Who were the Indigenous peoples who once lived in Dartmouth? They were the Pocassets, a branch of the nation known as the Pokanokets (which later came to be called the Wampanoags).
The Pocassets lived in the area that is now Fall River and Tiverton, across the bay in Somerset and Swansea and then east over to Dartmouth and parts of New Bedford and Freetown.
The descendants of the Pocassets are still here. They are a state-recognized tribe and they are in the process of trying to reclaim control of their reservation land on the east side of North Watuppa Pond.
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New Bedford artists Ron Fortier, Fitzcarmel LaMarre, Amy Schusser and Nancy Hayes discuss the arts in New Bedford in the time of COVID.