USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 22
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The hot work of March seems to have forced the peace loving people from their neutrality, and there were surely those among the judicious inhabitants who longed to have a hand in the stirring fray. For nearly ten years little or nothing had been done by the authorities to further the organization of the militia or the discipline of the train band on the island, but now it was agreed to choose a major to be the "chiefe Captain of all the colony's forces," to have his commission from the general as- sembly. Captain John Cranston was chosen major, yet true to the old spirit of purely popular will, it was conditioned that this action should "noe wayes extend to hinder the liberty of the soldiery in their election of a major when soe appointed by the assembly to elect." The acts, as nsnal, were published by beat of drum at Newport and Portsmouth. Major Cranston continued in his command during the remainder of King Philip's war, and his commission was later renewed in 1677.
Canonchet was surprised in April near the Blackstone river. The fall of this, the last of Narragansett's great sachems, was a fatal blow to Philip's cause. For two months the Rhode Is- land colony was left in comparative peace. In June the Indians made the famous assault on Hadley on the Connectiont river. While Philip was absent on this raid Colonel Church made a treaty with Awashonks, queen of the Seconnet tribe. The squaw sachem received a safe conduct from the Rhode Island
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assembly sitting at Newport. About the same time this body sent back to Providence the Indian captives which had been de- livered them for safe keeping, "judging they properly belonged to Plymouth colony."
After the defeat at Iladley the Indians again ravaged the Plymouth country. Pursned by the English, they were again surprised in a cedar swamp near Warwick. Magnus, an old queen of Narragansett, and sister of Ninegret, was taken, and with ninety other captives, slain. In this engagement the In- dians lost one hundred and seventy-one, the English not a sin- gle man. The savages now began to submit,. many coming in to Conanicut. The main body fled to the Housatonic, where they were overtaken by Major Talcott and nearly annihilated. Meanwhile Governor Winslow had commissioned Captain Church to take a force of two hundred men and break up Philip's retreat at Mount Hope. Two Rhode Island companies, under Lieutenant Richmond and Captain Edmonds, brought in nearly fifty captives, who were sold into service in the colony for a term of nine years, as were all other captives taken. None were permitted to enter the island. Philip's followers were gradnally captured, and the sachem himself took refuge in a swamp near Mount Hope, the home of his race. But his un- daunted spirit would not stoop to surrender. A follower who counselled submission was slain by his own hand. The swamp was now surrounded. Captain Roger Goulding, of Rhode Is- land, went in to drive ont the few that remained. An Indian named Alderman, a brother of the man Philip had thus uncere- moniously killed, shot the chieftain through the heart. The body was dragged to Captain Church, who ordered his head to be cut off and his body to be quartered. The head was sent to Plymouth, where it was exposed on a gibbet for twenty years. The body was hung on four trees. One hand was sent to Bos- ton as a trophy, the other was given to the Indian who killed him and was exhibited for money.
Some of the Indians escaped from the swamp under the lead of an old warrior, Annawan, a chief counsellor of Massasoit. Church captured him by surprise and received from him, as his memoirs say, " Philip's belt, curiously wrought with wampum, being nine inches broad wrought with black and white wam- pum in various figures and flowers and pictures of many birds and beasts." This, when hanged upon Captain Church's shoul-
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ders, reached his ankles, and another belt of wampum he pre- sented him with wrought after the former manner, which Philip was wont to put upon his head. It had two flags on the back part which hung down on his back, and another small belt with a star upon the end of it which he used to hang on his breast, and they were all edged with red hair which Annawan said they got in the Mohoys (Mohawks) country. Then he pulled out two horns of glazed powder and a red cloth blanket. He told Cap- tain Church these were Philip's royalties which he was wont to adorn himself with when he sat in state."
Yonng Metacomet, the only son of Philip, and numberless Indian captives taken at this period, were sent as slaves to Spain and the West Indies. In the entire struggle the Pagan Indian, in his treatment of captives, showed a higher civiliza- tion than his Christian foes.
