East Lyme — Indigenous Peoples Day at McCook Point Park on Monday marked the first event put on by the Nehantic Nation on its ancestral land since the tribe was declared extinct by the state in 1870, according to descendant David Brule.

A member of the Nehantic Nation tribal council, Brule spoke in front of roughly 130 people throughout the afternoon at the program co-sponsored by the East Lyme Historical Society. He spoke alongside John Pfeiffer, an anthropologist from Old Lyme credited by Brule for reacquainting the descendants with their land and their history. Pfeiffer said the Nehantic tribe goes back 4,000 years.

Pfeiffer said McCook Point Park encompasses the traditional burial ground around which the 300-acre Nehantic reservation was built in 1671. There were at least 450 Nehantics interred on the grounds by the time the last burial was documented in 1878, according to the anthropologist.

He told The Day that developer James Luce was granted permission by the state in 1886 to remove the cemetery for aesthetic purposes despite a colonial court ruling that gave the tribe "the Perpetual use of their Burying Place." Though the state approval came with a proviso that Luce move all who were buried there, Pfeiffer said just six or seven Nehantics were reburied in Union Cemetery on East Pattagensett Road.

"We owe it to them to protect, to honor, to respect them," he said of the Nehantic ancestors. "It's part of who we are. It can't be any different. This is sacred land."

Brule said part of the reason the Nehantic Nation tribal council decided to cohost the public event stems from the continued desecration of the park by the town. He pointed to statues, plaques and plantings "placed right there over our ancestors" in the corner of the park along Atlantic Street.

The items include a playful statue of a boy and a girl commemorating the Art in the Park Festival going back to 2004 and a more recent memorial plaque placed under a Japanese maple for a resident who died in 2019.

Brule said he met with staff members from the Parks and Recreation Department, including Director Dave Putnam, who agreed to remove the items.

"They were genuinely, deeply baffled. They had never thought we were still around," Brule said. "So that, I think, was a real catalyst for getting us to come out of the shadows and to start saying 'there's a lot of us around here.'"

The Parks and Recreation Department also erected three signs to explain the history of the Nehantics and show who they are today.

Putnam on Monday said the department is in the process of finding the best spot to relocate the statue and memorial.

"It's on our to-do list, but I don't know when that would happen," he said.

The four-member Nehantic Nation tribal council, led by Chief Ray Tatten, has established itself as a corporation with its own constitution and bylaws. Brule said the council will decide how to proceed with more community conversations like the one started on Indigenous Peoples Day on the burial grounds of the Nehantic tribe.

"We're going to step out," he said. "We have our ducks in a row. We want to be able to protect the remains of the cemetery, but also to join the fabric now of Niantic [and] East Lyme."

One Black Point resident who attended the event said she'd lived in the neighborhood for 14 years with no knowledge the area had been on the Nehantic reservation. It was a fact she told Brule she felt bad about.

"This is why you're here," he told her. "And this is why we wanted to come out and start sharing with you what we know about our history going back thousands of years."

e.regan@theday.com