CALL IT WAMPANOAG ISLAND

Cape Cod's Squaw Island prompts debate over cultural reclamation, interpretation of words

Rachael Devaney, Cape Cod Times
Mon, December 27, 2021

HYANNISPORT — For centuries, the lush, green spit of Hyannisport marshland has been locally called Squaw Island, with legends surrounding a “squaw,” or a Wampanoag woman, who waited on the island for her husband to return from war.

But U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland recently designated the word “squaw” a racial slur and has moved to ban the word from federal lands. Haaland, an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna Native American tribe in New Mexico, is the first Native American to hold a Cabinet post.

Along with Haaland's designation is the creation of a task force that will evaluate 650 locations and rename streams, valleys, lakes, creeks, street signs and parks across the country that contain the word “squaw,” including Squaw Island in Hyannisport.

A view of Squaw Island in Hyannisport looking east towards Hyannis. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland recently designated the word “squaw” a racial slur and has moved to evaluate and rename up to 650 locations that contain the word across the country, including Squaw Island in the town of Barnstable.

But Camille Madison, of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project in Mashpee, said the designation is a call to “look back on history,” and “reconnect to the origins of the Algonquian language.”

“Squaw is a word or what's called a morpheme — a meaningful morphological unit of a language. It refers to the female character of a woman and it's used to create words that mean woman, or little girl, or good girl,” said Madison, who is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). “I want to respect that people feel offended by the use of that word. Western tribal people didn't know that this is a morpheme in our language. But what does that say to us as Algonquian people? This (Haaland’s designation) contributes and perpetuates our erasure. That's a part of my sacred language. That's who I am.”

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About 12 tribal nations throughout the Eastern Woodlands territory of the indigenous people of North America use the sound or morpheme “squaw” as part of the Algonquian language family, according to Madison.

In a recent statement, Haaland explained why she initiated the process to eradicate the word “squaw” from geographic features on federal lands.

"Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands. Our nation’s lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage – not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression,” said Haaland said in the statement. “Today’s actions will accelerate an important process to reconcile derogatory place names and mark a significant step in honoring the ancestors who have stewarded our lands since time immemorial.”

A spokesperson from the Department of the Interior could not be reached for comment.
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Paula Peters, author of “The Mashpee Nine: A Story of Cultural Justice” and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, said the debate over the word “squaw” is a “lesson in how words can be used to empower hate against groups of people.”

“The term 'squaw' is a Wampanoag term for a woman. It could mean a woman with power, it could mean queen,” she said. “But because that word has been taken and used to empower hate against Native people, now we are in conflict.”

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Although the town of Barnstable can’t confirm that Squaw Island sits on federal land, the area is listed as No. 615794 on the Interior Department's federal database of locations that will be reviewed for “derogatory term usage” under Haaland’s directive.

As David Anthony, director of property and risk management for Barnstable, looked through property records for Squaw Island recently, he found the area was never “officially named” Squaw Island, and remains part of Hyannisport. But Squaw Island Road, which is town-owned and leads to the area now known as Squaw Island, could be renamed to “follow suit with federal decisions,” he said.

Squaw Island denoted on an 1888 map by the U.S. Geological Survey. The island is identified as Squaw Island in every map version through at least 1979 in a USGS database of historic maps.

“If the federal government is going to take that word out of use at some point, the town can consider renaming Squaw Island Road to something else to be consistent,” Anthony said. “With a private road I don’t think we have as much jurisdiction but because it is a public road, it could be an interesting debate to have in today’s conversations that are very important in this regard.”

As far back as 1888, a U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic database shows a Squaw Island marked on its maps in Hyannisport.

Anthony said the town acquired 6 acres of Squaw Island shoreline for $1 in 1986 — a parcel that sits adjacent to Hall’s Creek, and often can’t be seen as it slides under high tides. Beyond that, the area is largely privately owned with strong ties to the Kennedy family.
Island's ties to Kennedy family

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy rented and converted the gray-shingled Morton Downey house into a “summer White House,” — when Secret Service became concerned about the proximity of the nearby Kennedy compound to its neighbors.

