Nipmuc Nation and Framingham: Indian Head Heights
You are standing at Indian Head Heights. This was one of several Nipmuc towns in what would become Framingham. The Nipmuc people are the first people of the greater Metrowest area and much of central Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. They have lived here since at least 10,000 BCE. The name Nipmuc roughly translates as "people of fresh water," as their lands had an abundance of freshwater rivers, lakes, and ponds. The Nipmuc people spoke an Algonquin language (tribal members currently offer classes and there are recordings of the language here: http://www.nipmuclanguage.org).Settler-colonialism is a type of colonialism in which foreign settlers move to and permanently reside on land already inhabited by Indigenous people with the goal of eliminating them and their cultures and replacing them with a settler society. Settler-colonialism often involves destruction or erasure of Native peoples. For example, by forbidding Native people to speak their language, practice their religion, or by forcing Indigenous peoples to adopt the way of life of settlers. For example, the Nipmuc people were forced to use English and their language was almost nearly lost.The fact that you are now surrounded by a residential neighborhood instead of being on land reserved for the Nipmuc nation is an example of settler-colonialism. Yet, the fact that settlers now live here does not mean that Native people do not also live here. In fact, there are many Nipmuc people who live throughout the area. The Nipmuc Nation is one of several state-recognized tribe with reservation lands in Hassanamisco (Grafton, MA) and Chaubunagungamaug (Webster, MA and Thompson, CT). The Nipmuc Nation has long preserved their culture and traditions despite the destructive invasion of settler-colonists. Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor coined the term "survivance" to describe the ever-active Native presence in the face of settler colonialism, where Indigenous peoples continuously negotiate strategies of survival and resistance to settler-colonial attempts at their erasure. Additionally, it is important to recognize that Native nations have sovereignty or the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves and provide for the health, safety, and welfare of their tribal citizens within tribal territory. There are over 500 different Native nations in the Americas and currently not all have recognized sovereignty with U.S. and state governments.An example of Native resistance is the life of Tantamous, known as Old Jethro to white settlers (a picture of his land is included at this stop). Tantamous was a Nipmuc spirtual leader who lived in various places in the area including Assabet (Marlborough) and later Nobscot Hill on the Sudbury/Framingham line (not far from Framingham High School). Settlers had attempted at several points to take Tantamous' land from him, including John Smith of Charlestown who unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts General Court to grant him Tantamous’ land as payment for a debt. Tantamous was part of a moment to protect Nipmuc sovereignty. One of the ways he did that was by refusing to convert to Christianity and enter the Natick Praying Town. The Puritan Church had established as the first Praying Town at Natick and the purpose was to Christianize and assimilate Native people into the settler-colonial society. Tantamous would later be imprisoned for rebellion along with several other Nipmuc men on Deer Island in Boston Harbor during the winter of 1676. It was cold and life-threatening, and he would escape incarceration. He would later be captured by the colonial government and executed on Boston Common on September 26, 1676. Another example of survivance was the choice by Nipmuc people to enter the Praying Towns. This allowed for them to survive in a world that was increasingly controlled by settler-colonists. Once there, they found ways to preserve their culture, religion, and language. They often mixed Nipmuc religious traditions with Christianity. Also, they preserved parts of the Nipmuc language through their translation of the Bible into Nipmuc.Next, visit this map, which shows the overlapping lands of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. You can Zoom into the greater Framingham area: https://native-land.ca/Finally, learn more about the first peoples of this land, by visiting the website for the tribal government and citizens of the Nipmuc Nation: https://www.nipmucnation.orgHow are Nipmuc people engaging in survivance? What are ways that non-Native people living in the unceded lands of the Nipmuc people can support their nation's sovereignty?
