support. The guardians, however, no longer had to maintain the rigorous lists of people associated with the land, which long had been used to segregate the Indians from the non-Indians especially as rates of intermarriage had increased. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts ordered reports on the condition of the Indians, including the Briggs Report (1849), also known as the Bird Report. These did not mention the Massachusett or the Praying Town of Natick, where Massachusett people had joined in the 17th century. John Milton Earle launched a far more detailed report in 1859 and published in 1861. Earle writes, "Of all the tribes which held reservations, and were placed under guardianship by the States, the Natick Tribe is nearest extinct. ... [O]nly two families remain, and one of these is descended equally from the Naticks and the Hassanamiscoes. Their whole number is twelve. ..." He continues, "This tribe has no common lands," and recommends their remain funds be divided equally among the two surviving families. Earle observes that a few Natick descendants merged into the Nipmuc people and also writes, "There are some others, who claim to be of the Natick Tribe, but the claim appears to have no foundation other than that one of their ancestors formerly resided in Natick, but it is believed that he never was supposed to belong to the tribe." 20th and 21st centuries In the 105 years between the Massachusetts Enfranchisement Act of 1869 and the creation of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs by legislative act in 1974, records on the Massachusett people are very few. In 1928, anthropologist Frank G. Speck published Territorial subdivisions and boundaries of the Wampanoag, Massachusett, and Nauset Indians which included 17th-century Massachusett history. At Ponkapoag, Speck met Mrs. Chapelle (died 1919) who identified as a Massachusett Indian and whose husband was Mi'kmaq. Speck estimated that in 1921 a dozen Massachusett and Narragansett descendants of the Ponkapoag praying town lived in what is now Canton. Several organizations claim descent from historical Massachusett peoples; however, these are unrecognized, meaning they are neither federally recognized tribes nor state-recognized tribes. See also Southern New England Algonquian cuisine History of Massachusetts Native American tribes in Massachusetts Notes References External links Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Massachusett] "Massachuset", The Menotomy Journal'' Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples Extinct Native American tribes Native American history of Massachusetts Native American tribes in Massachusetts Unrecognized tribes in the United