In a place called Dark Bottom on the eastern tip of Bermuda, Dominique Williams points out a cedar tree.
Williams grew up watching the tree mature, its roots take hold. She says the cedar honors an historic connection.
"It's that cedar tree right there ... to memorialize this spot," she said. "The actual connection between us and our relatives overseas. And that cedar tree sits right here to this day."
Williams stands in a meaningful place – the spot where her Bermudian family first met their long-lost Native American cousins from New England.
The reunion happened 25 years ago, when descendants of enslaved Native Americans in Bermuda reconnected with their New England relatives after centuries of separation.
Williams was 3 years old during that first reunion in Bermuda. Now 27, she's been on a personal journey to reconnect with her ancestral roots. She's part of the first generation of descendants of enslaved Native Americans in Bermuda to grow up knowing who they are.
"It means the world to me," she said. "I’m able to reconnect with a part of myself that my granny and those before me didn’t get to do. So I’m carrying that on for them."
‘You are somebody’
In the 1600s, Williams’ Indigenous ancestors were captured in colonial New England, and sold into slavery in Bermuda. Most New England Natives lived on a remote island in the archipelago called St. David’s.
For generations, their customs, traditions and looks were different from the rest of Bermuda. They also faced discrimination.
Dominique’s mom, Lottie, tears up as she recalls the taunts and bullying.
Kids would tell her: "We don’t wanna play with you."
"But my mom always said, ‘You are somebody. Don’t let nobody disrespect you,'" she said.
The family knew they were Native American, but not which tribe they came from -- something they were aching to learn. But that may never happen. There are no records listing tribal ancestries of enslaved Natives in Bermuda, Dominique Williams said.
"We don’t know which tribes each of us come from," she said. "But there are clear links in the archives that tell us that we are actually descended from a lot of persons and different tribal groups in New England. So it's something that you feel, and there’s something in that to believe."
Stories passed down through the generations among Native Americans in both New England and Bermuda pointed to a connection between the two groups. Historical records mention Natives in Bermuda starting in the 1600s.
In the late 1990s, after years of research, people from St. David’s Island connected with New England tribes: the Mashantucket Pequot, Narragansett and Mashpee Wampanoag.
And in 2002, a group of Northeast Natives crossed the ocean to meet their Bermudian counterparts.
They shared ceremony and celebration.
Williams read from a poem called “A Tiny Island In The Sea” by Joyce M. Walker (Turtle Woman), a Mashantucket Pequot poet who was at the gathering.
"We joined into one circle, one body," Williams read. "We looked up to our Creator and gave thanks that we were able to come together, the descendants of a mighty people who were torn apart 365 years ago. To commemorate this day we planted a cedar tree, for it was the cedar trees that sheltered our ancestors, the survivors of the Pequot War. For it was the Cedar Trees that sheltered those who were taken away onto this tiny island in the sea."
Tall Oak Weeden, a descendant of the Mashantucket Pequot, Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes, was key to the reconnection. Weeden, who died in 2022, was an elder in New England and conducted historical research in the Northeast and Bermuda.
The Bermuda reconnection could lead to other reunions, said his son, David Weeden, historic preservation officer for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.
"It's still ongoing," he said. "And we have to do more to help those that were taken away from our communities to help bring them back home and honor the descendants before them."
‘Looking in a mirror’
In addition to researching her family’s history, Williams has started attending powwows in America.
At home in Bermuda, she showed off pieces of regalia she travels with: a pair of rattles she made from the cedar tree, Bermuda’s national tree, to use in dances. They’re filled with pebbles, seeds and shells to make the rattle.
She also brings her grandmother’s tapestry. Williams uses it to perform the Eastern Women’s Traditional Blanket dance. It tells a story that mirrors her own journey.
"You’re wrapped in a cocoon," she said. "You’re actually opening yourself. You’re growing through your womanhood. And then at the end of the dance, the woman dancing would actually go to the male and she’ll choose him by wrapping her blanket around him."
Williams' first Northeast powwow was two years ago in Mashpee, Massachusetts.
This past August, Williams and her mom traveled for the first time to Connecticut for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s powwow, Schemtizun.
Williams is adorned in Native regalia she made herself: a traditional top and wrap-around skirt from cream-colored hide, with delicately painted flowers.
"Seeing the faces, it's like you’re looking in a mirror," she said. "And then talking to these people, I feel like I’m talking to Bermudians back at home. They’re not strangers. They’re family. That’s it. It's like we’re looking at our people on the other side."
It's a feeling shared by many at Schemitzun. Reconnecting with the descendants of those forcibly removed from the tribe is a full circle moment, said Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
"Our children and their children have now grown up together, re-forming that bond that was broken centuries ago," Butler said. "And to see our young ones out there dancing with them and vice versa and then hosting them in the community, it's just family. We’re just hanging out. We’re having meals together and they’re right there with us at the table.
"It’s a beautiful connection."
At Schemitzun, Lottie Williams was dressed in colorful Native regalia symbolizing Bermuda’s sunshine and ocean waters – regalia made by her daughter.
"This is the yellow and blue that represents my culture," she said.
Lottie Williams says her daughter is carrying Bermuda’s Native community forward.
"You have to make sure the younger children is taught," she said. "They have to know where they come from. I just want to know where I’m from when I’m in my late 60s."
She gets emotional thinking about a journey that’s taken centuries: the struggle to find her roots.
"I am! I am somebody. I am," she said. "And I’m proud to be who I am."
Dominique Williams takes a moment to reflect on who she is and where she is. She looks up at the New England trees, silent observers of history.
"I’m on the grounds that my people once walked," she said. "The trees ... I don’t know how long they’ve been here but they witnessed the taking of our people. Their blood, their sweat, their tears are on this land. And to come back and walk barefoot on the grounds that they once did is, it’s peaceful."
It's a journey hundreds of years in the making.
Centuries ago, her ancestors were stolen from this place, their identities erased from history. Now she’s back to honor them -- and to learn about herself, to discover who she truly is.
"I just keep thinking that myself and my family and my people, we are not supposed to be witnessing this," she said. "Because those colonizers, the white colonizers who stole our people from these lands to Bermuda, they tried to erase this. They tried to erase our language, the thought of who we are, our connection.
"But they failed," she said, "because here I am."
