t is no longer an unusual event to find a St. David?s Islander wandering around the Mashantucket Pequot reservation in Connecticut seemingly at home. They aren?t necessarily there to gamble at the nearby Foxwoods Casino, they are there to connect with long-lost cousins.

The two groups have recently embraced each other as kin even though they were torn from each other more than 300 years ago.

Unfortunately, with that much time having passed, much of the story of how the Pequots and other Native American tribes such as Wampanoag, came to be in Bermuda has been largely lost.

That is why, leaders of the Mashantucket Pequot recently sent archaeologist Kevin McBride to Bermuda to begin a preliminary investigation. Dr. McBride is director of research for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Centre, and also an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Connecticut.

?The Mashantucket Pequot tribal council is very interested and excited about the connection between them and Bermuda,? Dr. McBride said shortly before giving a lecture at the Bermuda National Gallery. ?They are the ones who sent me down here.?

Dr. McBride said that although Native Americans and archaeologists have often had a rocky relationship, collaborations between the two, are becoming more common.

?Native Americans and archaeologists historically didn?t get along for good reason,? said Dr. McBride.

?Basically, the discipline of Native American archaeology was developed by excavating Native American graves. Hopefully, most of us in the discipline have moved away from that, but now natives and archaeologists have been coming together for various reasons. Part of it is legislation and part of it is to a common sense and mutual interest. On a Native part they realise that archaeologists can inform them about certain aspects of their past. In turn, we are coming to understand that the native people?s perspective on their past can be quite informative.?

The Mashantucket Pequots sent with Dr. McBride a special gift for St. David?s Islanders.

?It is a ceramic pot that is a replica of a Pequot pot from about this era,? said Dr. McBride. ?It was made by a Narragansett person. So, on a lot of levels, it is an interesting gift.?

He said that he was in Bermuda to look at how best to begin ?clarifying and unweaving? the complex history of how Native Americans came to be in Bermuda.

It is widely accepted that after various wars between New England Puritans and Native Americans, the surviving Native Americans, mainly women and children, were enslaved and sent away from the colony to avoid further uprisings.

He said historic documents make it pretty clear that Native Americans arrived here after the Pequot Wars (1636 - 1637) and King Philip?s War (1675 - 1676). King Philip?s War involved Native Americans from all over New England, including the Wampanoag.

?Clearly, far more people arrived here in the aftermath of King Philip?s War than from the Pequot War,? said Dr. McBride. ?In fact, there is a bit of a myth around the arrival of the Pequots right after the Pequot war. I don?t think it happened. The records I have seen indicate that twelve Pequot women and children who had been captured after the Pequot war, women and children of status ? the women and children of sachems. It was intended that they would be sent to Bermuda, but the ship got blown off course and they ended up on Providence Island off the coast of Nicaragua.?

Native Americans were actually sent all over the world, including Africa, Europe and the Caribbean.

?I know the colonists did not want to keep the captured Native Americans in the colonies because they were too close to home,? he said. ?In fact, the sale of the native people to Bermuda and elsewhere began the slave trade with Africans into the New England colony. They would sell the Native people and use the proceeds to import Africans. They didn?t want to use the Native Americans as slaves, because if native communities were nearby they would possibly escape which is what they did during the Pequot War.

?In Bermuda there was a labour shortage, and industries such as Tobacco were just getting going. The Native Americans were used as house servants and agricultural labour.?

Some St. David?s Island oral history suggests that King Philip?s son (a Wampanoag) may have been sent to Bermuda. Dr. McBride believed there may be some truth to that.

?I would have to check my records to be sure,? he said, ?but I do know that when the Puritans captured King Philip?s wife and children there was a big debate on whether they should be executed. It was decided that executing them wasn?t a Christian act, but they would be sold into slavery. The Puritans had their own perspective on things, that is for sure. I believe they were sold into slavery in Bermuda.?

Dr. McBride said more research is needed to document and flesh out exactly what went on.

?Certainly, enough has been done to make it pretty clear that there is a real connection,? said Dr. McBride. ?What I find interesting is that there is a real connection growing. Bermudians are going up there and Native Americans are coming down here.?

Dr. McBride thought it might be interesting, although complicated, to do a DNA study on St. David?s Islanders to see if a genetic link can be established.

?I think it would be a very complicated story,? he said. ?I think you could clearly identify these people as coming from Southern New England, but exactly where in New England would be problematic because there is so much intermarriage historically among the groups there.?

The Mashantucket Pequots also sent a linguist along with Dr. McBride to see if there were any traces of Pequot language left in Bermuda.

?Maybe there are early place names, maybe there are early people names, phrases or words for things,? said Dr. McBride.

While in Bermuda, Dr. McBride was excited to hear a St. David?s Islander say that their grandparents picked up arrowheads on St. David?s Island.

?I am an archaeologist,? he said. ?I am very interested in what evidence you might find in these early communities on St. David?s Island. I was talking to someone from St. David?s who said her elders were finding arrow points.

?I said, ?wow?. I was shocked, because there was no one here until the early 1600s. If that was the case then it would suggest that there could be material here in the ground. There is a lot of rich archaeology in Bermuda, but St. David?s in particular, because that is the location where most of these people have been.?

He said he would be interested in doing an archaeological excavation in St. David?s although it might be difficult to find an undisturbed site.

Dr. McBride said he would like to see more Bermudians visiting the Mashantucket Museum & Research Centre, although he admitted that there is nothing there specifically about Bermuda. ?I would love to see an exhibit put up about the Atlantic World,? he said. ?It would look at the African ? Native ? Colonial connection. There is clearly a lot of confluence there. A lot of people out there were seafarers whalers and seamen. I am sure they were stopping here also, in the 18th and 19th century.?

Dr. McBride said, as an archaeologist he has always been aware of the connection between the Pequots and Bermuda, although he didn?t look into it very much until the St. David?s Islanders and Pequot people started to communicate with one another. ?There is sort of a groundswell of interest that they are pursuing,? he said.