Historic Preservation & NAGPRA
Mission
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Department (THPD) was established by the 2012-ORD-003 “The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Department” Ordinance; by Tribal Council to protect and preserve the Tribe’s culture, history, language, and sites of historical and cultural significance.
The department oversees the Tribe’s compliance with federal and state historic preservation laws, including NAGPRA, NHPA, and NEPA, ensuring the protection of ancestral lands, sacred sites, and cultural artifacts. The Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) leads efforts in cultural resource management, advocacy for Indigenous sovereignty in preservation matters, and collaboration with agencies, institutions, and community members. The department also plays a key role in museum exhibit development, archival preservation, and educational programming to sustain Wampanoag history and traditions for future generations.
Tribal Historic Preservation Department
Tribal Historic Preservation Programs
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Archives
Consultation pursuant to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act 36 CFR Part 800 (16 U.S.C. 470s).
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)
· Protecting Historic Properties
· Integrating NEPA and Section 106
NAGPRA- 43 CFR part 10
· National Park Service NAGPRA Guidance
· US DOI Indian Affairs - NAGPA
· NAGPRA – Final Rule 12/13/2023
Preservation of Cultural Resources
· NPS - Archaeology
· US DOI Indian Affairs - Branch of Cultural Resources Management
Historic Properties
· Old Indian Meeting House
· Avant House
· Parsonage
GIS – Geographic Information System
The THPD works with and at the under the guidance and direction of the Tribal Historic Preservation Commission.
Learn More About NAGPRA
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was enacted on November 16, 1990, to address the rights of lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations to Native American cultural items, including human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. The Act assigned implementation responsibilities to the Secretary of the Interior.
Section 106
For all Section 106 related matters; send an email with detailed project information which is to include project scope
The following items should be submitted with each Project Review request:
A locus map showing the exact location of the proposed project, with the GPS coordinates, any historic maps considered for desktop review.
FCC projects will require a completed FCC "620" or "621" form.
Review submittals should also include civil engineering drawings.
Attach any previous reports associated with cultural resources and archaeological assessments related to the APE (include methodology, findings, field survey results, and project area geomorphology and soil analysis info).
Proposed dates and times for any scheduled archaeological walk-over of the site.
A copy of the review letter from the State Historic Preservation Office for the state in which the tower is located after it's made available.
If additional information is needed, our office will make that request in writing.
All Section 106 related matters are to be directed to the THPO at MWT-THPD@outlook.com.
* This consultation process is in compliance to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and all relevant amendments including but not limited to section 106 and 36 CFR part 800. Failure to provide the Submission Packet and complete the review process under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act ("NHPA") prior to beginning construction may violate Section 110(k) of the NHPA and the Commission's rules.
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Receives Federal Approval of Our Tribal Historic Preservation Program
The executed National Park Service agreement formally recognizes the Tribe's preservation authority on Tribal lands and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe received news from the US DOI-National Park Service recognizing our Tribe's longstanding work to protect our history, culture, and sacred places.
On July 24, 2026, the Director of the National Park Service executed an agreement with the Tribe allowing us to formally assume certain Historic Preservation Officer responsibilities on Tribal lands in Massachusetts.
This reaffirms the work the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Department has been doing since the department and office was established formally in 2012; and it is a major milestone.
“This approval recognizes the important work our Tribe has been doing for more than a decade to protect our history, sacred places, and cultural resources, and It gives our Tribe a stronger voice and formal responsibility in decisions that affect our homelands, while helping us carry this work forward for future generations;” said David Weeden, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.
The new agreement adds formal federal recognition to this essential work. Under the agreement, the Tribe now assumes jurisdictional responsibility for reviewing all “federal undertakings” on Tribal lands under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, along with the other Historic Preservation Officer functions identified in the law. Therefore, when a federal project, permit, funding decision, or approval could affect historic or culturally important places located on Tribal reservation lands, the THPO will have the formal responsibility to review those potential effects and ensure our cultural resources are considered, avoided, protected and or “mitigate adverse impacts”.
With this approval, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe becomes the 236th Indian Tribe to assume historic preservation duties that were previously the responsibility of a State Historic Preservation Officer on Tribal lands. This strengthens the Tribe's Sovereignty and ability to make preservation decisions through our own government, guided by our own cultural knowledge, priorities, and moral responsibilities to future generations.
The Tribe would like to thank the preservation partners who participated in the review and approval of the Tribal Historic Preservation Program plan. Their time, guidance, and cooperation helped the Tribe reach this important step. This agreement recognizes work that has been underway for many years and begins a new chapter for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Department.
