A Nation in Balance: Sovereignty, Earth and the Meaning of Right Relation

For English colonists, sovereignty meant control over land – and land meant property. For the Eastern Woodland's Native people, sovereignty meant something very different indeed.

In this important and revelatory presentation, Aquinnah Wampanoag citizen, educator and author Linda Coombs delves into the true meaning of sovereignty as being in right relationship to the Earth. She reveals how the Wampanoag people did that for thousands of years before European contact, and recounts the cost of colonization, which caused, and continues to cause, the disruption of our intended lives.

She will discuss Wampanoag traditional governance, community structures and kinship, land and the meaning of home and place – and how these things stem from our relationship to the earth. This includes relationships within families and communities, as well as between communities and nations.

This presentation is a vital correction to the commonly held view of the hegemony – even sometimes viewed as the rightful hegemony – of English settlers and their role in determining New England's politics. Our lecture series Tyrannies & Liberties explores the richness of Indigenous governance and culture and asks: what if the colonists had learned from Indigenous people?

Linda Coombs is a citizen of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe on Martha's Vineyard, and has lived in Mashpee for more than 40 years. Her two grandchildren are enrolled with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, as were their father and grandfather.

She has worked for 49 years as a museum educator, and spent 11 years total at the Boston Children's Museum, 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation, and nine years at the Aquinnah Cultural Center (ACC). The ACC is one of the old homesteads in the Aquinnah community, built by an Aquinnah Wampanoag man, now a museum of Aquinnah Wampanoag history.

She has been an interpreter, artisan, and researcher; led workshops and teacher institutes; written children's stories and articles on various aspects of Wampanoag history and culture; and developed and worked on all aspects of a wide variety of exhibits. She has also worked extensively with her own Wampanoag communities as well as with the public.

The goal of her work continues to be the communication of accurate and appropriate representations of the history, cultures, and people of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous nations.

Her recent book for children (but also very useful for adults), Colonization and the Wampanoag Story (Crown Books, 2023), is available from Amazon and your local bookshop.