Deeded Lands and the Dismemberment of Pocasset
Colonial histories tend to conceptualize “deeds” as finite, both as textual objects and as representations of the physical boundaries they circumscribe. The very word "deed," noun-ish both in its grammatical sense and in the meaning it connotes of a fixed object and objectivity, sounds hemmed in. Framed by hard, unyielding consonants, European ideas of fixed, individual possession have shaped its meaning, just as they shaped settler-colonial division of indigenous territories into neat-edged lots with hospital corners. At least theoretically settlers attempted to contain lands within such imagined bounds. In actuality, a land deed, like a map of lots, can mean more than a straightforward transfer of ownership - anything from the recognition of authority from one sachem to the other to a shared usage agreement. The “Indian deeds” of present day Massachusetts and Rhode Island (which inhabit numerous indigenous territories, as seen on the map) represent not only the desire of colonial leaders to overpower and consume indigenous land. They are the culmination of complex negotiations among indigenous sachems, colonial leaders, and all the scribes, interpreters and go-betweens that invested themselves in and profited from the business of - in its verbal form - “deeding.”
Weetamoo, as the saunkskwa of Pocasset, played a critical (and oft-understated) role in these negotiations. Her pointed and repeated refusals to engage with the land deeding system have a visible effect on the map above; notice that the spaces where present-day Tiverton and Assonet Neck are located remained undeeded, and Punckateeset Neck and the Freetown purchase area, while deeded, were not actually settled by colonists until after the war. And the process of “deeding” was rarely so simple as deeded, settled, done; confusions of authority, resistance, and coercion litter the history even as the deeds tell it. Moreover, a whole system of economic motivation and manipulation underlies the process (link to “machine” page).
As the map above is designed to highlight, there is an inherently expansionist aspect to these deeds as well. A quick perusal through the early deeds reveals great variation in the way the deeded lands were being verbally bounded; descriptions of boundary points do often specify specially marked rocks, trees, and posts, but they also make use of the simple direction to extend as far as possible into the woods in any cardinal direction - until the land in question butts up against the territory of a sachem who had not agreed to put their mark to a deed. Later deeds often pick up on these ambiguous metes, and even on more explicitly designated ones, to expand the range of colonial settlements.--------(start 1674 PCR entry here)-------
In 1674, as in 1666, three deeds appear in the record that demonstrate this expansion and how efforts to survey land drove and accelerated deeding. In 1652, Ousamequin's and Wamsutta's names appear on a deed granting land at present day Dartmouth. The text of the deed describes the bounds as:
lying three miles Eastward from a River called Acoaksett to a flatt Rocke on the west ward side of the said harbour; And wheras the said harbour devideth it selfe into severall branches; the westermost arme to bee the bound; and all the Tract or tracts of land from the said westermost arme to the said River of Cushenigg three miles Eastward of the same; with all the profitts and benifitts within the said Tract… And from the sea upward to goe soe high that the English may not bee annoyed by the hunting of the Indians in any sort of theire Cattle (Bangs 264).
(Map highlighting Dartmouth territory here)Here we see both the clear resource-driven motive of the tract’s “profitts and benifitts,” and also the practically unbounded northern expansion of the deed. The deed marks an expansionist conception of space. The implied expansion manifests in the June 1665 deed, which describes a tract of territory to the west of the Dartmouth tract but extending decidedly farther north. John Sassamon (describe) "sett the bounds" of this deed, upon which Philip's "mark" allegedly appears:
Phillip Sagamore of Pokannokett &c.: was desired to appoint an agent or more to sett out and Mark the bounds of Acushenak Coaksett and places adjacent The said Sachem sent John Sassamon on the 19th day of November in the yeare aforsaid, to acte in his behalfe, in the premises who hath sett the bounds of the said Tract, and tracts as followeth; viz: Att Acushenah three miles to the East, according to the deed bearing date November 29th: 1652. from a black oake Marked on foursydes; Runing upward North into the woods eight miles and downwards south… Att akoaksett from a white oake marked on foursydes standing on the westsyde of the head of the Cove, Ranging up into the woods North six miles an half to a great pond, unto a white oake Marked standing upon the westsyde of the pond, one mile on the eastsyde upwards, to a blacke oake Marked on foure sydes standing neare a maple tree, on the side of the said pond about the Middle of it, which pond is Called Watuppan” (Bangs 342).
As the adjacent page demonstrates, the deed was entered only at the moment the Plymouth men sought to survey the land they had originally granted to themselves.
For example, the deed to the west of the Dartmouth settlement, which John Sassamon surveyed for Plymouth colony, is a 1665 expansion from the original 1652 Dartmouth tract.
[DEEDED LANDS MAP GOES HERE - close view of Sakonnet and Dartmouth]
MAPPY MAP MAP
The implied expansion manifests in the June 1665 deed:
Phillip Sagamore of Pokannokett &c.: was desired to appoint an agent or more to sett out and Mark the bounds of Acushenak Coaksett and places adjacent The said Sachem sent John Sassamon on the 19th day of November in the yeare aforsaid, to acte in his behalfe, in the premises who hath sett the bounds of the said Tract, and tracts as followeth; viz: Att Acushenah three miles to the East, according to the deed bearing date November 29th: 1652. from a black oake Marked on foursydes; Runing upward North into the woods eight miles and downwards south… Att akoaksett from a white oake marked on foursydes standing on the westsyde of the head of the Cove, Ranging up into the woods North six miles an half to a great pond, unto a white oake Marked standing upon the westsyde of the pond, one mile on the eastsyde upwards, to a blacke oake Marked on foure sydes standing neare a maple tree, on the side of the said pond about the Middle of it, which pond is Called Watuppan” (Bangs 342).
Thus, while Sassamon was appointed to “sett the bounds,” the deed actually ends up defining and extending them north and west toward Weetamoo’s territory. On the map, it is possible to see that by 1675, (when Mammanuah officially resigned his interest in this tract all the way up to Watuppa Ponds) this tract would indeed and in deed stretch up to Pocasset, occupying the territory’s central subsistence area at Watuppa - all without Weetamoo’s consent. Meanwhile, the settlement at Taunton attempted to extend itself south, hemming her in from the north. With Awashonks’ lands at Sakonnet already deeded, the mapped deeds show a clear picture of how these pre-war agreements were threatening to surround Pocasset by the time the war broke out.