As more groups and individuals claim to be “Nipmuc” or “Nipmuk” speaking for us, for our ancestors and presuming to define us in the present, we may need to publicly distance ourselves from them....

Thomas Doughton December 3, 2014

I said I would be writing about enrollment issues in the Nipmuc community and have been considering a lengthy response on which I’m still working. Before posting anything else here on enrollment and bogus Nipmucs, however, I’d like to share some background materials…. Here is one example.

In 2011 the Cherokee Nation created a List of Fraudulent Cherokee Groups, at that time numbering 212 different types of groups claiming to be Cherokee. Similar lists are available for “bogus” or questionable Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles.
As more groups and individuals claim to be “Nipmuc” or “Nipmuk” speaking for us, for our ancestors and presuming to define us in the present, we may need to publicly distance ourselves from them and clarify for the public at large that they are not representatives of our community. And, it’s not just a question of our history; suddenly, there’s a proliferation of new or recent Indian “tribes” or “bands” or “nations” in New England. Obvious examples would be the alleged Natick Nipmucs, Bobby Hazzard's Wabaquasset Nation and Larry Mann a "citizen of the Historical Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts" he and his family invented. We need to be more secure in ourselves to call all of this into question.

In any event, if you’re interested here’s a version of the Fraudulent Cherokee List:
https://drive.google.com/…/0B0elHJjc0U2OSmJVS0c0OHRxU…/view…