Pokanoket Nation
Leadership
As of May 2025, the leadership of the Pokanoket Tribe included:- Sagamore: William Guy
- Chief Sachem: Tracey Dancing Star
- Sachem: Toni Marie Walmsley
- Sachem: Harry Edmonds
- Council Member: Don Brown Jr.
- Council Member: Kelly Harden
- Council Member: Elsie Morrison
Nonprofit organization
The officers are:
- President: Michael S. Weeden
- Vice President: Lauri Groh-Germin
- Treasurer: Craig Martin
- Secretary: Krista Viera
Status
Petition for federal recognition
In 1994, Clifford Guy of Bristol, Rhode Island, sent a letter of intent to petition for federal recognition on behalf of the Pokanoket Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation, but no documented petition has been submitted by the group.Honorary resolution
In May 2025, the Rhode Island Senate publicly honored the Pokanoket Tribe with a resolution RI S1034 that "honors the tribe's ancestors and living descendants." A group of 24 members of the Pokanoket Tribe gathered in the senate chambers to observe the resolution's passing.Land claims
In 1996, Paul Weeden, an early organizer for the group and cousin of William Guy, requested that Brown University give a parcel of land at Mount Hope to the organization.The Pokanoket Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation publicly voiced opposition to the Mohegan Tribe building a casino in Massachusetts and said the proposed site is on their ancestral homelands.
The Pokanoket Nation demonstrated at Brown University in 2016, then held an encampment and set up a roadblock, claiming that the campus land belonged to them as the heirs of the Wampanoag people at Pokanoket. Brown University transferred part of its Mount Hope property in Bristol, Rhode Island, to a preservation trust established by the Pokanoket Nation. This land, approximately 255 acres, is historically and culturally significant as the ancestral home of Metacomet, a leader of the Pokanoket people, and the site of his death during King Philip's War in 1676.
The transfer fulfills a commitment made in 2017 following an encampment on the property, aimed at ensuring the land's preservation and sustainable access for Native tribes and community organizations connected to its history. The deed ensures perpetual "access to the lands and waters of the Property to all members of all Tribes historically part of the Pokanoket Nation/Confederacy, and to all members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation, the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe and the Pocasset Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.”
Activities
The Pokanoket Nation is a member of the Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas, an advocacy group based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, comprising nine organizations that are not recognized as Native American tribes.In 2017, they protested the repatriation of grave goods belonging to Massasoit to the Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, and the Assonet Band of Wampanoag.