During the last summer of Kennedy’s life in 1963, he moved to Squaw Island’s Brambletyde, a sprawling mansion that overlooks Nantucket Sound. Since then, Brambletyde, according to Wendy Northcross, executive director of the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, passed through Kennedy hands, including U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy and his then-wife Joan Kennedy, and was most recently owned by U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s son, Christopher Kennedy, who sold Brambletyde to Joseph Hakim of New York City for $1 in 2011, according to Barnstable assessing records.

Madison, a teacher at the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, created in 1993 under Jessie "Little Doe" Baird to return language fluency to the Wampanoag Nation as a principal means of expression, said Halaand’s designation could be based on her lack of knowledge of the Algonquian language family, which includes Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuc, Massachussett and Narragansett people.

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When settlers made contact with Eastern tribal nations, Madison explained, they heard indigenous people using the word “squaw” to create many Algonquian words — including terms revering women and girls. Combined “with the way colonists viewed women in their own communities,” she said, newcomers didn’t understand how the sound worked linguistically, resulting in the development of the slur, which they carried with them as settlements and colonization expanded into Western tribal territories of the country.

“This is a reminder for (tribal) folks on the Western side of Turtle Island who are far removed from us — to consider us,” she said. “Some of our own folks don’t know or understand that the sound squaw is part of our language. There’s been over 150 years of dormancy for the Wôpanâak language. But we are working to change that.”

For many Indigenous people, North America is referred to as Turtle Island, a reference that comes from tribal oral histories.

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Mwalim Peters, an associate English and communications professor at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, said Haaland’s designation comes from viewing “people of color as monoliths.” By viewing Native people like “we are all the same,” he said, instead of recognizing the diversity of tribal cultures, languages and ways of life, Eastern tribal presence is forgotten and pushed aside.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks about the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project during a groundbreaking ceremony Nov. 18 in Centerville. Haaland recently designated the word “squaw” a racial slur and has moved to ban the word from locations across the country, including Squaw Island in Hyannisport

“More of the politics seems to focus on what is said by tribal people in the West and unfortunately, a lot of Western tribal people have an anti-Eastern bias,” Peters said. “Western people find this (the word squaw) offensive, but at the same time, this is a word and sound found within the Algonquian speaking people. So now we eradicate the Algonquian word because it’s seen as a pejorative by Western people — the fact that it's really one of our words notwithstanding. There's a certain lunacy to that.”

Whether it’s a word or sound, Elizabeth Pinchback-Lamar, a language acquisition research fellow at Smith College in Northampton, said each aspect of a language is a “very specific creation of human communities.”

“This specific relabeling of a sound or a word and taking a word from a community is one of the ways that communities die,” she said.

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Because the sound “squaw” was taken at different points in history, in part, the motivation was to prevent future generations from learning it in the right way, Pinchback-Lamar said.

“The word didn't develop into a new definition. It was essentially stolen and used to insult its own community,” she said. “That is something we find happens very often with marginalized communities when more than one community is in contact and at least one of them is convinced they have power over another. It’s very easy for words to be stolen and skewed and misused.”

Despite the “unique history of the sound squaw,” which has now been deemed a “slur or a pejorative,” said Pinchback-Lamar, it’s essential for those who spoke and still speak the original Algonquian language “to determine how it should be used.”

View of Squaw Island looking looking west over Hyannisport Golf Club towards Osterville.

“It’s important to not write off this term as being offensive, because all that does is give more power to the racist misusage of the term,” she said. “But instead of trying to save one group of people from being offended, all that does is write over the history of the sound of the word. That not only states that their opinion doesn’t matter, but more importantly, it quite literally erases their existence from this particular term, which is very dangerous.”

For Madison, the only way to find a common ground surrounding the sound “squaw” is to “pump the breaks” on Haaland’s initiative.

“We need to at least have a conversation to enlighten folks about this Algonquian language,” Madison said. “Often, Native and indigenous people don't correct folks until they come and ask. It’s time to be less reserved and speak up about our ability to connect to our language fluency and forms of expression.”

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod's Squaw Island prompts debate on Native American culture