Framingham Green
You are standing at the Centre Common, also know as the Village Green, for what was the Town of Framingham. This is unceded Nipmuc land. Unceded means that the Indigeneous people of the area never legally signed away the rights to these lands. The Nipmuc people called this area Washakamaug, meaning the “eel fishing place,” which referred to what is today called Farm Pond. The Nipmuc people used game management techniques through the hunting of deer and beaver, fishing in ponds and streams, as well as established growing areas for the Three Sisters (squash, corn, and beans) in the nearby hills. The ancient Native trail later known as the Old Connecticut Path also ran through this area and provided for trade between the Nipmuc people and other Native nations.In 1647, English settler-colonist John Stone took Native land and established a corn mill on the Sudbury River. Other settlers soon followed. This was troubling for the Nipmuc people of the area, because English encroachment forced them further and further away from their farm land, fishing ponds, and hunting grounds. During the initial period of colonization of the region by settlers, the Nipmuc suffered a rapid decline in population due to the introduction of foreign infectious diseases to which they had no immunity and violence related to settler colonialism.In 1662, Thomas Danforth had the settler-colonial government of Massachusetts Bay Colony give him this Nipmuc land that would be renamed Danforth's Farms and later renamed Framlingham, after Danforth's home town in England. However, he would continue to live in Cambridge. Danforth would become the deputy royal governor of the colony serving from 1679-1686. In 1692, Danforth was acting governor of the colony during the early months of the Salem witch trials and his name appears in the Salem court records as part of a council who observed the proceedings. Danforth chose this spot where you are now standing near the geographic center of his land grant to erect the first meeting house and where the common would be established to allow settlers to graze their animals. These animals would sometimes leave the common and trample the harvests of Nipmuc people further adding to tensions between the two groups (and being one of the major causes of what would be called King Philip's War).As more white settlers invaded, they continued to take Native peoples' land, destroy their farming and hunting grounds, force them into debt, and push them into the outskirts of the area. In the face of encroachment methods, Native people had three choices: cede, share, or resist (which we will see examples of each during this tour).Today, Native activists have organized around the Land Back Movement. They aim to reestablish Indigenous political authority over Indigenous territories, especially when those were not ceded or were taken by Europeans on unjust terms. Land Back also demands that Indigenous rights be respected, Native languages and cultural traditions be preserved, and Native nations have sovereignty, which should include food security, decent housing, and a clean environment.There are examples of the Land Back Movement taking action here in Massachusetts. One example is of Larry Buell, who is a white settler-colonist living on unceded Nipmuc territorial land in Petersham, Massachusetts, and who returned some of land to the Nipmuc Nation: https://www.recorder.com/A1-Nipmuc-land-returned-28435807Continue to reflect on the questions from the last stop. How are Nipmuc people engaging in survivance? What are ways that non-Native people living in the unceded lands of the Nipmuc people can support their nation's sovereignty?
Peter Salem Gravesite
You are standing in Framingham's Old Burying Ground, also known as Church Hill Cemetery. When you enter from the Main Street center gate proceed strait to the back side of the cemetery and locate the grave of Peter Salem (it is a solitary headstone in the back middle of the cemetery located behind vegetation in a gully). Between 1600-1900, Framingham was home to a growing African American population, which included both enslaved and free people. One of the most famous of these community members was Crispus Attucks, who was of mixed African and Indigenous ancestry and born into slavery in Framingham in 1723. He would be a freedom seeker (also known as a runaway) and eventually became a sailor out of the Port of Boston. On March 5, 1770, he was struck and killed by a British soldier's bullet during the Boston Massacre. A few years later, another African American man from Framingham would play an important role in the American Revolution. Peter Salem was born into slavery in Framingham. His first enslaver was Jeremiah Belknap (Belknap road is named after his family) and he was later sold to Lawson Buckminster. Buckminister was a Minuteman during the American War for Independence. So he would fight in the war, Buckminister freed Peter Salem. He was one of over 500 African Americans who served in the war. Peter Salem would serve in the racially integrated Edgell's Minuteman Company, where he would be involved in the Battle of Lexington. On June 17, 1775, Peter Salem fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill (alongside at least a dozen other Black soldiers) where he is remembered for shooting and killing British Major John Pitcairn as the British were rallying their troops. Since he was now a freeman, like many other African Americans at the time, Peter Salem was able to enlist in the Colonial Army. He would fight at Harlem Heights, Trenton, Saratoga and Stony Point. He would later marry and move first to Salem and then Leicester, where he worked as a cane weaver for chairs. Despite being a war hero, he would die in a Framingham poorhouse in 1816 and be buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave here in this cemetery. The town of Framingham would eventually establish a Peter Salem Day and raise $150 in 1882 to erect a monument in his memory.There was also a long history of support for abolitionism within the Black community of the town. After slavery became illegal in Massachusetts as the result of Elizabeth Freedman or Mum Bett's victory in her freedom suit in 1781, any enslaved person in Framingham was then freed. In both overt and covert ways, African Americans in Framingham would engage in protests and fundraising for the anti-slavery cause. We will learn more about this in a future stop at Harmony Grove.How should we remember Peter Salem? What does his life help us understand about justice in Framingham and the United States?
