Natick has not figured out how best to engage with its colonialist history. Racist and inaccurate imagery that presents white settlers as superior to Native Americans is still found in places of prominence, including our current town seal. Fortunately, Mia Kheyfetz and the Natick Town Seal Review Committee (TSRC) are taking steps in the right direction. 

Mia Kheyfetz, the chair of the TSRC, has been a Natick resident for 12 years. She has always wondered about the town seal, but really started researching it in 2019. She found out that the seal depicts John Eliot, a white settler, preaching Christianity to Native Americans. In addition to being focused on colonialism and religion, the image is inaccurate: it presents a stereotypical image of Native Americans and portrays them as inferior to white settlers. This was not a symbol that Kheyfetz thought should represent our town. Along with Josh Ostroff, a Natick resident who is active in local government, Kheyfetz put together a warrant article for the Fall 2020 town meeting. The article asked the town to look into a new design for its seal, and the Town Meeting formed a committee, the TSRC, for that purpose. 

The TSRC started meeting a couple months later, in January 2021. Since then, they have learned about the history of early Natick; spoken to their counterpart committee in Newton, which has a similar town seal, and to Framingham, which has redone its town seal; discussed the art history of the images in the Natick and Newton seals; reviewed over 100 other Massachusetts seals; hired a graphic designer; and selected a design out of three finalists. 

The TSRC has tried to make their work public as much as possible; it is important to them that the people of Natick feel represented by and proud of their new town seal, which includes having a say in its creation. For example, the committee held an open house for people to view the top three designs and ask questions, and created a form for Natick residents to vote on their favorite of the three. Additionally, all committee meetings are open to anyone and feature a time for questions and statements from the public. 

The TSRC has also made sure to consult with members of the Natick Nipmuc tribe and other Indigenous people with ties to Natick on how the new seal can best respect and honor them. They’ve gotten mixed messages, just as they have from other Natick residents. For instance, some Indigenous people wanted the new seal to have Native symbols so as to continue to remember the origins of the town. Others felt uncomfortable with the new seal featuring Native symbols, as the town of Natick and the surrounding Indigenous tribes have not historically had a very close relationship. The TSRC and the town seal designer, Sebastian Ebarb, tried to walk the line between erasure and cultural appropriation by focusing the designs on the nature and land of Natick, something to which the town of Natick and Indigenous communities both have ties. Two of the three designs, including the one that was ultimately chosen as the finalist, feature water to highlight how the Nipmuc tribe are people of the freshwater. Additionally, nature was here before all of us and hopefully will be here after, so it is a good choice to represent Natick’s past, present, and future, as a town seal should.

Furthermore, the nature-focused designs would distinguish Natick’s town seal from those of other towns. Many other Massachusetts towns’ seals are overly detailed (making them hard to digitally reproduce), feature a specific building or face that may not stand the test of time, or both. The new seal would make Natick seem unique and interesting, and would hopefully be something that can represent our town for a long time. 

Natick’s seal has not always been the current image; it has been changed multiple times in the past. For instance, it used to be just two circles with the town name and incorporation date. The current design was developed in 1951 and adopted in 1980–1982. Kheyfetz believes that now, with the town government examining its history and trying to be more inclusive, “it seems like the time to address an image that was, in my personal opinion, offensive.”

As with any change—especially one that is, in part, political—Kheyfetz and the TSRC have faced many kinds of opposition. “You name it, we’ve gotten it,” Kheyfetz said of the negative feedback. Opposing opinions range from the change being unnecessary and less symbolic than the current seal, to concerns about erasing history and pretending Natick did not have a colonialist past, to thinly veiled racism. It is impossible to get all 36,000 residents of Natick to agree, Kheyfetz said, but the committee is trying to build consensus and create something that the residents of Natick are proud to stand behind. 

However, the new seal has not yet been approved. The TSRC must present their final seal, along with a plan for phasing it in, at the Spring Town Meeting in April. There are many options for what the Town Meeting could say: they could approve the new seal, reject it completely, refer it back to the committee, dissolve the committee, re-form the committee, or more. Even if they approve the new seal, the only thing it would automatically replace is the town’s embosser, which is used for official documents like birth and death certificates. It is up to the Town Administrators’ Office whether the new seal would go onto street signs, police uniforms, town websites, town business cards, and more (as it has in the past and as is the case in surrounding towns).

Kheyfetz, of course, hopes that the town meeting and town administrators’ office approve the seal so that Natick can present itself in a more inclusive and accurate way. This should not, however, be the end of the story. “I hope the effect [of the new seal] is not continuing to focus all conversations about Natick and its history around this one colonial moment and this one encounter in 1651. And by that I don’t mean that we should erase that encounter, but that it should be taught…We shouldn’t rely on a small, inaccurate image that’s posted everywhere as a way to learn about Natick’s history,” Kheyfetz said. 

In the classroom, we should learn about the many shameful moments in Natick’s history. This will help ensure that these events are not erased. We also must continue to take other steps to reckon with our colonialist history and work towards a more inclusive future, including continuing the conversation with nearby Indigenous communities. Although we must learn about and work to engage with the colonialist parts of Natick’s history, these events do not belong on the town seal, the image of Natick that we present. We must challenge racism and inaccuracy, not stand proudly behind them.