Property Request Form
Looking to host an event at the Meeting House or the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum? Please click below to complete the form in order to secure the date(s) of your meeting or event.
Additional Resources
Listed below are additional resources pertaining to Wampanoag history and historic preservation.
Native Homelands "Firstings and Lastings: Writing Indians Out of Existence w/ Jean O'Brian"
Recorded at the Hingham Historical Society in Hingham, MA, on 3/26/23 as the fifth installment of the Hingham Historical Society's 2022-2023 lecture series "Native Homelands, Settler Colonialism." Speaking at the Hingham Heritage Museum, Jean M. O'Brien focuses on how 19th century community leaders and historians, in zealously positioning New England as the cradle of an Anglo-Saxon American culture, made the baseless claim that the area’s indigenous inhabitants had become extinct. Such “erasure” would be used to refute Indian claims to land and rights. Professor O’Brien is an elected member of the Society of American Historians and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022. Among her published work: Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England, and, mostly recently, Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege, edited with Daniel Heath Justice (2022).
More Than Surviving - Wampanoag Political Agency, Ingenuity, and Persistence in the Antebellum Era
Majel Peters, along with her colleagues, has undertaken significant work in creating the “More Than Surviving” website, which hosts the “Wampanoag Political Agency, Ingenuity, and Persistence in the Antebellum Era” digitized collection. This project, developed by Master’s candidates in the Digital Humanities program at the CUNY Graduate Center, highlights Wampanoag resilience and political action, particularly during the antebellum period. Peters and her team focus on Wampanoag agency, showcasing how the community has navigated through, and actively participated in, pivotal historical moments, from advocating for Indigenous rights to supporting abolitionism. Their work brings to life Wampanoag cultural values of interconnectedness, not only by documenting political activities from the 1830s–1850s but also by challenging colonial and patriarchal narratives that have historically erased or misrepresented Indigenous peoples.
Whale Chat
Whale Chat was developed by Majel Peters as part of the Fall 23 Digital History course taught by Dr. Anne Valk at the CUNY Graduate Center. It was developed to investigate and document the intermingling of academic and cultural history and memory practices and convenes several points in time as a way of maintaining, building, and activating the vibrancy of historical knowledge. While answering the archivist Michelle Caswell’s call to “activate the archive,” by providing access to an obscure archival item that offers insight into the continuous expressions of Wampanoag agency and activism, the project also functions as part of my personal and continuous practice of immersion in the constant flow of my ancestral inheritance.
An excerpt of the conversation between Ramona Peters and Dr. Jason Mancini is at the heart of the project. The original recording was made on August 17, 2013, at the Mashpee Indian Tribal Museum. Peters and Mancini were collaborating on the gathering of exhibit materials for whaling exhibits they were independently developing. The recording offers a richly informative and entertaining demonstration of the method by which our histories inherently exist on multiple planes. In traditionally academic settings, we are often pinned down to linear progression—the building up of narrative as points plotted on timelines and assessed for meaning. Peters’ and Mancini’s conversation demonstrates how our shared knowledge and experience of it permeates time and place—it exists all at once. As we listen, they weave together their own associations across all points in time inspired by the other’s knowledge. They leap backward and forward in time and from place to place to create complex patterns of interconnectivity.
They pose questions that ask us to consider the vast and intricate connections Indigenous whalers have made across space: bringing both afar and back home new ideas technologies; and time: memory of the presence and actions living on the histories and traditions of the lands they visited. The underpinning of each story is the water. The oceans and seas act as conduits for not just the transportation of physical bodies but ideas, inspiration, and hope.
Majel Peters is an enrolled tribal member and continues in her mother’s footsteps in preserving the culture and heritage of our Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and Nation. She is a role model to many for pursuing an academic path that supports the preservation of our collective cultural heritage and builds upon the Tribe's professional capacities; which is to be commended. We want to highlight and share her work for all to appreciate and learn from.
Department contacts
David Weeden - Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO)/Director
Email: David.Weeden@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Phone: 508.477.0208 Ext. 102
Cell: 774.327.0068
Section 106 of the NHPA
Email: 106review@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Archives
Email: Archives@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Museum
Email: Museum@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Old Indian Meeting House
Email: OIMH@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Native American Graves and Repatriation Act
Email: NAGPRA@mwtribe-nsn.gov
Look at what is NEW in the THPO Department!
The MWT Tribal Historic Preservation Department (THPD) now has a Facebook page and a new blog, dedicated to Mashpee Wampanoag history, culture, and identity!
#MWT THPO Facebook Page - Click here
#Wampum Memories - MWT Tribal Historic Preservation Blog - Click here
