A direct descendant of a Native American Indian chief discovered that part of her Indian heritage had landed on the shores of Bermuda?s East End.

Dolores LeClaire, 79, was on the Island as part of the Cultural Affairs Department?s Heritage Month roots programme.She grew up in Boston and although she was always aware of her Indian heritage, she did not get in touch with her ancestral past until five years ago.

?I came up in an era when no one ever spoke about it,? said Mrs. LeClaire, who is known as Granny.

?Being raised in the city you just were who you were. It has been a whole new experience for me. I am now on the Indian role and that makes me legal.?

She said she is a direct descendant of Chief Sachem Massasoit and his son King Phillip (Metacom), who was the Chief of the Wamponoag Tribe or the People of the First Light, aptly named because they were as far east as you could go.

?The Wamponoag were the main tribe that greeted and befriended the first British settlers who came to New England,? she said, ?And they helped them survive their first winter.?

She said many of her ancestors along the east coast of America were taken as slaves about 400 years ago, but no one knew where they went. But little did they know that most were bought to Bermuda and sold.

?When it was told to me that they (the St. David?s Islanders) might be direct descendants ? it was amazing,? she said.

?Love emanates from them and it has been an incredible journey for me.?

She said it had been a search and a journey that had finally come to an end.

?When we all met everyone was overwhelmed,? she said, ?I want to gather them all together and take them with me.?

Mrs. LeCLaire said the resemblance between the St. David?s Islanders and her people was uncanny.

?We all came out of the same pot,? she said, ?To look at some of these people, is like I am looking in a mirror ? they hold strong blood lines. You can see something about their eye lines.?

She said it was awesome about the continuity and the feeling between herself and the people she had met on the Island.

Mrs. LeClaire said: ?I know it was meant to be. I have no words to describe it.?

Historian Tall Oak, who is on his fourth visit to the Island, said Chief Sachem Massasoit had two sons, King Phillip and Wamsutta, who was the elder brother.

?It was believed by his wife that Wamsutta was poisoned by the English and King Phillip was the next in line,? said Tall Oak, who is part Mashantucket Pequot and Wampanoag.

Tall Oak said history had been his passion since his senior year in high school.

?About a quarter of a century ago I began looking into my families genealogy and it spread from there,? he said, ?And that of course never ends.?

He said he had known for many years that Indians were bought as slaves to Bermuda, but he never thought in a million years that he would come here, and now he is currently on his fourth visit.

But he said ever since his first visit he had stayed with family.

?It has been life transforming and I have stayed at Edward (Ed) Welch?s home and sometimes it?s been one or two of us and others it been many of us,? he said.

?It has been just like instant bonding, distance wasn?t part of the process.?

Ian Pitcher, member of the St David?s Island Indian Committee, which comes under the St. David?s Historical Society said there were a lot of things from the past that in previous times people were reluctant to share.

?I think a lot more information has come out as time has passed on,? he said.

?We gave a talk to the West End Primary School students last Friday, who were studying American history, and they had created a three sisters garden.

?There are lots of little connections. People have started digging and are discovering their genealogy ? it is part of the history of Bermuda.?

Carmen Welch, secretary of the St David?s Island Indian Committee, said it was a tedious process to search through the archives.

She said: ?Most of the Indians that were bought to the Island were bought by a land/slave owner Captain White, who lived in St. David?s.

?It?s important to know the past if you don?t know where you came from, you don?t know where are you going,? she said.

Ms Welch said the West Indies were no different from Bermuda, and all have diverse ethnic backgrounds.

?In Bermuda, like the Islands there were the English, French and other nationalities stopping over for hundreds of years,? she said.

?Most were heading for the new world, but many got stuck on the islands.?

Ms Welch said when she met Mrs. LeClaire she felt like she was meeting a long lost family member.

?The minute I met her I felt like I was meeting my grandmother,? she said.

They met last year in Connecticut at the Festival of the Green Corn, with Bermudian Jean Foggo-Simon and Tall Oak.

She said they went up to Bristol, Rhode Island, in New England, and went to the spot where the Indian Sachem King Phillip was beheaded by the English.

?It was a beautiful swamp with icy cold water and we went down to the exact spot where he was killed,? she said.

?This man was the great, great, great, great grandfather of Granny.

?We said prayers. The air was very calm and then there was a breeze that picked up that just went over the top of the trees.

?My hair stood up on end and the only thing we could do was sob. Tall Oak said his (King Phillip?s) spirit was letting us know that he knew that we had returned.?

Ms Welch said Tall Oak and Ms Foggo-Simon were due to come to the Island as part of the Heritage Month talks, but Michael Thomas, Tribal Chair of the Mashantucket Pequot?s of Connecticut was not able to come, so Mrs. LeClaire came instead.

While they were on the Island one of the things they did was to visit the Three Sisters Garden at West End Primary School.

?The garden consists of squash, corn and beans,? said Ms Welch.

?I am not sure which class it is or what teacher inspired the children to do the heritage garden, but it was good.?

?On Friday, we talked to the children and blessed the garden.?

Ms Welch said Mrs. LeClaire had seen many people with whom she felt a connection.?

It was like a sort of electricity, and it felt like we were meeting cousins, all sorts of hugging and kissing,? said Ms Welch.?

?Mrs. LeClaire (Granny) ate peas and rice and cassava pie, the bridge between us has been built. We have to meet each other in the centre. ?She has a visual message to take back with her.

?Our people are down in Bermuda.?