Brown University has transferred ownership of a portion of its land in Bristol, Rhode Island, to a preservation trust established by the Pokanoket Indian Tribe, ensuring that access to the land and waters extends to tribes and Native peoples of the region for whom the land has significance.
Since its donation to Brown in 1955, the University’s approximately 375-acre Mount Hope property has been home to its Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology collections and an outing center used for educational programs and field research. As the ancestral home of Metacom, known also as King Philip — the leader of the Pokanoket people — and the site of his 1676 death during King Philip’s War, the land holds great historical and cultural significance to members of many Native and Indigenous communities.
The transfer, which was finalized on Friday, Nov. 15, fulfills in part a pledge made in a 2017 agreement between the University and the Pokanoket tribe. Brown committed then to the orderly transfer of a to-be-determined amount of land into a preservation trust to ensure appropriate stewardship of the unique historical, sacred and natural resource for generations to come.
