NPS Collections: The Wampanoag were expert hunters and trappers of deer, bears, wolves, raccoons, foxes, otters and waterfowl. Their hunting prowess would prove a godsend to the hapless Pilgrims, who were anything but outdoorsmen. As Francis Hutchins reminds us in his history of Mashpee, “in England, hunting was for aristocrats only. The humble Pilgrims would have been called poachers if they had ventured into a nobleman’s hunting preserve.” Presumably, their decade-long sojourn in urban Leiden, Holland, prior to embarking on the Mayflower did little to correct their lack of woodland savvy. So it was that the Pilgrims on Cape Cod found themselves in a land teeming with game that they were utterly unprepared to hunt. The shared knowledge by local natives was therefore not merely welcome but desperately needed - and a singular reason for initial English survival! What proceeded was an ironic and sad turn of events by which Englishmen on and off Cape Cod—conceiving of land ownership as exclusive and backed by the king’s authority—acquired native land by promising Indians continued hunting privileges. The sale was final but the promise of perpetual hunting access was not. Later, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave rise to a robust waterfowl hunting tradition on the Cape, typified by this photograph of Captain Edward Penniman on Fort Hill (c. 1900). Hunting clubs were numerous by the turn of the twentieth century and by 1961 this pastime remained vital enough that the legislation creating the national seashore contained a specific provision allowing for its continuance.
<ul><li>Keywords: nps collections; collections; history; black and white; hunting; waterfowl; hunt; hunting club; hunt club</li></ul>
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