After defeat punishment. Such is the customary sequence of war. And now the hand of vengeance was no longer stayed by the fear of reprisal by the crushed foe. Already the council of Rhode Island by act of July 24th, 1676, had empowered a com- mittee to sell the Indian men and women able for service, an act confirmed by the general assembly on the 6th of August fol- lowing with the limitation that those so sold should be for the term of nine years. In June it had been voted to return the In- dians sent by Captain Roger Williams from Providence on the plea that they belonged to Plymouth colony, because it was said that they were left as hostages to the English forces. The peaceful colony stood in equal dread of the United Colonies and of Philip's savage confederacy.
Philip fell on the morning of Saturday the 12th of August. On Monday the 14th, the town authorities of Providence, upon the recommendation of a committee of five, of which Roger Williams was the first named, condemned all their Indian cap- tives, innocent and guilty alike, to terms of servitude-" All In- (lians under five to serve till 30, above 5 and under 10 till 28, above 10 to 15 till 27, above 15 to 20 till 26. From 20 to 30 to serve 8 years, all above 30, 7 years;" a gradnation seemingly devised to secure the master against any contingency of loss by the support and nourishment of the servant at a non-wage earn- ing age. A record of the proceeds of this sale of the first com- pany of Indians on account of the townsmen, shows the share of
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each man to have been sixteen shillings and fourpence half- penny.
But there were other captives made by the Rhode Island troops in the course of the campaign and held for trial and the stern rigor of the law. Among the powers granted to the colony in its charter was that " to exercise the Law-Martiall in such cases as occasions shall necessarily require and upon just cause to invade and destroy the native Indians and other enemies of the said colony." A court martial, composed of the major part of the government and a large number of military officers, was convened at Newport on the 24th of Angust, 1676, for the trial of the Indians charged with being engaged in Philip's designs, that is with rebellion against the colony in adhering to Philip, chief sachem of the Indians of another colony and in particular of assisting in the burning and destroying of Pawtuxet, South Kingstown and Warwick and other towns. Edmund Calverley, the attorney general, brought the impeachment. Quanopen, a consin of Canonchet, bravely owned to the charge that he was in arms against the English nation, "admitted his presence at the destroyinges and burnings and declined to say anything against the Indians so engaged." He was voted guilty of the charge and condemned to be "shot to death in the town on the 26th." Quanopen was the second in command in the Narra- gansett country. Two of Quanopen's brothers were condemned to suffer the death penalty at the same time and place. There is no record that there was either respite or commutation of this sentence.
The court was still sitting on the 31st of August when Benja- min Church appeared with a letter of the 28th from Josiah Winslow, governor of the Plymouth colony, to Governor Clarke, demanding the surrender of all Indians, " whether men, women or children," who had been received and entertained on the island and further empowering the captain to conduct them to Plymouth, "and to sell and dispose of them there to the in- habitants or others for term of life or shorter time as there may be reasons." Perhaps the taste for blood of the more gentle Newporters was already sated with the shootings of the 26th. However this may be, the records of the court show a vote that the three Indians, whose trial was in progress, were ordered to be delivered out of the prison to Captain Church, seven more to Captain Anthony Low, who engaged to transport them out of
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the colony, and singular to add, "one more to be at the dispose of Henry Lilly which he receives in full satisfaction for his at- tendance at this court and to be transported as the other to Captain Low." The Henry Lilly thus gratified was the marshall and cryer of the court. That these unfortunate crea- tures were destined to the slave block seems beyond question, Captain Anthony Low commanding a vessel in the westward trade. The records of the court close with the declaration in the name of his majesty " that noe Indian either great or small be landed on any part of Rhode Island or any Island in the Narragansett Bay upon the penalty as formerly imposed upon such offenders ; and they shall be taken as being contumacy of the authority of this colony."
Walter Clarke, the governor, was a Friend, and as such op- posed to the war, which he believed, with many of his sect, might have been averted by negotiation. He does not appear to have attended the court martial, over which it fell to him as governor to preside. . On the contrary, though there is evidence that he was in Newport, the court directed the copy of the transactions to be rendered to the deputy governor, and em- powered that officer to summon them at his pleasure.
From Church's narrative of his father's proceedings in this memorable war, it appears that Captain Church bronght old An- nawan and a half dozen of his Indian soldiers to Rhode Island, sending the rest of his company and his prisoners by his lien- tenant, Jabez Howland, to Plymouth. On his return to Ply- mouth, where the general court was then sitting, he took with him Annawan. Thence he visited Boston, to wait upon Gov- ernor Leverett. On his return to Plymouth "he found to his grief the heads of Annawan, Tispaquin, etc., cut off, which were the last of Philip's friends." Tispaquin was one of the most famous of Philip's captains. Church had captured his wife and children and carried them with him to Plymouth, leaving word to the chief that if he would come in their lives and his would be spared. But his safe conduct seems to have availed not with the stern authorities. For this ruthless barbarity the only ex- cuse is the temper of the times. Governor Hutchinson, in his history, justly observes : "Every person almost in the two col- onies [Massachusetts and Plymouth] had lost a relation or near friend, and the people in general were exasperated; but all does not exonse this great severity. One eleventh of the able bodied
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men of New England are said to have been slain during the two years of the war. and such was the suffering from the inter- ruption of farming that a famine was only averted by the char- itie of London and Dublin."
It is some comfort to know from contemporary authority that, like their comrades at Newport, these chiefs had a soldier's death ; they were shot and their heads cut off, and their bodies quartered after execution. No history of New England nor of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, nor yet of the Island of Rhodes proper, were complete without some narrative of this terrible war, on the result of which the destiny, nay the very life of the English settlements hung. The part taken in it by Rhode Island was not active. While defending themselves they gave aid and comfort to their sister colonies, but little or no armed assistance. Callender sums it up in one graphic phrase : " As to the part this colony had in that war it must be observed that tho' the Colony was not, as they ought to have been, consulted, yet they not only afforded shelter to the fly . ing English, who deserted from many of the neighboring Planta- tions in Plymouth Colony and were received kindly by the inhab- itants and relieved and allowed to plant the next year on their commons for their support ; but they likewise furnished some of the Forces with Provisions and Transports ; and some of their principal Gentlemen, as Major Sanford and Capt. Goulding, were in the action at Mount Hope as Volunteers in Captain Church's Company when King Philip was slain. The Indians never landed on the island in the war time ; armed boats kept plying round to break their canoes and prevent their making any at- tempts. . But our settlements on the Main suffered very much both at Peteqnamseut and at Warwick and at Providence where the Indians burnt all the ungarrisoned and deserted honses. And the inhabitants made many complaints that when the army of the United Colonists returned home they did not leave a suffi- cient number of forces to protect our plantations, which were now in a very peculiar manner exposed to an exasperated and desperate enemy."
This attitude of self defense, as is claimed by the defenders of Rhode Island, of apathy, as was charged by its unfriendly neighbors, was long a subject of bitter quarrel. The agents of the Plymouth colony charged the colonists of Rhode Island with ingratitude to them, indifference to their distresses and a
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want of English spirit. This they ascribed to the authority of Rhode Island being at the time of the war in the hands of the Quakers. But though, as was charged. the governor and lieutenant governor were both of this persnasion, there are military commissions still in being under their hands and seals, to Benedict Arnold, junior, and others, to go in an armed sloop to visit the garrisons at Providence and other towns, and, as Callender justly observes, " It was but reasonable the United Colonists should have left a sufficient guard at least at their own headquarters and some other places while the island, the only part of the colony able to contribute to the charge of the wars, was at so great an expense in supporting and defending the distressed English who ted to them from all the adjacent parts;" and he adds that to confound the slanders of the day the deputy governor gave an affidavit or evidence or solemn en- gagement that " he never was against giving forth any Com- missions to any that might have been " for the security of the King's interest in this colony. The further charge that the Rhode Islanders took in many of the Indians who, ronted and almost subdued, were flying before the victorious and savage English, is not questioned by historians. It was, to say the least, a safe as well as Immane policy. It does not appear that any of those who shared in the burnings, destroying's or massa- cres sought this shelter, but rather the peaceful and helpless, who still clung to the old amity pledged between Massasoit and Roger Williams. Nor yet does it appear that these were ex- empted from the official sale and servitude.
