The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century: An ethnohistorical survey

About this book

Catherine Marten’s monograph is an ethnohistorical survey that compiles every known documentary and archaeological source on the Wampanoag peoples of southern New England during the seventeenth century. Written in 1965 as an internal guide for Plimoth Plantation staff, the work was later published in the OCCASIONAL PAPERS series to reach a broader audience. Marten frames the study as the only extensive ethnography of the Wampanoags, organizing material into topical categories and noting gaps where knowledge is lacking. The introduction explains how the scarcity of surviving Native communities and artifacts, exacerbated by disease, war, and colonial disruption, forced reliance on colonial journals, missionary reports, and early archaeological finds. By situating the Wampanoags within the larger Algonquian linguistic family and detailing their political relations with neighboring tribes, the book aims to reconstruct the culture that greeted the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

The text reads like a scholarly guide rather than a narrative history, employing a measured, academic tone typical of mid‑twentieth‑century anthropology. Marten’s prose is dense with citations and careful qualifiers, reflecting the discipline’s emphasis on source criticism and methodological transparency. Readers who appreciate meticulous reference work, students of early American history, anthropology, or ethnohistory, as well as museum professionals and serious amateur historians, will find the book a valuable reference. Those seeking a vivid story of the Pilgrims’ encounter will be less satisfied, but anyone interested in the cultural baseline of the Wampanoag before and during colonial contact will benefit from Marten’s thorough synthesis.