Law and Justice
Among the Wampanoags, and likewise with other primitive societies who lack full-time legal and judicial specialists, the business of punishing wrongdoers and settling disputes was often a matter of selecting the most expedient course of action in the current situation.408 For certain sorts of cases, however, there were well-established patterns observed and recorded by the seventeenth century chroniclers.
The chief judiciary was the sachem. He also functioned as the jury, sometimes with the additional counsel of other wise men, and in most cases he carried out whatever punishment was decreed.409 Regularly recognized crimes were robbery, adultery, murder, and treason. For theft, the first offense resulted in a degrading public rebuke. If the offender stole a second time, he was beaten by the sachem “with a cudgel on the naked back”. The third offense resulted in a more severe beating, and he “... hath his nose slit upwards, that thereby all men may both know and shun him”.410
Adultery was punished by the wronged party, who would beat the offender, sometimes to death—in which case his death could not be revenged. The adulterous wife was kept or sent away at the husband’s wish. If the husband was the offender, his wife might leave him, but there is no other form of punishment recorded.411
Death was the punishment for murder. The regular procedure was to bring the offender before the sachem, who would pass judgement. The condemned man was then blindfolded, compelled to kneel and was bludgeoned to death by the sachem. Revenge was eagerly sought by the kinsmen of a murdered man.412 They might take matters into their own hands and seek out the offending party, especially if the formal channels of justice did not first offer them satisfaction.413 This was more likely to happen when the suspect belonged to another tribe.414 If he were a valuable man, his sachem might be reluctant to execute him.415 In lieu of the actual offender, one of his close relatives might be executed for the offense.416 It was also possible to escape retribution by purchasing forgiveness of the offended group of kinsmen if enough wampum or other goods could be given.417
Treason also was usually punished by death.418 When the offender fled before his treachery was discovered, the sachem sent special messengers with his own knife to find and execute the guilty party. The head and hands were brought back to the sachem as proof of a mission accomplished.419 This procedure was also used to dispatch suspected leaders of intrigues against the sachem when it was feared that a public execution might throw sentiment to the side of the traitor’s faction.420
Etiquette required that all punishments, whether beatings or death, were to be borne with a show of outward calm. If one were to cry out, show pain, or try to escape, it was considered to be an unspeakable disgrace.421
Serious disputes that could not otherwise be worked out might be settled by combat between the two parties involved. In this case, each man was armed with his bow and a quiver of arrows. They would cast lots for a choice of the tree to use as a shield. From behind their respective trees they would shoot at each other until one or the other was killed. The scars of wounds received in this kind of combat were displayed with a great deal of pride.422
Inter-tribal justice, as the preceding suggests, was of a dubious nature. If one tribe were wronged by a member of another, emissaries were sent to ask for compensation. Whether or not it was given was a matter up to the tribe of the offender. Satisfaction might involve taking the offender’s life or the payment of a fine to compensate for loss through theft or killing. If satisfactory reparations were not made the offended party usually tried to forcibly take the equivalent in lives or goods to what had been lost.423