CANONICUS or Quannanone, chief sachem or prince of the Nar- ragansetts, was the oldest son and heir of Canoniens. and the grandson of Tashtassuck, the first of his line of whom there is any account. According to Indian tradition he was the might- iest chief in the country who, having a son and daughter and finding no one equal to them in dignity, married them together. From this union sprung the first Canonicus, the father of the sachem whom the whites found in supreme authority on their coming to the shores of New England. On the arrival of the first Pilgrims he sent them as a warlike message a bundle of ar- rows tied in a snake skin, and received in return, it is said, the skin filled with powder and ball. By the declaration of Canon- jens he and his forefathers had long ruled the country, "hav- ing ourselves been the Chief Sachems or Princes successively
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time out of mind." Under their rule the tribe had extended its territory by wars, its influence by confederacy and its comfort and happiness by peace.
While the Narragansetts were proud and warlike they were not, at least under the role of Canonicus or at any time during their intercourse with the whites, an aggressive tribe. Their conquests were assured, not by tyranny, but by conciliation, and their policy was to absorb the subjected race into their own nation as individuals, or to bind them to themselves as parts of a common confederacy. But for the coming of the English it is probable that, with their advanced ideas, they would have welded the coast tribes of the continent into a great and happy nation. They had every element of power, an extensive coast line for their trade, an understanding of agriculture, a better knowledge of manufacture than their neighbors and, what was of more importance as a political factor, they provided the eur- rency for a large section of country. They showed a keen appreciation of the arts and appliances of civilization and were quick to supply themselves with guns, kettles and tools.
It cannot be supposed that Canoniens looked with any favor upon the coming of the English into his territory. The treaty of alliance which Onsamequin (Massasoit), chief of the Wam- panoags, had made with the Massachusetts had withdrawn from him his most powerful ally and greatly weakened the influence of the Narragansett nation. Roger Williams says of him that "he was most shy of the English to his last breath." It is dif- ficnlt to decide whether the old prince had ever put himself within the power of the whites or visited them at their Massa- clinsetts settlement. In one letter Williams says. " I spend no costs towards them and in gifts to Ousamequin (Massasoit) and all his, and to Canoniens and all his, tokens and presents many years before I came in person to the Narragansett, and there- fore when I came I was welcome to Onsameqnin and the old prince Canonicus." In another he says, " When the hearts of my countrymen and friends and brethren failed me his (the Most High) infinite wisdom and mercy stirred up the barbarons heart of Canoniens to love me as his son to his last gasp, by which means I had not only Miantonomi and all the Cowesit Sachems my friends but Ousamequin also who, because of my great friendship with him at Plymouth and the authority of Canonicus, consented freely (being also well gratified by me) to
15
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the Governor Winthrop's engagement of Prudence, yea of Providence itself, and all the other lands I procured of Canoni- ens which were upon the point, and in fact whatever I desired of him." Thus, as he does not state that he had met Canonicus at Plymouth, it is reasonable to suppose that their first personal interview was when they met in treaty for the settlement in the Narragansett territory which he named Providence.
It is not to be supposed that when Canonicus gave permis- sion to his new friend to settle on his lands, he had the least idea of the nature of an English deed, or supposed that it carried with it any exclusion of himself or his people, or any surrender of his authority over them. By William's letter to Winthrop in 1637, on the subject of the occupancy of the con- quered Pequot territory, it appears that the right of hunting was tacitly reserved everywhere. "I told him (Miantonomi) that they (the Narragansetts) might hunt in the woods as they do in Massachusetts and here notwithstanding the English did generally inhabit; and this satisfied." The Indians themselves had no individual rights in the soil. Williams expressly says that "according to the law and tenor of the natives (as I take it) in all New England and America, viz: that the inferior sachems and subjects shall plant and remove at the pleasure of the high- est and supreme sachems;" such was the habit of the Peru- vians under the Incas. Not that the Narragansett chiefs were long left under this delusion. First they were requested to re- move their Indians, then ordered to remove them and soon for- bidden to sell their lands except to such persons as were agree- able to the new comers. But amid all these encroachments Canoniens held fast to his friendship to Roger Williams. He was already a man of seventy when the settlement of Provi- dence was made. His age and his temper induced him to peace. Moreover his nephew, Miantonomi, then in the vigor of his age and power, was inclined to closer relations with the whites. The old chief yielded no doubt to the more active and superior will.
