“[The Natives] support themselves by hunting, and when the spring comes, by fishing … At the end of March they begin to break up the earth with mattocks.”
– Isaack De Rasieres, 1628

Connection to the land was fundamental to Wampanoag existence. Local bands utilized their lands intensively for hunting, fishing, gathering, planting, and seasonal settlement, and maintained their own territorial boundaries.

In Wampanoag culture, the idea of common land, for the benefit and use of the whole community, was central. Family plots were distributed for homes and gardens, with ownership usually accorded to women as the key cultivators.

Native landways were contested with the arrival of English settlers. Though the English also had a tradition of common land, it was under attack in the 17th century in favor of privatized ownership. Colonial observers, including the Pilgrims at Plymouth, tended to ignore the communal aspects of Native land use. Deliberately or otherwise, they rarely acknowledged Wampanoag systems of land management, and viewed tribal territory as neglected or not adequately exploited.

Plymouth’s early settlers considered all land in Plymouth Colony to be under English dominion, but still recognized Wampanoag rights of property. They were careful to document Native land transactions, which they considered as permanent transfers of ownership claims. Many transactions were not understood in the same way by Wampanoag participants. Ensuing land disputes, along with the devastating mortality caused by European disease, disrupted centuries of stability for the Wampanoag people.