While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Martha's Vineyard Indians. Martha's
Vineyard island, off the south coast of Massachusetts, was called by the
Indians Nope, or Capawac. These may have been the names of tribes on the
island and the smaller islands adjacent. The Indians thereon were subject
to the Wampanoag and were very numerous at
the period of the first settlement, but their dialect differed from those
on the mainland. They seem not to have suffered by the great pestilence of
1617. In 1642 they were estimated at 1,500.
The Mayhews carried on active missionary work among
them and succeeded in bringing nearly all of them under church regulations
and secured their friendship in King Philip's war. In 1698 they were
reduced to about 1,000, in 7 villages:
Nashanekammuck
Ohkonkemme
Seconchqut
Gay Head,
Sanchecantacket or Edgartown
Nunnepoag
Chaubaqueduck
In 1764 there were only 313 remaining, and about this
time they began to intermarry with Negroes, and the mixed race increased
so that in 1807 there were about 360, of whom only about 40 were of pure
blood. At that time they lived in 5 villages on or near the main isles
majority being at Gay Head. Soon thereafter they ceased to have any
separate enumeration as Indians.
