History of Mashpee

Following their defeat in King Philip's War (1675–1676), the Wampanoag of the mainland were resettled with the Sakonnet in present-day Rhode Island or brought, together with the Nauset, into the praying towns in Barnstable County. Mashpee on Cape Cod was designated as the largest Indian reservation in Massachusetts. The town's name is an Anglicization of a native name, mass-nippe: mass is "great", or "greater" (see Massachusetts), and nippe is "water". The name has been translated as "the greater cove" or "great pond," or "land near great cove", where the water being referenced is Wakeby Lake, which is greater at one end.

In the year 1763, the Crown designated Mashpee as a plantation, against the will of the Wampanoag. The colony gave the natives the right to elect their own officials to maintain order. The population of the plantation declined steadily due to the conditions placed upon the Wampanoag. Designation as a plantation meant that the area governed by the Mashpee Wampanoag was integrated into the colonial district of Mashpee.

Following the American Revolutionary War, the town in 1788 revoked Mashpee self-government, which American officials considered a failure. They appointed a committee, consisting of five European-American members, to supervise the Mashpee.

William Apess, a Pequot Methodist preacher, helped the Mashpee Wampanoag lead a peaceful protest of this action, and the governor threatened a military response.

In 1834, the state returned a certain level of self-government to the Wampanoag, although they were not completely autonomous. With