Tribal member Marcus Hendricks has been getting harassed often lately while fishing for herring. People will yell at him or call the police and say he is trespassing or fishing illegally.
One woman approached him in April without a mask on and began to holler at him to stop fishing, he said.
Hendricks, who is part of the Mashpee and Nipmuck Wampanoag tribes as well as the Pequot, fishes every day at different herring runs on the Cape. He, along with many other tribal members, has been getting harassed by people who are unaware of aboriginal rights to fish and harvest.
Since January, the Massachusetts Environmental Police have received 12 calls from the public for alleged violations in state herring runs that were ultimately found to be tribal members legally harvesting fish, according to Craig Gilvarg, press secretary for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
The Environmental Police have received five calls from tribal members reporting incidents of harassment in the past two months, Gilvarg said.
The harvest of river herring was prohibited by the state Division of Marine Fisheries in 2006, but that does not apply to Native Americans. Those who carry valid tribal identification cards are allowed to harvest herring for sustenance.
Several federal and state court rulings have affirmed exclusive tribal rights to hunt, fish and forage. In a 1984 case, a Barnstable District Court judge ruled in favor of the tribe’s rights to hunt and fish to sustain itself without obtaining a permit from the town or state. A 1905 federal case, United States v. Winans, found that tribe members have access to take fish even if they are on privately owned land.
Hendricks said there are no repercussions for people who harass tribal members while fishing.
“We get harassed, but no one’s issued a citation, no one’s issued a verbal warning,” he said.
Other members of his family have had bad experiences, he said, with some relatives having their vehicles vandalized while they are fishing. One of his cousins was sprayed with Mace while fishing for herring at Santuit Pond, Hendricks said. That cousin could not be reached for comment.
“During this pandemic ... we’re out getting food,” Hendricks said. “We have an essential right to go get food, and here we have people that are out doing whatever they want to do. Are they getting food or going for a walk in the woods?”
Natasha Cash, a Yarmouth resident and tribal member, fishes daily with her family and has started to wear a GoPro camera that is recording at all times in case an incident occurs.
“The last three weekends in a row we had the police called on us,” she said. “Our kids are with us, and they see this and they’re going to grow up scared.”
She, along with other tribal members, is thinking about pursuing a lawsuit if things do not get better. She is not sure whom they would sue at this point.
Cash also has been working to get signs put up around the Cape’s herring runs that explain aboriginal rights.
“If there was a sign at every single fishing spot (and) herring run of what our rights were nobody would say anything,” Cash said. “Cape Cod is a peaceful, communal place. They’re not trying to cause trouble. They just don’t know.”
The Environmental Police have put up signs at seven locations across Cape Cod, including the Cape Cod Canal, to help educate the public and reduce confrontation between the public and tribal members, Gilvarg said.
Cash said people often scold her and her children about taking herring, saying they are a protected species. Herring are back to their original numbers now, but many tribal members who fish are cautious about the populations, Cash said.
“We check every single herring to make sure they’re not female,” she said. “The majority of people throw the females back.”
Herring also make up a small portion of fish they catch, she said. Herring are caught for one month out of the year. Cash said she and her family fish daily for striped bass as well as harvest mussels, clams, scallops and crabs.
Cash said many tribal members fish for the elderly who cannot leave their house, and when they do catch the fish, they use every part of it, including in their gardens.
“We can’t even afford food right now really,” she said. “We have to hunt and fish.”
Although some residents may be aware of aboriginal rights, their perceptions of what Native Americans look like may be skewed. Tribal members have been approached and told they “don’t look Indian.”
Dan Hannigan, a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe who lives in Bourne, said he also fishes daily to feed his family and gets harassed.
“When I go fishing and I exercise my aboriginal rights,” Hannigan said, “people almost immediately harass me because they assume I’m an average nonnative.”
“What is an Indian supposed to look like,” said Rachael Devaney, a member of the Pipil tribe who lives in Onset and is a freelance writer who has worked for the Times. “It further infuriates us because we’re not Indians. ... ‘Indian’ is the mistake of Christopher Columbus.”
Devaney was with her boyfriend, who is a Mashpee Wampanoag member, a couple of weeks ago at a herring run while he was teaching his goddaughter how to catch fish with her hands. A man on a motorcycle had stopped and began to yell at them, saying they were not allowed to catch fish and that they did not look like Indians.
“They’re tribal people, and they do have rights that not everybody has,” Devaney said. “And people get so upset about it. A lot of people here say, ‘Well, I’m native. I was born here,’ and there’s just a huge distinction. It’s something that’s not talked about enough and it’s why all of this backlash continues to fall on Wampanoag people to prove who they are.”
