Located in Exeter, Rhode Island, Tomaquag Museum is Rhode Island’s only Indigenous-led museum, dedicated to sharing the history, culture, and arts of Indigenous peoples. Through lectures, arts and educator workshops, ecological knowledge tours, and offsite programs focused on the Indigenous peoples of the Dawnland (focus Southern New England), we engage and foster dialogue that reconciles the past and empowers present and future generations. Tomaquag Museum is the only museum in Rhode Island to receive the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor for community service.
Description
We will discuss the actual meaning of sovereignty, what it was for our ancestors, and how we carry and enact it in the world we live in today.
Linda is a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe on Martha's Vineyard, and has lived in Mashpee for more than 40 years. Her two grandchildren are enrolled with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, as was their father and grandfather.
She worked for 45 years as a museum educator, and spent 11 years total at the Boston Children's Museum, 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation, and 9 years at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, a house museum built by an Aquinnah Wampanoag man, and showing that history. She's been an interpreter, an artisan, a researcher; led workshops and teacher institutes; written children's stories and articles on various aspects of Wampanoag history and culture; and developed and worked on all aspects of a wide variety of exhibits.
The goal of all of her work continues to be the communication of accurate and appropriate representations about the history, cultures, and people of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous nations.
Date & Time
Mon, Jul 27, 2026 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM