Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe

The Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe is one of several cultural heritage organizations of individuals who identify as descendants of the Wampanoag people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Multiple nonprofit organizations were formed to represent the Seaconke Wampanonag.

The Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe is an unrecognized organization. This organization is neither a federally recognized tribe nor a state-recognized tribe.

Wilfred "Eagle Heart" Greene (1937–2016), an early leader of this group, identified as being a descendant of Ousamequin (Wampanoag, c. 1581–1661), more commonly known as Massasoit. The group "claims to consist of descendants of Massasoit's band." The group also identifies as being descendants of Annawan, a Wampanoag leader who died in 1676.

Lois "Lulu" Viera Chaffee (1941–2021) of Seekonk was also a founding member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe.

Name

''Seaconke'' is spelled in many different ways and is the name of a town, Seekonk, Massachusetts, and the Seekonk River, near Providence, Rhode Island. The placename comes from the name of a 17th-century Narragansett sachem (leader). The Wampanoag are an Algonquian language-speaking Native American tribe in New England.

Nonprofit organizations

In 1997, the Seaconke Wampanoag organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Cranston, Rhode Island, Michael Markley was the secretary in 2020, and Robert Harris was treasurer in 2021. The group's assets were $36,836 in 2020.

In 1998, the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe–Wampanoag Nation organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Warwick, Rhode Island. Wilfred Green was the agent. In 1998, Wilfred W. Greene III was president, and Stasia Constantino served as director. The nonprofit status was revoked first in 2012 and again in 2018.

Land

In ''Greene v. Rhode Island'' (2003), Wilfred W. Greene sued Rhode Island and the towns of Cumberland and Woonsocket in U.S. District Court. He claimed 34-square miles of land near the Blackstone River; however, the case was dismissed.

In 2008, Patrick and Gail Conley donated a 6.7-acre lot in Cumberland, Rhode Island, to the organization, in the care of Wilfred Green.
The land, part of the Peterson/Puritan, Inc. site, had hazardous waste and was designated as superfund site by the EPA.

Petition for federal recognition

Wilfred Green sent a letter of intent to petition for federal recognition as a Native American tribe on behalf of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, then based in Greenwich, Rhode Island, in 1998. However, the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe never submitted a completed petition for federal recognition.

Proposed state-recognition

Rhode Island House Bill 7470, an act that "recognizes the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe as a Native American tribe was introduced on February 11, 2022. Since March 1, 2022, the bill has been "held for further study" by committee.

Genetic analysis

In 2005, researchers from the Genographic Project analyzed genetic variation among members of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Research revealed "that the majority of their mtDNA haplotypes belongs to West Eurasian and African lineages, thus reflecting the extent of their contacts and interactions with people of European and African descent. On the paternal side, Y-chromosome analysis identified a range of Native American, West Eurasian, and African haplogroups in the population, and also surprisingly revealed the presence of a paternal lineage that appears at its highest frequencies in New Guinea and Melanesia."

The human geneticist Bryan Sykes

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