Wampum is one of the most recognizable and complicated symbols of the Eastern Woodlands. Wampum beads are small, tubular, white and purple marine shell beads that were found along the coasts of Connecticut. For the English colonists, the term was derived from the Massachusetts term “wa’pa’piag” or white string of beads and they shortened the name to ‘wampum’ or ‘peag’. For the Dutch, it was sewan or zeewant and for the French it was called porcelaine. Wampum became the traditional name applied to the beads that were made along the southern New England coast and Long Island. 

Wampum was traditionally used by the Eastern Woodland tribes as part of their gift economy and had many different uses.  A string of wampum beads served as an invitation to a special meeting or the council. Wampum was also used to settle an agreement or console someone during a time of mourning. The white shell was said to represent light, life, health and success in war and hunting and those would often be used as a gift to the living including strangers as well as to the deceased. 

During the 17th century, Europeans introduced the concept of using wampum as a form of money and thus it became a medium of exchange in New Netherland and New England. When the Dutch first realized the value of wampum to the Native people, they began using it as a medium for exchange of goods. In some instances, wampum was used as legal tender.  Throughout Connecticut, the Pequots controlled many coastal areas of wampum production and became very powerful through the trade. By the end of the 17th century, the introduction of colonial coinage and other factors caused wampum to stopped being used as a form of currency. Itss symbolic and ceremonial importance, though, remains alive today. 

Sources:

• Bradley, James W. “RE-VISITING WAMPUM AND OTHER SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SHELL GAMES.” Archaeology of Eastern North America 39 (2011): 25–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23265113. 

• “The Transformation of Wampum” at Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center