Cassius Spears

Cassius Champlin Spears, Sr. has dedicated his life to the preservation of Narragansett culture throughout New England and the world. He has served as cultural advisor for numerous educational projects, including the PBS documentary We Shall Remain–After the Mayflower. Spears has remained active in the practice of ethnobotany and traditional home building, where he has demonstrated eastern woodlands culture at museums, college campuses and film sets across North America.

Cassius has served on Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Indigenous Program’s Advisory Board, the New England Foundation for the Arts and Native Arts Advisory Committee. In his most recent capacity as an agricultural technician, he has performed as a liaison for the Narragansett Indian Tribe and the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). He was appointed to serve on the Regional Tribal Conservation Advisory Committee and the National Association of Conservation Districts’ Tribal Outreach and Partnership Resource Policy Group for the eastern region.

He is a 2017 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow, where he was one of 30 who participated in the year-long national intercultural leadership program. Spears’ passion for healthy traditional lifeways led to the establishment of the Narragansett Food Sovereignty Initiative­ with a primary focus on sustaining a healthy community through traditional lifeways and relationships inherent to tribal people. Spears represented the Narragansett community in Marrakech, Morrocco, at the COP22, UNESCO preconference, where he shared  the effects of climate change from the Narragansett perspective. In addition, he also serves on the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program Steering Committee and is now president of the Rhode Island Association of Conservation Districts.