Native Places, Native Lives

in Dorchester

(awaiting installation)

An Indigenous artist envisions the world before Europeans. The nearby islands, with their varied terrain, provide a cornucopia of food. The Neponset River enters at right, while the Blue Hills rise in the distance.

Artwork by Norma Randi Marshall, Wabanaki artist

The people of the Massachusett Tribe have been part of this place since the lands and the rivers as we know them formed. They interacted with all aspects of the environment as equal and integral members of an interdependent community with reciprocal responsibilities.

Traditional life followed seasonal rhythms. In spring small groups spent time on the coast and islands tending crops, harvesting seafood, and processing foods for winter. In fall they migrated inland and settled in larger communities along waterways, sharing food, teachings, and production of needed materials such as clothing, baskets, and tools. Settlement locations changed periodically to avoid overuse. All members of the community, including children, contributed their talents.

This way of life was upended when English colonists arrived, claiming the land as their own. Yet the Massachusett people are still here. Then as now tribal leadership is shared broadly, with leadership roles held by both men and women and decisions made by consensus. The Massachusett people continue to honor their ancestors and teach their traditions.

The Blue Hills are a rich source of stone ideal for toolmaking, particularly rhyolite at left. Skilled stoneworkers quarried raw materials there and at long distances to craft tools. This small stone point from Boston’s Long Island is made of rhyolite found only in Attleboro. At 8,000-10,000 years old, its currently Boston’s oldest stone tool.

Photographs courtesy of Boston Archaeology Program

The Massachusett traveled within Boston Harbor and along inland waterways in mishoons, dugout canoes created by controlled burning of felled trees. In 2022, their descendants revived the long-practiced tradition.

Photograph courtesy of Jesse Costa, WBUR

Massachusett people developed an ingenious technique of fishing by using tides to corral fish behind fence-like structures called fishweirs. A vast network of weirs covered the Back Bay tidal estuary, for example. Today the Massachusett recreate fishweirs as an act of cultural reclamation.

Photographs courtesy of Thomas Green

Sign Location

More …

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

Acknowledgments

  • Friends of the Boston Harborwalk is deeply grateful to the George B. Henderson Foundation for funding the design, manufacture and installation of the signs at Columbia Point.
  • Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and Thomasine Berg for their partnership in creating the audio files.
  • Our thanks to Elizabeth Solomon and fellow members of the Massachusett Tribal Council for their guidance in creating this sign.