one of the stories that sticks with me in my research is the story of john wompus, a wampanoag who grew up in the 1600's. his parents had converted to christianity and brought him to a "praying town" - a place where native people were expected to give up their wandering ways, and adapt more christian ways of living like living in a house and staying in one place.

there were about 16 praying towns throughout massachusetts, but they all had that in common: their people had come from the native settlements and were genuinely trying to learn colonial ways, with as much regular christian preaching as they could tolerate. john grew up in the town of nonantum, on the north bank of the charles as it swings around to head east toward boston, in what is today newton. he spent part of his childhood living with a family in roxbury because his parents died before they were able to finish raising him.

the leaders of the praying towns, most notably john eliot, were puritan ministers who had their eye on native kids for talent. they wanted to educate them and make them preachers, because, fluent in the local language, which in this case was wampanoag, they could then convert the native population. john wompus was sent to harvard with the intention to make him a preacher and get god's word out to his countrymen.

somewhere along the line he caught the eye of anne prask and they married. anne prask had been orphaned by the pequot war, a nasty war down in connecticut that wiped out the pequot tribe, and she was brought up to roxbury as a girl to live in a puritan family as a servant. the wampanoags and pequots were traditional enemies; the wampanoag had even helped the colonists against the pequot. but both john wompus and anne prask had been stripped of their cultures, and both had been living amongst colonists as long as they could remember.

the preacher business did not attract john wompus much, so he got on a sailing boat and went to england. i am not sure if this was before he was married or after, but he was attracted by the rough and vulgar sailor's life as a contrast to the preacher's life, and he found himself in london, not once but several times. lots of drinking was being done on these boats. they would stop in the bahamas and pick up sugar or rum, or just pick up the rum, and drink half of it before they even got back to boston. in the cities big money was being made trading on the alcohol. but people were falling victim to it also.

anne inherited some land down in connecticut. the colonists were all into who was rightful owner and had to admit that she, as living daughter of its original owner, would be that person. john and anne went to connecticut where he was able to get a large price for the land, and then he got addicted to selling land, much as you might become addicted to alcohol. some of his fellow wampanoag trusted him to get a good price since he knew the colonists' culture, and he sold a lot of their land. but alas, sometimes he sold it twice. some people got mad at him in the process.

they took the money from the connecticut house and bought a house in downtown boston, where today the st. paul cathedral episcopal church stands, on tremont street across from the common. they were living the dream, or at least the dream of the colonial high-society puritans they'd grown up with. they were perhaps the only native people to own land in the city of boston, but it was prominent land, right downtown where everyone could see them. unfortunately their daughter died young, as was common in those days, and i'm not sure what happened - maybe john set sail for london again. the next thing we know, anne has died back in boston, and john is in london again.

he faced discrimination and racism wherever he went. he was almost thrown in jail in connecticut, and several other times, mostly because that's how they dealt with loud native people in colonial massachusetts. in london he was thrown into debtor's prison. he tried to sell some land back home, claiming he was a sachem, and they wouldn't let him. he appealed to the king, who actually wrote a letter on his behalf - please take john wompus, my subject, and do justice for him, as he is a person just as the colonists are. unfortunately, the king's wishes were not being taken as god's word, by that time. it was the wrong time to have the king on your side.

worst of all was the discrimination he faced from his own people. everyone knew that he had married a pequot. though they were both culturally colonial, english, it was an interracial marriage and, to the wampanoag, he had married out. he kept some friends among the wampanoag, though, especially back where he had extended family, in a place called hassanamissit, out by what is today worcester. in the end they were upset that he had sold so much of their land, in some cases twice, but he didn't forget them.

he died in debtor's prison, in london, but before he died he left a very clear will, and gave some land to his uncles, that today is the only land that has never passed from native control to english control, and is now the nipmuc headquarters.

he's a somewhat obscure character in history, compared to squanto, massasoit, or some of his fellow wampanoags. in boston he lived next door to my alleged ancestor, hudson leverett, who i've spent considerable time tracking down and trying to get to the bottom of what really happened. hudson, it is suspected, also had a drinking problem. but such things are lost to history, and all one can do is imagine what kind of drinking and carousing took place, right there on the grounds of what would become st. paul's cathedral, episcopal church.