Herring Pond

We are the Wampanoag Tribe of Plymouth Indians, known present day as the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, also identified in historical documents as Comassakumkanit, Herring Pond Indians, Pondville Indians, Manomet, and Praying Indians, among others.

We have lived on these lands for thousands of years. We are a tribal community whose ancestral lands are located at the heart of the long history of colonization and appropriation of indigenous lands in North America: Plymouth, Massachusetts. We have continued to live within our homeland, and today we continue our struggle to protect our cultural heritage and land rights, and avoid erasure as an indigenous people. Our sacred places include our cemeteries and our meetinghouse (Pondville Indian Church) located in Plymouth and Bourne. To us, these are the places of our ancestors and we are obligated to protect, and to preserve them, for our children now and for all of our descendants to come.

Our historical reservation lands, which previously contained three separate parcels, mostly in Plymouth but partly in Bourne, total approximately 3,000 acres, namely the Great Lot (about 2,600 acres), the Meetinghouse Lot (about 200 acres) and the Herring River Lot, known to the tribe in the 21st Century as “The Valley” (about 400 acres) all of which were lost, taken or conveyed for reasons unknown to the Tribe. We are still here!!