May Hall and the Normal School
You are standing in front of May Hall, which is near the site of the first building of the State Normal School at Framingham. In 1837, Horace Mann became the first secretary of the newly created Massachusetts Board of Education. During this time, he oversaw several school reforms, which included the creation of an experimental program to educate teachers. These schools for teachers were called normal schools (as they were to make their curriculum and instruction "normal" or the same across all teachers). The first of these public normal schools in the United States was created at Lexington in July 1839 and eventually moved to Bare Hill in Framingham in 1853. It was eventually renamed the State Teachers College at Framingham and now Framingham State University.In its early years, most of the students of the State Normal School at Framingham were women. This included Olivia Davidson. She was born a free African American woman in Virginia and moved several times over her life. She would eventually graduate from the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) and attended and graduated from the State Normal School at Framingham. She was appointed a teacher in the Worcester Public Schools, but wealthy white people protested and her appointment was rescinded by the school committee. Olivia Davidson returned to Hampton to recover from a serious illness. She then taught a group of Native men from Plains tribes who had been enrolled at the Hampton Institute after being released as prisoners of war during the so-called "Indian Wars." The civil rights leader Booker T. Washington contacted Olivia Davidson, asking her to help him develop the new Tuskegee Institute. After recovering from her illness, she joined him on August 25, 1881 as a teacher and vice principal. Olivia Davidson would later marry Booker T. Washington. She would travel the country giving speeches about Black education and raise money for the Tuskegee Institute, where she continued to teach. She would contract tuberculosis and would travel to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she died on May 9, 1889.What is Framingham's role in the history of education in the United States? How should we remember Olivia Davidson and her contributions to "education for all"?Read more about the history of Framingham State University: https://www.framingham.edu/academics/henry-whittemore-library/special-collections-archives/university-history/
Salem End Road
You are standing near the beginning of Salem End Road also known as the Salem's End of Danforth's Farm. This road is named for the fact that it is where Sarah Clayes, one of the young women accused of witchcraft in Salem, found refuge (for context, this happened only about 15 years after King Philip's War). It’s unclear just how Sarah was able to escape the noose and make it to Framingham. One theory is that her family traveled here by night while hiding out in caves and hollowed out trees. Another theory is that Thomas Danforth, who was the owner of the land where you stand, helped her escape and settle here. If you travel down this street, you will pass by two important sites. The first is the Sarah Clayes House (657 Salem End Road), which her and her husband Peter built in 1693, after they found permanent settlement here. It had been abandoned, but was recently sold and renovated. The second is the Ashland Town Forest (883 Salem End Road), which is where Sarah Clayes and her family lived in caves when they first arrived to the town (it is listed as the "caves" on the trail maps posted in the parking lots of the Town Forest).Yet, the story of the Clayes family does not end there. It is believed that the house, with its many hidden compartments and passageways, became one of several Underground Railroad stops in Framingham, where abolitionists helped hide freedom-seeking (runaways) enslaved people.How does Sarah Clayes and her family add to your understanding of freedom and justice in Framingham? How might the Salem Witch Trial be an example of gendercide (the systematic killing of members of a specific gender)? Might the Clayes family's experience during the Witch Trial contribute to their participation in the abolitionist movement?For more on the refugees of Salem End Road, read the following: https://framinghamhistory.org/escape-from-salem/For more on the caves of the Ashland Town Forest, read the following: https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/10/26/witch-caves-salemFor more on the Underground Railroad in Massachusetts, read the following: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/traveling-the-underground-railroad-in-massachusetts/
