Joy, sorrow for Mashpee Wampanoag

By Jenna Wolf

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council leaders used to groan when their chairman, Russell "Fast Turtle" Peters Sr., began each meeting with a poem about the tribe's town on Cape Cod. But Peters was the man who galvanized local American Indians 30 years ago to fight for their land and their right to be recognized as a people.

    So when the 1,463 members of the tribe got word Friday that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was ending its decades-long fight and granting the tribe's wishes, there was sorrow that the man who first demanded federal recognition in 1975 wasn't there to witness it.

    "He set a precedent," said his daughter, Paula, 47, of Mashpee. "My father's goal was to preserve our heritage and culture in our ancestral homeland, and he basically died waiting for the answer."

    Peters, who died in 2002, took up the cause before the bureau even created the seven federal parameters for recognition for all tribes.

    It forced the Mashpee Wampanoag to amass 30,000 pages of documents outlining the history that saw them cook the first Thanksgiving meal for Pilgrims in 1621. The tribe also closed its membership rolls in 2000, hoping to bolster their petition. Now, they only allow membership to a child under a year old whose parents are members with ancestors listed on an 1861 state census, said Patricia Oakley, the tribe's genealogist and historian.

    "We want our members to stay in touch, come to the Pow-Wow every year," said Oakley, 50, of Mashpee. "We did it at a time when we were really pushing for recognition."

    Peters' family gathered last weekend at the dream home he built to enjoy in retirement. The mood was bittersweet.

    "He wasn't able to see it, but I know he's looking down on us very happy," said Steven A. Peters IV, his grandson. Peters said this decision will impact the community by bringing federal funds into the schools and the police and fire departments.

    And "Fast Turtle's" son, Robert, harkened back to the days when Mashpee was a place where "people hunted, fished and lived off the land. "Our community will never be what it once was," said Robert, 43, of Mattapan. "We were never going to allow anyone else to tell us who we are. But now we can start rebuilding."