“Where They Still Remain” is a photographic project that serves as a memorial to the African American and Wampanoag indigenous communities on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. These two groups have had their histories intertwined as they have faced centuries of displacement and oppression—often finding stability only in each other and the land on which they persist. Through my own photography of people and place alongside archival photographs and texts, I aim to evoke the countless lives and stories lost to time. Martha’s Vineyard has a thriving Black seasonal community that has held the island sacred since before Emancipation. Meanwhile, the Wampanoag people have lived on the island they call “Noepe” for over 10,000 years. Their kinship has led to their history being woven together through community and family. My connection to the work and place is direct—I have visited the island since I was a child, where I have long found comfort in seeing interracial and Black families like mine.
I was inspired to explore the intersection of these two communities after hearing about the 1854 story of Randall Burton. Burton was an enslaved Black man who escaped an offshore ship and fled into the island’s wilderness. While hiding from pursuers, he was discovered and given aid by a Wampanoag woman named Beulah Vanderhoop, who sheltered Burton in her home before ultimately securing him safe passage to Canada. His story was covered in real time in the island’s newspaper, in addition to being carried on through tribal oral histories. Many of Vanderhoop’s living descendants have become my photographic subjects.
