Brown University Deeds Bristol, Rhode Island Land to Tribes

Rhode Island's historic Brown University has partly delivered on an agreement to return tribal land to the Pokanoket people, who occupied much of this area long before European settlers arrived here.

The Ivy League university and the Pokanoket Tribe reached an agreement in September 2017, ending a months-long encampment protest by tribal members who demanded the return of the property to the Pokanoket Nation.

The dispute involved a parcel of land at Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island. Brown University was gifted 355 acres of land in 1955. The Pokanokets say the land is their ancestral tribal land. The university agrees.

The Associated Press (AP) reports, "Brown University has transferred ownership of a portion of its land in Bristol, Rhode Island, to a preservation trust established by the Pokanoket Indian Tribe."

AP says, "The move ensures that access to the lands and waters extends to tribes and Native peoples of the region for whom the land has significance, according to the university, which finalized the transfer last month."

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The transferred land is home to Brown's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology collections, which will relocated late next year.

A history of the Pokanoket Tribal, "Sowams Early History," says the Pokanoket were "the leadership of the tribal groups that make up the modern-day Wampanoag Nation."

That nation includes the Aquinnah Wampanoag of Gay Head, the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag, and the Mashpee Wampanoag. The Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe recently granted formal recognition by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is also a part of the Wampanoag Nation.

The Pokanoket Tribe controlled parts of Rhode Island and much of southeastern Massachusetts long before the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620, perhaps as far back as the early 16th century.

What is now Bristol was a village governed by Chief Sachem Massasoit. The area played a prominent role in King Philip's War with the colonists.