Study Guide Social Hierarchies
Social Hierarchies

Table of Contents

  1. Sachems and Royal Families
  2. Pawwaws & Pniesok
  3. Resident Non-Members, Slaves, and Servants
  4. Gift Exchange
  5. Hospitality
  6. Magistrates & Guardians
  7. Church Hierarchies
  8. Kinship

Sachems and Royal Families

The leaders of New England’s native confederacies were called sachems or sagamores.  This position could be held by men or by women, though it was most commonly held by men.  Female rulers were called squa-sachems. The New England sachemships that survived the longest were those on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket (Bragdon 1996: 140).  On the island of Martha's Vineyard there were six sachemships, each controlled by a sachem: (1) Aquinnah/Gay Head, (2) Nashawakemuck (north), (3) Nashawakemuck (South)/Squibnocket, (4) Takemmeh, (5) Nunpauk, and (6) Chappaquiddick (see the island map for locations of each). Each of these territories was further divided into smaller territories ruled by “petty” sachems, who were often related to the major sachem in the area (Bragdon 1996: 141; Banks I.39).  Sachemships on the island were passed along through inheritance, marriage, or consent of the sachem and the sachem’s council, though sachems in general ruled by consent of the community (Bragdon 1996: 140-41).   Lands were usually inherited along with the sachemship, and when a sachem sold or transferred the rights and jurisdiction over lands, he or she effectively sold the sachemship as well (Silverman 222).  When these lands and rights were sold, the sachem expected his or her people to move off the land, though this expectation was fulfilled with varying degrees of success.  Families often planted on land for generations and slowly settlers began to recognize the rights of these individual families to the lands as well as the sachem more generally (Silverman 223-24).

King PhilipAlthough sachems ruled by consensus, they were accorded a high status within the community. According to ethnohistorian Catherine Marten and numerous colonial documents, Wampanoag society consisted of three basic social levels (Marten 19).  These levels were "(1) the sachem and members of the `royal family'; (2) ordinary members of the community; [and] (3) resident nonmembers (generally captives of war) who acted as servants" (Marten 19).  Sachems expected members of their community to listen and speak to them in an attentive and courteous manner.  Narragansett insider Roger Williams tells that lower ranking individuals displayed their deference to sachem with the phrase "Cowaunckamish my service to you" and by stroking the sachems' shoulders and torso (Bragdon 1987: 104).  Sachems often displayed their status by wearing wampum (shell money), which indicated their lack of an immediate need for money (see for example the wampum King Philip wears at right).  Sachems could also display power by giving away goods and food or by showing hospitality;  in return they expected their communities' gratitude and support.  Some of the most important Christian families on the island were the descendants of sachems.

Members of the Sachem's "Royal Family" were important for helping maintain power. Members of the nobility or ahtaskoaog had a higher social status, but they were also the only legitimate marriage partners for sachems, at least according to a 1743 Narragansett testimony of about Indian customs (Plane 2001: 192). The preference for marriage among members of “royal families,” might help account in part for the continued intramarriage of the descendents of sachems long after their families had converted to Christianity.

The erosion of sachems’ power during the eighteenth century would certainly have had impacted Wampanoags who were members of extended royal families, particularly women. Members of the “royal families” on the island were accorded a higher status that translated into material possessions and influence (Marten 19).  In certain instances, royal families were able to maintain prestige on the island by converting and becoming leading members of the island new social structure—the church hierarchy. This new hierarchy, however, assigned women a less public social role.  As Mayhew text and numerous other Puritan documents attest, Puritans valued women who were subordinate, subservient, unworldly, and self-denigrating. As I have argued elsewhere, the Puritan view of the pious Goodwife was often in sharp conflict with the assertive, proud, and influential role that royal Wampanoag women took for granted (Arnold).  Indian Converts shows the ways in which members of royal families turned to Christianity in order to develop a new status system and new social roles.

Here are some of the sachems mentioned or memorialized in Indian Converts. The page numbers on which their biographies can be found is the the index to the cultural edition of the book.

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