Eames Homestead
You are standing at the site of the so-called Eames Massacre. In the 1630s, the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to expand westward into Nipmuc, Narragansett, Pocumtuk, Mohegan, and Pequot lands. As a young man, Thomas Eames participated in the Pequot War, which included a pre-dawn attack on the Mystic Fort that left 500 adults and children of the Pequot tribe dead. Later called the Pequot or Mystic Massacre, it was the first defeat of the Pequot people by the English in their three year long Pequot War. In his middle age, Thomas Eames moved frequently. Thomas wrote a letter to the government of Massachusetts Bay and asked for land as a reward for his service killing Native people in the Pequot War. In 1669, he was granted Nipmuc land by the Massachusetts Bay Colony government on what was called Danforth's Farm (later Framingham) where he settled with his second wife Mary Paddleford and several children on Mount Wayte (named after Richard Wayte, whom Danforth bought the land from).For years, colonists had been violating agreements with the Wamponoag and other Native nations. This included allowing their cattle to trample Native planting grounds and settling on land without permission of the local Native nations. When Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag died, his son Metacom (also known as King Philip to English settlers) would become leader. He had grown up aside English settlers and knew them well. He would routinely visit Boston, wore European style clothes, and spoke English. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony took away the Wampanoag's weapons, they realized that settler violence may be coming. As a result, Metacom waged war against the Massachusetts Bay Colony, later called King Philip's War. During this period, the war spread to across New England, including to Nipmuc country. The Nipmuc aligned with the Wamponoag (including their leader Muttawmp). Many Nipmuc people abandoned Christianity and left the Natick Praying Town to fight against the Massachusetts Bay militia. During this time, the Massachusetts Bay Colony stationed four soldier in Framingham to guard the settlers. All the remaining 500-1,100 Nipmuc members of the Natick Praying Town were forced into a prison camps on Deer Island, a peninsula in Boston Harbor, during winter; half of the people there died of starvation and exposure. On February 1st, 1676, a fight occurred at the Eames Homestead between 11 Nipmuc men and the Eames family. Thomas Eames was in Boston where he was trying to secure more weapons and ammunition to fight Native people. Mary Eames was killed, along with five of his children. Four kids were taken captive by the Nipmuc. Yet, the story is more complicated than an unprovoked attack by Nipmuc people on the settlers. When Nipmuc people were incarcerated at Deer Island, they had to leave their harvest fields. As a result, the Eames family had been taking the Nipmuc crops for themselves. Netus was a Nipmuc leader who fled Natick with a group of men before they could be imprisoned. When he came across the stolen Nipmuc crops at Magunkagquog (nearby this site), he went to the Eames homestead to retrieve the crops. As the Framingham History Center stated about this event, "Perhaps for Netus, this was the last straw. Despite decades of adherence to English rules and conventions, he was repeatedly denied his means of survival." No one exactly knows what happened (although white settlers have long told a myth that Mary Eames through hot soap at the Nipmuc men) to lead to the killing of the Eames family members. When he returned to his homestead, Eames claimed he also lost 30 loads of hay, 10 bushels of wheat, 40 bushels of rye and 210 bushels of Indian corn that day. The war continued with various fights between settlers and Native people throughout the region. Muttawmp would lead many victories against English militia and raids on settler villages. He would eventually be captured by the colonial militia and executed by the Massachusetts Bay government on Boston Common alongside Tantamous and several other Nipmuc men. How should we remember the so-called Eames Massacre? In this telling, how might we better center the narratives of Nipmuc people?To learn more about the Pequot Massacre, read this article: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/pequot-massacre/To learn more about attempts to more accurately portray the violence that occurred at the Eames Homestead, read this article: https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/2022/02/01/framingham-history-center-exhibit-studies-eames-massacre-king-philips-war/9055719002/
