Hassanamisco Nipmuc

The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band is the sole state-recognized tribe in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They were recognized in 1976 by Governor Michael Dukakis via Executive Order 126. They were briefly known as the Nipmuc Nation, a union of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc and the Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck bands, during their attempt to receive federal acknowledgment as a Nation. The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band owns three and a half acres of reservation land in what is present day Grafton, Massachusetts. The Nipmuc are native to Central Massachusetts, Northeastern Connecticut, and parts of Rhode Island.

In 1647, a Puritan reverend by the name of John Eliot created the Hassanmesit "praying town." Through the creation and usage of this town, the Nipmuc people were forcefully converted to Christianity. In 1727, a Nipmuc woman, Sarah Robins took possession of the land that is currently referred to as the Hassanamisco Reservation. In the mid-1600s intermarriages between the Nipmuc people and African Americans became common, whether it be because of bonding over shared marginalization, or because of the dwindling numbers of available Native American men.

There are nearly 600 members of the Nipmuc tribe living in Massachusetts today. The Hassanamisco Reservation and Cisco Homestead in Grafton, Massachusetts are owned and used by the Nipmuc people. In 2011, the reservation and homestead were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1980, the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band petitioned for federal recognition. They received preliminary approval before being ultimately denied.

History
The Nipmuc people, also referred to as "freshwater people," were divided into many villages which were connected through alliances and trade. They once had a vast amount of land and were spread throughout what is now eastern to central Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The people hunted, gathered, and planted food. The women of the tribe were in charge of farming, producing, and preparing food for their families and were the ones who passed down cultural knowledge from generation to generation. Since the wetus that they lived in could be moved, they were seen as "wanderers." They took great care of the land on which they lived.

Not much is known about the Nipmuc people before the invasion of European settlers. The earliest encounter known was in 1621, when the Native Americans were friendly with the settlers.

In the mid-1600s, Hassanemesit was one of more than a dozen Praying Towns established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England as permanent, European-style settlements for Christianized "praying Indians" in an effort to commit genocide and convert Eastern Algonquians to Christianity. In November, 1675, during King Philip's War, the praying Indians of Hassanemesit were presented with an ultimatum by surrounding Nipmuc that they had to join their coalition with the colonists, and the town was depopulated for the duration of the war.

After the end of King Phillip's War, the seven Nipmuc families that returned from war are referred to now as the Hassanamisco Nipmuc people. The Hassanamisco land was stolen by settlers without consent. The Nipmuc people were allowed to keep only 1,200 acres. That land began to dwindle as some Hassanmesit Nipmuc people started to sell or lease their land to encroaching settlers. From the 1720s to the 1740s, the Colony of Massachusetts put unassailable pressure on the Hassanamesit Nipmuc to sell their land and enter the market economy. However, this was often a tactic used on Native Americans so that they would get trapped into debt and then the settlers could claim their land as payment. The Hassanmesit Nipmuc fell victim to this practice and lost some communal land. Their land continued to be sold in pieces until 1857 when Moses Printer sold his land to Harry Arnold. The remaining 3 1/2 acres were retained by the Nipmuc Cisco family, and are currently known as the Hassanamisco Reservation.

Sarah Robins was a member of one of the original seven Nipmuc families. Sarah took possession of the land in 1727 and began a tradition of female land inheritance that lasted for hundreds of years. The female members of the Cisco family took control over the land in the late nineteenth century. These women became the caretakers of the land, working to ensure its preservation. After 1857, Sarah Arnold Cisco's land became the last original piece of Nipmuc land dating back to before the 1600s, after her uncle John Hector sold his land so he could live with other natives and take advantage of opportunities in Worcester. Sarah Cisco decided that she would stay on her land and fight for it.

In the early 2000s, there was excavation work done at the Hassanamisco Reservation to find the remains of Sarah Boston's farmstead. Sarah Boston was the great-granddaughter of Sarah Robins. This site was the original land through which Sarah Robins started the tradition of female inheritance. Through this excavation, it was learned that the farmstead relied on the breeding and cultivation of animals for meat. It was also learned how she and others prepared food, what was eaten and how they procured it.

Conversion to Christianity
In the seventeenth century, a Protestant missionary by the name of John Eliot spoke in Northeastern Connecticut in an attempt to convert the local Native Americans to Christianity. On Nipmuc land and territory, Eliot created seven "praying towns. The present day Hassanamisco Reservation located in Grafton, Massachusetts, was briefly a praying town in 1728 when it was called the town of Hassanamesit. Hassanamesit was already an established community when Eliot arrived, so he illegally claimed it in order to enslave the people already living there to the settlers and their religion. These towns had the backing of the Massachusetts government at the time to commit genocide. Eliot believed that the Indigenous people not only needed to learn the Gospel, but to also adopt European ways of living. While living in these towns, the Native inhabitants were not allowed to practice any of their traditions. To enforce this way of living, the "Praying Indians" of the towns were given eight rules they needed to follow. If they did not, were forced to pay a fine, killed or sold into slavery. These rules included restrictions of what one's hair might look like; men were told they could not have long hair and women were required to have their hair pulled back. This was done in an effort to culturally assimilate the Nipmuc; as a part of Eliot's efforts to force the Nipmuc people to Christianity and to make them more "civilized," he forced the people in Hassanamesit to raise livestock. A superintendent at the time, Daniel Gookin, praised the Hassanmesit town for their ability to raise livestock. He stated that their way of keeping cattle and pigs was "better than any other Indians." The praying towns in Northeastern Connecticut were shut down after the beginning of King Phillip's war because the residents were forced to relocate to other towns.

