History

Penikese Island Pre-Colonial History

The Native Americans frequenting the Elizabeth and neighboring islands in the pre-Colonial era belonged to a tribe called the Wampanoag, which along with many other new England tribes comprised the vast Algonquian nation.

The Wampanoag traveled up and down the Elizabeths according to the seasons, moving down island when it was warm and back towards the mainland with the arrival of cold weather. Small and somewhat remote, Penikese Island could never support a large seasonal crowd much less a year round population, so the island hasn't yielded much in the way of Native American artifacts. Those few that have been recovered - at least in recent years - are on permanent display at the Cuttyhunk Historical Society's museum on neighboring Cuttyhunk Island.

The first non-natives to visit Penikese are reported to be the crew of Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602. During a lengthy trip along the Eastern seaboard, Gosnold and his crew made landfall and camp on Cuttyhunk. From there they explored the neighboring islands including Penikese, where they came upon an apparently abandoned Wampanoag canoe which they took back to their camp on Cuttyhunk. Some time later they were greeted by Wampanoag braves in battle dress seeking the return of their canoe. The ensuing confrontation scared the wits out of both parties and led the English to pull stakes and sail onward, but they took the canoe with them and ultimately back to London where it is kept in museum storage to this day.

These and other accounts were detailed in the logbooks of Gosnold's crew, in which they describe the Elizabeths in their pristine state, heavily wooded and rich in wildlife. Numerous books have been written that capture various aspects of this region's history. In no particular order these include:

The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket by Paul Schneider

Buzzards Bay: A Journey of Rediscovery by Dan Lee

Island of Hope by I. Thomas Buckley

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann.