Tribal Chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah gives lecture to GSDM community
Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, the tribal chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah, Mass., spoke to members of the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) community about historical trauma shared in American Indian communities across the nation on Friday, November 19, 2021.
The lecture, which was a hybrid event that took place in the 670 Auditorium and over Zoom, was organized by the Student National Dental Association (SNDA) as a way of celebrating American Indian Heritage Month, which is commemorated in November.
“Ms. Andrews-Maltais educated our community on her tribal history and how colonization still affects them today.” said Tommie Chavis II DMD 23, secretary of GSDM’s chapter.
Andrews-Maltais began her presentation with an opening prayer, before giving a general overview of the Wampanoag’s life before colonists arrived, including information about their diet, habitat, hunting and farming patterns, and their matrilineal structure. She traced the arrival of colonists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the Pilgrims, and their impact on tribes in the Northeast, including Metacom’s War (also known as King Phillip’s War), an armed conflict between indigenous inhabitants of New England and colonists that took place between 1675-1676, and was one of the bloodiest wars in the hemisphere.
In the years that followed, many burial sites and ceremonial sites important to New England tribes were desecrated or destroyed, and Christianity was forced upon tribe members. By the eighteenth century, Andrews-Maltais said that many members of her tribe joined “mainstream industries,” including whaling.
“We survived, but there was resistance,” Andrews-Maltais said. “You can’t do anything outwardly, so it went underground and we had keepers of our information, keepers of our traditions and our cultures.”
The Wampanoag tribe of Aquinnah received federal recognition in 1987, and the Wampanoag tribe of Mashpee—who are headquartered in Mashpee, on Cape Cod—received recognition in 2008.
“We are the last two continuously self-governed tribal governments in the Commonwealth,” Andrews-Maltais said.
The tribe is located on the island of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, where they have a housing authority, tribal offices, a health care program, an education department, and a social services department.
“Everything that the United States (U.S.) government is supposed to provide for Indian people, based upon their trust and treaty obligation to us we provide for them,” Andrews-Maltais said.
Andrews-Maltais spoke about the challenges that her tribe faces today, including sustaining their rights and sovereignty.
“We fight the battle. Our battles have morphed from bloody warfare into court challenges, into challenges of rights. We’re constantly having to fight for our rights and sustain those rights and our sovereignty,” Andrews-Maltais said.
She also spoke about the health challenges that many American Indians face, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and oral health issues.
“The oral health of Native people is in a state of disrepair, and it’s generational,” Andrews-Maltais said. It’s from that impact of our diet change and the inability to seek or receive quality dental care and the impacts and implications of that have created so many more related health issues.”
Andrews-Maltais hopes to change this—and sees building relationships with BU students, as well as other local dental schools, as a helpful step forward.
“Hopefully by being able to be here…we can be able to build a relationship and bring on you [all] as the next generation of oral health care professions to bring that to not only our tribal nation, but all nations,” she said.
Andrews-Maltais completed a Presidential appointment in Washington D.C., for the Obama administrator as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. She is serving her fourth term as chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah, and also serves on a number of boards and committees.
The Wampanoag Tribe is located on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, and are part of the Great Wampanoag Tribal Nation, known as The People of The First Light. The Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe has been federally recognized for over 30 years and have also enjoyed mature status as a Self-Governance Tribe for almost 20 years with both the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Indian Health Service (IHS).