The chief or leader of a village of indigenous people in northeast North America. Sachems would act as representatives of their villages, acting on behalf of—and in the interests of—everyone in the village.
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Sachem Term Timeline in Changes in the Land
The timeline below shows where the term Sachem appears in Changes in the Land. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4: Bounding the Land
...to occupy the land they (temporarily) inhabited. This was often arranged via the village’s leader—the sachem—although colonizers tended to overemphasize the sachem’s authority, even mischaracterizing indigenous communities as monarchies. The truth...
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However, land was not “sold” by sachems, something that confused several colonizers. Transfers of land were “diplomatic” deals, not economic ones. Within...
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Chapter 5: Commodities of the Hunt
...1637, these tensions came to a head when colonizers massacred Pequots, before assassinating the Narragansett sachem Miantonomo in 1643.
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Chapter 8: That Wilderness Should Turn a Mart
...reinforced each other.” Native people were keenly aware of this reality. In 1642, the Narragansett sachem Miantonomo compared the land of plenty that had existed in the time of the ancestors...
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