HEREDITARY DEAFNESS ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD
Hereditary deafness in isolated communities is not completely unusual. These communities often created their own sign language. It is referred to as “village sign language.” From 1640 through the late 1800s, hereditary deafness was common on Martha’s Vineyard, especially in the town of Chilmark. At one time, one in twenty-five residents of Chilmark was born deaf. In a section of town called Squibnocket, there were as many as one in four deaf residents, compared with one in six thousand in the rest of the country.
Deafness was a recessive trait that affected White settlers equally. The genetic mutation produced complete deafness at birth with no associated anomalies.
It is true that it was brought over from the county of Kent, England, especially the region known as the Weald, by prominent families like the Lamberts, Skiffes, and Tiltons. It is believed that they also brought Old Kentish Sign Language with them. The English use a two-handed manual alphabet to this day.
Because the families in the small-knit farming and fishing village intermarried for generations, the trait for deafness remained strong. It started to disappear as residents moved off-island and married outsiders.
Because there was a complete lack of knowledge of Mendelian genetics at the time, scientists were puzzled that families could have both deaf and hearing relatives, in a seemingly random pattern. Some of the theories of the time are described in this book: environmental factors, maternal fright, and even tight corsets during pregnancy!
The one major study on the subject is Nora Ellen Groce’s ethnography: Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language, Harvard University Press, 1985. I could not have written this book if I hadn’t read that one.
DEAF EDUCATION AND AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE
In 1817, the American School for the Deaf opened in Hartford, Connecticut, laying the groundwork for the development of a national sign language. The school in its earliest years was a mixture of different sign languages. Some students came from village sign communities, a notable example being Martha’s Vineyard. Others had created home signs that only their families understood. The American School for the Deaf was a Whites-only school, and Deaf education was largely segregated into the mid-twentieth century.
The school’s cofounder and first teacher, Laurent Clerc, was a former pupil of the Paris school, the first free school for the Deaf in the world, established in 1670. He introduced Old French Sign Language and the one-handed manual alphabet to America. Though lesser known by the general population than Thomas Gallaudet, Clerc is still greatly revered in Deaf culture.
Eventually, MVSL, home sign, and the French system merged into what would become American Sign Language (ASL).
Home sign still exists in families, as do village sign communities in many countries. There are dialects in contemporary ASL, both regional and cultural. Some vibrant examples are Black American Sign Language (BASL) and American Indian Sign Language (AISL), which is distinct from Plains Sign Talk (PISL). Each of these sign languages has its own rich traditions and history.
Every country in the world has its own sign language; some have more than one.
THE NAMING OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD
There are several versions of the story. I went with English captain Bartholomew Gosnold naming it after his baby daughter in 1602. I followed Arthur R. Railton’s telling of Gosnold searching for the “happy and beautiful bay” described by Giovanni de Verrazzano in a letter to King Francis I of France. Railton’s book, The History of Martha’s Vineyard: How We Got to Where We Are, Commonwealth Editions, 2006, was helpful in many instances.
THE WAMPANOAG OF GAY HEAD (AQUINNAH)
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is a federally recognized, sovereign tribe of Wampanoag people based in the town of Aquinnah (“high land”) on Martha’s Vineyard. Their ancestors have lived on the island of Noepe (“land amid the waters”) for at least ten thousand years.
In the early 1800s, many Wampanoag men had died from diseases that settlers brought, or left the island to find work. The Wampanoag women welcomed freedmen as husbands. Their children were Wampanoag of Aquinnah.
Aquinnah Wampanoag practices of welcoming members into their tribe regardless of blood quantum, accepting mixed-race marriages and offspring, and owning land collectively were regarded as wrong by the English settlers. These differences created more prejudice and discrimination against the Wampanoag.
In 1972, the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head, Inc., was formed to promote self-determination, to ensure preservation and continuation of Wampanoag history and culture, to achieve federal recognition for the Tribe, and to seek the return of tribal lands to the Wampanoag people. The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) became a federally acknowledged tribe on April 10, 1987, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the stereotypical character of Tashtego is Aquinnah Wampanoag. In 1902, Amos Smalley, an Aquinnah whaler, harpooned his own great white sperm whale, the only man who has ever done so. The Tribe retains to present day their aboriginal rights to any drift whales that beach along or near the shores of Noepe.
There is a Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project to teach Wampanoag children their language.
Two books greatly helped in my research. Moshup’s Footsteps: The Wampanoag Nation, Gay Head/Aquinnah; The People of First Light by Helen Manning, Blue Cloud Across the Moon Publishing, 2001; and The Wampanoag Tribe of Martha’s Vineyard: Colonization to Recognition by Thomas Dresser, The History Press, 2011. Lastly the Tribe’s official webpage, wapmanoagtribe.org, is the best resource.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank the following people:
Brian Selznick wrote Wonderstruck, an extraordinary book about Deaf culture, history, and language, and paid it forward by introducing me to his editor at Scholastic Press, Tracy Mack.
Tracy was a great partner and mentor for this book. She saw what I was
