Wampum

Wampum, or wampumpeag, were manufactured strings of purple and white whelk and clam shells found in the Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound regions of New England. Algonquin Indians worked the shells by grinding and drilling them into small tubular pieces, polishing them, and stringing them together to fashion belts and rectangular matlike pieces.

Before European arrival belts and sections of wampum were sacred objects among New England Indians, denoting the power and prestige of their holders. Wampum usually adorned only sachems or other prominent persons to evince rank and dignity; ordinary Natives rarely possessed or accumulated much. It was exchanged during rituals and used as payment of tribute between peoples, as dowry, and as signs of friendship and diplomatic relations. In their designs wampum belts could also mark special events or occasions, acting as a type of mnemonic or commemorative device recording local history. Wampum thus functioned as both a symbol of personal or tribal identity and as a medium in the culture of gift exchange that marked both inter - and intragroup interactions among New England peoples.

The coming of European colonists transformed the meaning and usage of wampum. Discovering its immense value among many of the peoples they encountered and realizing its potential to facilitate trade and amity with them, first Dutch and later English settlers attempted to corner its manufacture in the 17th century by establishing relations with the Mohegan, Narragansett, and Pequot, who controlled the coastal areas of Long Island Sound, where true wampum shells were found. These Natives obtained metal drillbits from Europeans to replace stone varieties, and wampum production grew far beyond earlier levels. Wampum began to lose much of its formal ceremonial meaning and to take on characteristics of currency. It

The Wolf Treaty belt, representing the alliance of the Mohawks with the French. The wolves symbolize the "door keepers" of the league. (Library of Congress)

Was used to purchase goods or services. An exchange rate was computed in English money, and a market in counterfeit shells emerged. Wampum ownership became more common among ordinary Indians, and Native peoples from other regions who previously had not participated in its exchange were increasingly drawn into a nascent wampum economy. Historians have referred to the transformation of wampum shells from sacred and symbolic objects to commodities and versions of money under European influence as the “wampum revolution.”

Further reading: William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill & Wang, 1983); Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

—Bradley Scott Schrager