Thomas Eames Marker
You are now standing at a historical marker dedicated to Thomas Eames, that was put here by the Massachusetts Bay Tercentenary Commission celebrating the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the settler colony.What is the historical narrative portrayed by this marker? Is it accurate? Whose perspective does it center and why? How might you re-write this marker to give a more accurate and contextualized portrayal of the historical events?Take a moment to visit this interactive website "Watched and Worried," where the Framingham History Center is retelling the story of the events that occurred at the Eames Homestead: https://exhibitions.framinghamhistory.org/home/watched-and-worried/
Harmony Grove and Farm Pond: Abolitionist Campsite
You are now standing on the edge of Farm Pond, which was called Washakamaug (“eel fishing place”) by the Nipmuc people. Take a moment to look across the pond and reflect on what this place would have been like before English settlers arrived. In many ways, this pond gave life to the Nipmuc people of the area and is of great importance. By the mid-1800s, this pond had been transformed. Nipmuc people would be forced away from the pond when settlers made their homes along its shores. As the industrial revolution came to Framingham, soon railroads and factories would follow. By the 1800s, Framingham would sit at the intersection of 6 different railroads. This pond, and a section called "Harmony Grove," was not far from the Framingham train station. In 1846, Edwin Eames (a descendent of Thomas Eames) purchased a strip of land near the railroad which included a house with a piazza and platform. “He cleared lawn areas for games, set up swings, built a dancing pavilion and a boathouse, and called it Harmony Grove. He also cleared a natural depression in the ground [which formed an amphitheater] and put in a platform and benches to seat a thousand [plus] people for public rallies and meetings.” The area became quite popular for picnics. However, it became too much for Eames and he sold it.In the 1850s, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society started holding its 4th of July rallies at Harmony Grove. It was easily accessible by train from Boston, New York, Providence, Hartford, Springfield, and elsewhere. Sadly, we cannot visit the actual site of Harmony Grove, as it is now surrounded by the Framingham rail yard. However, from here, if you look directly across the pond where you see railroad cars, that is where the abolitionists held their meetings (today, there is a commemorative plaque at Franklin and Henry Streets).The most controversial event that took place at Harmony Grove was on July 4th in 1854. Well-known abolitionists Sojourner Truth, Wendell Phillips, Lucy Stone, Henry David Thoreau, and William Lloyd Garrison were in attendance that night. Garrison, owner of anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, concluded his speech by burning a copy of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and the U.S. Constitution in front of 2,000 people. Garrison proclaimed that the Constitution was a “covenant with death, and an agreement with hell." The Grove erupted with both cheers and boos, and word of this speech spread around the country.Meetings at Harmony Grove lasted for about 10 years after the end of the Civil War, but their focus shifted from Black rights to temperance and women’s suffrage. In 2021, the city of Framingham renamed Woodrow Wilson Elementary School as Harmony Grove Elementary School to honor the abolitionists who met there.How should we remember Harmony Grove? How did Framingham contribute to the abolition of slavery and freedom?To learn more about Harmony Grove, read this: https://framinghamhistory.org/harmony-grove/To learn more about William Lloyd Garrison's speech, read this: https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/a-covenant-with-death-and-an-agreement-with-hell-2005-07-01