King Phillip's War
Metacom, also known as King Phillip, recruited many different Native American tribes in New England to fight with him in his conflict with the colonists. Thousands of Native Americans were killed in this war, including members of the Nipmuc tribe. During the war, the Nipmuc, along with several other tribes, attacked Brookfield and set fire to Springfield, Massachusetts. In August 1675, the members of Hassanamesit praying town, along with four other towns, were held prisoner and banned from leaving the settlement under threat of imprisonment or death. In October of the same year, non-combatant Nipmuc were confined to Deer Island, in Boston harbor, for the winter, where more than half died from exposure and starvation. At the end of the war, the Nipmuc tribal members who had joined King Phillip that did not manage to escape were either killed or sold into slavery in the West Indies.

Denied Petition for Federal Acknowledgment
In 1980, the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation petitioned for federal acknowledgment. On June 18, 2004, the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs issued a negative final determination due to the group's failure to meet four of the seven mandatory criteria for federal acknowledgment, including criterion 83.7(e) "descent from a historic Indian tribe."

The Branch of Acknowledgment and Research, Bureau of Indian Affairs determined that only 2% of the group's membership descended from the historic Hassanamisco tribal entity at the time of the final determination. 54% of the group's membership was found to descend from the Dudley/Webster Nipmuc, and 45% of the group's membership was found to descend from a "Miscellaneous Indian" on the 1861 Earle Report. The tribal affiliation of this "Miscellaneous Indian" is unknown, although it is speculated to be Dudley/Webster Nimpuc. The Hassanamisco Nipmuc have contended that the 1861 Earle Report was biased against their ancestors because they were mixed-race and because "Mr. Earle 'conflated biological with cultural Indianness.' That means that Mr. Earle worked on the assumption that genealogical lineage was all-important, as it is to determine the factual lineage of any culture. He didn't agree with the modern pretense that 'Indianness' was also a cultural phenomenon that could be passed along just like memories of warrior ancestors, even to folks who had no blood ties to the original Native Americans."

The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation failed to meet criterion 83.7(a), which requires that "the petitioner has been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900." The final determination found that the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation was not identified externally as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis between 1900 - 1970. The Branch of Acknowledgment and Research wrote, "The evidence submitted for the [Proposed Finding] and [Final Determination] does not include substantially continuous external identifications of a Hassanamisco Nipmuc entity broader than the Hassanamisco proprietary descendants for the period 1900-1970. An external identification of the narrower Hassanamisco entity is not the same as an external identification of the current petitioner, which is substantially different from the entity that was being identified, the Hassanamisco descendants constituting 11 of the petitioner's 526 members."

The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation failed to meet criterion 83.7(b), which requires that "A predominant portion of the petitioning group comprises a distinct community and has existed as a community from historical times until the present." The Branch of Acknowledgement and Research determined that the members of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation had no extended social or political interaction with each other prior to 1978. They wrote, "The evidence in the record shows no direct social interaction between the Hassanamisco Nipmuc and the [Dudley/Webster] Nipmuc families between the 1730's and the 1920's -- a period of nearly two centuries. From the 1920's through the 1970's, the evidence in the record showed occasional social interaction between Hassanamisco descendants and [Dudley Webster] descendants, most frequently in the context of pan-Indian or intertribal activities...On the basis of precedent, this type of limited interaction is not sufficient in scope to establish a community under 83.7(b) during any time period."

During the federal acknowledgement process, the Branch of Acknowledgment and Research also determined that the historic Hassanamisco tribal entity ceased to exist in the 18th century, writing, "There is sufficient evidence that the historical Hassanamisco Band retained community from colonial times until the period of the American Revolution, as a majority of its population lived on the reservation in Grafton, Massachusetts. From the American Revolution until the mid-19th century, there is limited evidence concerning continuing social ties among the Hassanamisco proprietary families. From the mid-19th century to the present, most of the evidence in the record pertains only to the Cisco extended family, and demonstrates only occasional social interaction between the Ciscos and the descendants of the other Hassanamisco proprietary families." The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation was therefore found to be a group of Nipmuc descendents created in 1978, and not the successors to the historic Hassanamisco Nipmuc tribe. A title search for their supposed reservation in Grafton, Massachusetts, revealed that the reservation was the private property of the Cisco family, and not commonly held Nipmuc land. The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation was therefore found to be unrelated to the historic Hassanamisco Tribe. This - along with the lack of political influence or authority shown by the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation from 1978 onwards - caused them to fail criterion 83.7(c), which requires that "The petitioner has maintained political influence or authority over its members as an autonomous entity from historical times until the present."

Current status
Today, the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band has over 600 members. They are a state-recognized tribe. In 1980, the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation filed a petition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to gain federal recognition, they received preliminary approval but were ultimately denied.

Cisco Homestead
The Cisco Homestead is the central building of the Hassanamisco Reservation and is currently being restored by members of the tribe. Approximately 150 years ago the building was named after the Cisco family, but it had been standing long before it had received its name, having been built in 1801. It is thought that the Cisco Homestead is the oldest timber-framed building that is still used by Native Americans to this day.