A tall ship docked in Rhode Island is home to the controversial Twelve Tribes religious 'cult'
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Since it first docked at India Point Park on July 2, the tall ship Peacemaker has attracted a steady stream of curious onlookers. Dozens of visitors clamber aboard the 124-foot-long vessel each day, snapping photographs in its stately wood-paneled cabins and gazing up at rigging that reaches more than 100 feet into the sky.
Unlike similar tall ships that are used for educational purposes in places such as Newport and Mystic Seaport, Rhode Island, however, the Peacemaker has an unusual backstory. It's owned by the Twelve Tribes, a religious sect that has been dogged by allegations of racism, sexism and child abuse. The group doesn't proselytize to visitors, but pamphlets available onboard invite them to find out more about the Twelve Tribes' communal lifestyle.
"If that's the kind of life that people are looking for, we let them know it's available," said Lee Philips, the ship's captain. "But we're not here to convince them of anything."
A 2018 report on the group from the Southern Poverty Law Center categorized the Twelve Tribes as a Christian fundamentalist cult that teaches followers that slavery was a "marvelous opportunity" for Black people.
Building a community: They pray together. But for U.S. Muslims, rich diversity often divides rather than unites.
Philips, who lives aboard the ship with his wife, prefers to think of the group as "separatists" following in the tradition of Roger Williams, the Puritan minister who was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded what would become Rhode Island. He says there are no racial tensions within the Twelve Tribes, but he isn't willing to say that slavery as practiced in the United States was necessarily a bad thing.
"I think there were good masters and bad ones," he said June 30. "There were some situations that worked really well, and some people that got taken advantage of."
Founded in the 1970s in Tennessee, the Twelve Tribes now has somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 members worldwide who gave up their personal belongings when they joined and pooled their earnings.
The Twelve Tribes has a substantial presence in southeastern Massachusetts.
Members typically do not vote, own televisions, drink alcohol or send their children to public schools. Men are expected to grow beards, and women dress modestly in flowing smocklike tops and long skirts or pantaloons.
The group says on its website that it does not consider itself to be a cult – "if you mean a weird, dangerous or oppressive religious group." However, numerous former members have told journalists that they experienced abusive treatment and feared they would face divine retribution if they left the group.
Massage parlor 'crack down': Fake diplomas. Prostitution arrests. Forged documents. Massage schools accused of feeding illegal business in the US.
In 2013, a documentary filmmaker in Germany captured footage of children being beaten with canes, which led police to raid two communities and place 40 children in foster care.
Although the group denies any wrongdoing, its website says that disobedient children are spanked with "a small reed-like rod, which only inflicts pain and not damage," and teaches them to respect authority.
As recently as March, a since-deleted section of the Twelve Tribes website made the argument that multiculturalism "increases murder, crime and prejudice" and is unnatural because it "places impossible demands on people to love others who are culturally and racially different." The website also states that the Twelve Tribes does not "approve of homosexual behavior."
Historically, the Twelve Tribes has traveled to Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead concerts to recruit members. The group purchased the Peacemaker in 2000 and now takes the boat between different ports on the East Coast, inviting people to come on board and explore.
Though it looks like something out of the 19th century, the ship was actually launched as recently as 1989. It was built for an industrialist who had made his fortune building offshore oil rigs and roads in Brazil, Philips said.
A description of the boat when it was previously listed for sale claimed that the original owner purchased a "substantial piece" of the nation of Paraguay in order to gain access to the finest ipe and mahogany wood, which he personally selected after having a sawmill brought to the site by barge.
The ship can comfortably sleep as many as 24 people. While members of Twelve Tribes communities take turns serving as crew, Philips and his wife, Keliyah, are constant fixtures.
One room below deck has been converted into a kiln where Keliyah Philips fires the bowls and mugs she makes with the pottery wheel that she keeps onboard. Her creations are available for sale on the Peacemaker, along with castile soaps and mate teas produced by Twelve Tribes communities.
Escaped snake: The missing 12-foot python found safe and sound after escaping enclosure at Louisiana mall
Originally from Australia, Keliyah Philips first encountered the Twelve Tribes at a festival where she was selling her pottery. "I had searched a lot, wondering what the greater reason was for existence," she recalled. "Nothing really satisfied me until I met the [Twelve Tribes] community."
Part of the group's appeal was that it allowed her to inhabit a more traditional gender role. Trying to balance raising children with a career had "ended up ripping me apart" and ultimately resulted in divorce, she said. The Twelve Tribes freed her from that juggling act by offering a place "where you can be a woman without trying to be a man as well."
Women's responsibilities within the Twelve Tribes involve supporting the men, rather than necessarily providing for a family, "and it's very wonderful," she said. "I don't feel at all oppressed — not in the slightest."
"We think that there's a lot of people that are not satisfied, that want more," she added. "That's one of the reasons why we have the ship. Those that are drawn, are drawn."
Follow Antonia Noori Farzan on Twitter: @antoniafarzan.