The most valuable and commonly-used agricultural fields were those near tributary streams where fish weirs could be constructed to catch anadronmous fish that swam upstream to spawn in the spring. One of the most used of these areas was at Peace Haven at the mouth of Mothers Brook.

Salt marshes are productive ecosystems and native tribes often located near these environments. The Taunton River and its tributary streams provided a wide range of fresh and salt water fish, shellfish (soft shelled clams, quahogs, oysters, periwinkles) and crustatians (crabs and lobsters). The woods provided abundant game in season and the woods and marshes along the river were habitats for a many species of wildfowl. The burning over of the woodlands and grasslands resulted in abundant berry production, including blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, blackberries elderberries and huckleberries. Wild cranberries abounded in the local swamps. In addition, trees provided a variety of nuts, cherries, plums and other fruit. In the spring, maples provided the sap that was boiled down to make maple syrup. Birches provided a thinner but still sweet syrup.

Medicinal herbs were readily available to treat a variety of ailments, and there was considerable trade in these commodities.

In addition to fish and shellfish, the Taunton River provided many other necessities of life. One of the most important of these life necessities, salt, was derived from river salt water that was placed in stone hollows and evaporated. The thick, hard quahog shells provided blades for hoes, and other shells were fashioned into fish hooks and other implements, including small tweezers that young braves used to pull out the hair on their sparse beards. The Taunton River marshes yielded clay for making pottery and provided rushes for basket-making and for the mats that the Pocassets wove for summer house walls and beds.

The Taunton River even provided currency for the native tribes. The periwinkle and the white of the quahog shell furnished the material for the valuable white beads of wampum and the blue spot on quahog shells provided the blue bead. Wampum was used for personal ornamentation, but its high regard among the natives was noticed by Dutch traders, and wampum later became a medium of exchange and acted as currency. When English currency later became scarce, the European settlers used wampum as an equivalent to money. The Narragansetts and later the Wampanoags learned to make wampum, which originally came from tribes on Long Island. Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony noted in his journal that wampum “makes ye Indians in these parts rich & power full and also prowd therby.”

The agricultural practices of the Pocassets involved the planting of corn on mounds in the spring, with beans planted at the base to allow the vines to use the corn stalks as a pole. Squash and pumpkins were planted in-between. Alewives were dug into the base of the corn mounds to provide fertilizer. Large fields were cultivated on a cooperative basis, as the concept of personal land ownership was unknown to native tribes.

John Winthrop noted that the time of planting by the Indians was regulated by natural seasonal events: “Some of the Indians take the time of the coming up of a Fish, called Aloofes, into the Rivers. Others of the budding of some Trees.” Later commentators said that the proper planting time was “when the leaves of the White Oak are as big as the ear of a mouse.”

Once the fall harvest was over and festivals concluded, the surplus foodstuffs were placed in storage areas dug into the sides of dry kame terrace deposits. The tribe would then divide into small bands and spread out into the woodland for the fall hunting season. Once the hunting season was concluded in December, the band reassembled inland in protected areas where firewood was more readily available.

Division of work was divided by sex. The men did the hunting and fishing and the women did everything else, including cooking, tilling fields and making clothing, among other tasks. The exception was that the men maintained the tobacco fields.

Native settlements occurred in villages of many structures. Dwellings were round and built of thin branches tied together at the top and covered by reed mats in summer or animal skins in autumn. Larger homes were oblong roofed dwellings. In the winter, they stood empty, as the occupants withdrew to the evergreen forests of Barrington or Middleborough.

Native tribes were prodigious users of firewood, since they kept home fires going constantly. As a result, the landscape inland along the shoreline of the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay was virtually denuded of forests. Early European explorers of Mount Hope Bay and the Taunton River remarked that the landscape had been cleared for cultivation and pasture for a considerable distance back from the shoreline.