Same Shit, Different Centuries

For the first 26 years of my life, I lived in a small Rhode Island town, Tiverton. All around me were odd-sounding names of ponds, streets, schools, rivers, and other locations: Nonquit, Pocasset, Conanicus, Sakonnet, Narragansett, Watuppa and others. Occasionally, the name Metacomet was seen, usually as the name of a used car lot or bar.
To me, these names were merely those designated to the area. There were hints that they originated from the Native American language of the Wampanoag Indians, but no in-depth explanation was given. In my 12 years of school in the area, the only Native American history we learned consisted of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in which the Natives were portrayed as unkempt savages and the Pilgrims were depicted as very civilized.

A few years ago, I read a speech called "Eulogy on King Philip." It mesmerized me and upset me at the same time.
A Native American author, William Apes, of the Pequot tribe wrote the speech and delivered it in Boston in 1836 to a group of descendants of the original Pilgrims of 1620. It was about racism, deceit, slaughter and imperialism. King Philip was the Anglicized name of the Wampanoag chief, Metacomet.

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