Brinky Tucker stands in a colonial town square near the Bermuda waterfront in historic St. George’s, known for its narrow cobblestone streets and pastel-colored cottages. Buildings in this UNESCO World Heritage site date back to the 1600s.
Hundreds of years ago, Bermuda was a bustling center of the Atlantic slave trade.
"This area here was where the slaves, Indian slaves, were bought," he said. "Now it wasn’t paved like this. It was just like a dirt yard and the ships used to wharf right there. And they used to sell them right here."
English vessels would stop on their way to the Caribbean. Some carried Native American captives to sell into slavery in Bermuda. Among them: Brinky Tucker’s ancestors. They were born in New England, and buried in Bermuda, in a burial site for the enslaved.
He walks over to a graveyard for the enslaved.
"Caucasian slaves were buried with their heads facing the east because they fear the coming of Christ will come from the east and they would see him first and they’ll be kept," he said. "And Indians and Blacks faced the opposite direction and they would go to hell.
"I’m telling you the truth."
It’s a truth that has gone largely untold for generations, both in Bermuda and the United States.
The story begins centuries ago when Indigenous peoples in early America were captured, enslaved and shipped overseas. This disturbing history is all but erased from most U.S. textbooks.
Generations later, after searching for clues about their loved ones, descendants of enslaved Native Americans in Bermuda have reconnected with their tribal cousins in New England.
A history lesson
Native slavery in the Americas began in the late 1400s and surged in New England after two wars with Native peoples in the 1630s and 1670s, according to Linford Fisher, a Brown University historian and author of "Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History."
Women and children were typically enslaved in local households, but Native men could be sent overseas.
"I think it's really hard if you’re in this business to enslave people on the land that used to be theirs," Fisher said.
That's because men might run away.
"But they also might attack you and foment a rebellion of some sort or a revolt," he said. "And so the fear of revolt is a big part of why English colonists not always, but often, take the men that are captured and if they’re not executed, they ship them off into other parts of the Caribbean.
Indigenous communities in the Northeast searched for years to find their cousins who’d disappeared into the Atlantic slave trade. In Bermuda, the enslaved were stripped of their identities, forbidden to speak their Native language – and, over time, no longer knew where they came from.
Historical records hinted at a link to New England, but Fisher said there are no documents that name their tribes.
"And if the archive can’t tell us what we want to know, then we assume it's either not knowable or else it never happened, and the archive only represents a small slice of what happened in the past," he said.
'We've been looking for you'
In the 1990s, a group of Bermuda Natives journeyed back across the ocean to New England, this time by plane.
They met with leaders of the Mashantucket Pequot, Narragansett and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes and were convinced of a shared history. In 2002, the islanders invited their Northeast counterparts to a reconnection ceremony and powwow.
Paula Peters, who is Mashpee Wampanoag, traveled to Bermuda for the gathering.
"I remember at one point as we all came together, we were all sharing our stories, our backgrounds, and one of our leaders said to the group ... ‘You were not lost. We have been looking for you for 350 years.'"
Brinky Tucker recalls the surprise as people recognized similar customs that had survived centuries of separation. For example, fish nets with distinctive knots. Many Bermuda Natives are fishermen and famous for their unusual hand-made fish nets.
"We had people from the Narragansett tribe that came here, and we were explaining them and showing them about our fish nets," Tucker said. "And the fish nets were made exactly like the Narragansett fish nets. Exactly."
Dance traditions were also similar. When dancers from the Northeast performed a traditional hunter’s dance, Bermudians recognized Native imagery, used on their own regalia. Trae Trott of the Warwick Gombey Dance Troupe was stunned to see Northeast dancers perform a "grass dance" originally from the American west, but popular in the Northeast.
"A lot of the steps that you will see grass dancers perform are very similar to what these guys here do," Trott said. "Obviously, the tempo and the rhythm would vary, but the footwork is near enough identical to a few grass dance steps, which is amazing."
Or as Michael Thomas put it: "It just blew our minds."
Thomas was director of cultural resources for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut before he died in October.
"To see folks who have been through even tougher history than us in the case of the Bermuda relatives in many regards, still keeping those things alive, is just more beautiful than words can describe," Thomas said.
A loving connection
In Bermuda, Dominique Williams’ ancestors were enslaved Native Americans. She said for so long, her community longed to know who they were and where they came from. Now when they’re with Northeast tribes, they feel connected.
"Everybody’s around you," Williams said. "And you hear the drums and you hear the dancing and all the war cries and everything. There’s this peace that kind of feels like, 'We survived. We’re here. We made it.'"
The reconnection has been profound for New England tribal communities as well, Peters said.
"They didn’t forget where they came from," Peters said. "And we never stopped looking for them."
Back in colonial St. George’s, near where the enslaved are buried, Brinky Tucker said that history matters. He talks with tourists about Bermuda’s past.
"A lot of them, they’re ignorant of the fact of what had been going on in Bermuda for years and years," he said. "The Americans, you know, their mouths dropped open. 'That happened here?'"
He offered a knowing look and gazed out over the ocean.
