1928 Great Wampanoag Powwow (part 3)

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By Melissa Berry January 28, 2026

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry describes some of the people, family lines, and activities at the 1928 Wampanoag powwow, focusing on Chief Yellow Feather. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I continue covering the first grand powwow in 250 years of the Wampanoag people in Massachusetts, which took place on 13 October 1928.

Indians from the communities at Mashpee, Gay Head, and Herring Pond came together with several members of both the Narragansett and Algonquin Nations, as well as the Pequot Tribe of Connecticut.

I have been researching all the attendees and the events that took place. Among them was the election for a new leader, or supreme sachem.

Although too ill to attend, Leroy Cliford Perry, aka Ousamequin or Chief Yellow Feather, was unanimously voted in as the new supreme sachem. (You can read more about him and his family in my article “Remembering Wampanoag Chief Yellow Feather.”)

Chief Yellow Feather was a Methodist clergyman, chief sachem of the Wampanoag Tribe, and former pastor of the Gay Head Community Church, established in 1693 and the oldest Native American church in continual use in America.

Photo: Chief Yellow Feather, 1923. Credit: Frank G. Speck.

Chief Yellow Feather’s wife was at the powwow and is featured in the group photograph below. She was born Susie Frances Gladding, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Skiffington) Gladding.

In this photo we see (left to right): Singing Cloud; Wood Dove; Minnehaha; Sachem Snowbird, aka Sara Louisa (MacCormack) Algeo; and Mrs. Leroy C. Perry, wife of the only Indian minister in the United States.

Photo: Wampanoag women. Credit: Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Massachusetts; New Bedford Archives.

According to a Boston Herald article entitled, “Wampanoags Elect Chieftain on No Fire-Water Platform,” Mrs. Perry campaigned on behalf of her husband, claiming he was the sober choice. There were obviously some serious tipplers among the tribe members, including a few higher-ups partaking in too many spirits.

An article about Chief Yellow Feather, Boston Herald newspaper 15 October 1928 — Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 15 October 1928, page 11

This article reports:

The last of the Wampanoags, who met here today in solemn powwow, elected Chief Yellow Feather of Westerly, R. I., as their supreme sachem. The election was a triumph for the “drys,” as Yellow Feather’s platform, as presented today by his squaw, was built on a “no fire-water” plank.

The supreme sachem-elect was not present, because of illness, but his squaw made an eloquent campaign speech in his behalf. “If you Wampanoags want my husband for your chief,” she warned the electorate in her peroration, “you must become law-abiding, God-fearing Indians, and lay off the fire-water bottles. If you want fire-water, don’t vote for Yellow Feather. He doesn’t want to be chief of a tribe of drunkards.”

One of Chief Yellow Feather’s biggest supporters was Chief Sachem Silver Star of the Pequots, whom I covered in Part One.

Photo: Chief Silver Star. Credit: Dawna Westbrook.

The Boston Herald article also reports:

Apparently “fire-water” has been flowing more freely in the vicinity of Herring Pond than was to be desired. What was needed to stop the flow was a bigger and better morale among the Herring Pond Indians. The best way to raise the morale was to organize. But, of course, the organization must be in the hands of those who could be trusted.

Chief Silver Star emphasized this in his speech indorsing Yellow Feather. “You Wampanoags,” he said to the encircled audience, about four-fifths of whom were palefaces doing a little Sunday sightseeing, “don’t want a chief who will be seen hanging around town with his hat on one corner of his head and making a lot of noise. You want a man who will be respected by you and who will make the white folks respect the Indians.”

Below are two photos: one from another early powwow in Gay Head (Aquinnah), Massachusetts, presided over by Chief Yellow Feather (front of stage), probably around 1930; and the other at the Bebe Junior High School in Malden, Massachusetts, where Chief Yellow Feather, along with Mrs. E. H. Taylor and daughter, performed Indian rituals for the tercentenary pageant.

Photo: powwow at Gay Head (Aquinnah), Massachusetts, c. 1930. Credit: Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.

Photo: Chief Yellow Feather, along with Mrs. E. H. Taylor and daughter, performing Indian rituals. Credit: Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.

Yellow Feather Speaks at the Unveiling of Memorial Boulder

A memorial boulder, established to commemorate the 1643 “Battle of the Great Plain” between the Mohegan and Narragansett Tribes, was formally dedicated on 5 September 1927. The ceremony was conducted under the direction of the Great Plain Memorial Committee and attended by over 1,000 individuals.

Photo: Battle of Great Plain memorial boulder located at Three Rivers College in Norwich, Connecticut. Credit: Tom Kaszuba.

The site of the memorial, donated by Dr. Ier Jay Manwaring, is situated at the East Great Plain, Norwich, Connecticut. It’s on the old road from Norwich to New London, originally an Indian path, which was later laid out as a road about the year 1670 by Joshua Raymond, and in 1792 became a turnpike – the first in New England and the second in America.

Here is a close-up of the bronze tablet on the Battle of Great Plain memorial boulder.

Photo: the bronze tablet on the Battle of Great Plain memorial boulder located at Three Rivers College in Norwich, Connecticut. Credit: Bob Dees.

The inscription on the bronze tablet reads:

NEAR THIS SPOT
ON THE
“GREAT PLAINS”
IN 1643
THE MOHEGANS DEFEATED
THE NARRAGANSETTS
IN THE MOST CONSPICUOUS
PURELY INDIAN FIGHT
RECORDED IN THE ANNALS
OF NEW ENGLAND

According to Arthur L. Peale in Memorials and Pilgrimages in the Mohegan Country, Chief Yellow Feather captivated the audience, noting:

Rev. Leroy thrilled the audience with an eloquent address stating that no finer tribute could be paid to the city than in the erection of this memorial boulder upon which the inscription will live when words will fail and parchment crumbles. He pleaded with his hearers to understand the American Indian’s story from the standpoint of the Indian and declared that it was simple misunderstanding that had caused war between the Indians and white men. He paid a tribute to Massasoit as a friend of the white man and said that the heart of “King Philip” burned with patriotic fire for his native land, as the red men believed that the land belonged to them as they had lived here for centuries.

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Note on the header image: Ousamequin, or “Massasoit” (Wampanoag term for “Great Sachem”) and Governor John Carver smoking a ceremonial pipe at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Credit: Sutro Library; Wikimedia Commons.

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