Roger Williams was at heart and in true spirit a practical missionary. In his zeal, and urged besides by his natural love for the acquisition of languages, he had spent "many a day in their filthy, dirty holes to gain their tongne." Later the chiefs would not trust themselves with the Massachusetts authorities unless he went with them as their interpreter as well as their
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safeguard. So well pleased was Canonicus with him that he gave to him the island of Chibachuwesa ( Prudence) as an inducement to him to settle near himself. A careful study of the history of the period shows that both he and Miantonomi usually yielded to the peaceful counsels of their friend. Roger Williams was in England when the old chief was stricken by the perfidious murder by the "elders of Massachusetts," of his beloved nephew, but had it been otherwise no persuasion of his could have overruled the determination of the Narragansetts for re- venge. On his return he attempted to quench their wrath and to hold them to the league they had subscribed with the Mas- sachusetts, but as he wrote, there was "a spirit of desperation fallen upon them to revenge the death of their prince and re- cover their ransom for his life or to perish with him." It is a satisfaction to know that the result of this expedition was the severe chastisement of the Mohegans, whose sachem, Uncas, was as treacherous a savage as there is any record of.
The United Colonies imposed and collected a forced tribute which precipitated the ruin of the Narragansetts. They were in this crisis of their affairs when Canonieus died, June 4th, 1647. He had already passed his eightieth year. He had once said to Roger Williams, "I have never suffered any wrong to be offered to the English since they landed nor never will. If the Englishman speaks true, if he means truly, then shall I go to my Grave in peace and hope that the English and my pos- terity shall live in love and peace together." To this Roger Williams bore testimony in his appeal in favor of the Narra- gansetts to the general court of Massachusetts some years later. He was then president of Providence colony. "I cannot yet learn that it ever pleased the Lord to permit the Narragansetts to stain their hands with any English blood, neither in open hostilities nor secret murders. % * For the people many
hundred English have experimented them to be inclined to peace and love with the English nation. Their late famous, long-lived Canonicus so lived and died, and in the same honor- able manner and solemnity (in their way) as you laid to sleep your prudent peace-maker, Mr. Winthrop, did they honor this, their prudent and peaceful Prince." The burial of an Indian chief was an impressive ceremonial. On that of the son of Canonicus, the father burned his own home, with all its con- tents, that the young brave might want for nothing in the spirit
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land. Hardly more than a decade had passed since Canonicus received the exiled, landless wanderer to his broad and beauti- fnl territory, and to the protection of his proud and powerful nation ; yet that decade had sufficed to strip him of his lands, his people and his authority, nearly to the last vestige.
In 1883 the Rhode Island Historical Society, with suitable ceremonies and addresses, erected a boulder memorial in a place called the Glen, in the North burial ground at Providence, to the great chief. The site is now known as the Sachem's Glen. The boulder was a short time before nnearthed in the town. It is a symetrically shaped, oblong rock of primitive granite, about five feet in height and two feet square. It bears the name of Canonicus, and beneath the carving of a rude bow and arrow.
MIANTONOMI, or Mecumeh, prince sachem of the Narragan- setts, was the nephew of Canoniens, the son of his youngest brother, Mascus-so Roger Williams testifies in a solemn depo- sition made in 1682, in reference to his purchase of the lands about Providence from these two sachems. Canonions, he says, was the heir, and Miantonomi, "his Marshall and Executioner, and did nothing without his uncle Canoniens' consent." He first appears in history as leading his tribe in 1636 to the rescue of the Niantic country abont Misquamicut and the month of the Pawcatnek river from the dominion of the Pequots, who, in the year 1632, had, in a fierce struggle with the Niantic tribe, "extended their territory ten miles east of the Pawca- tuck." Overcome by their superior force, the eastern Niantics had called on the aid of Canonicus and making an alliance with the Narragansetts, had become tributary to their power. To this Wawatoam, the wife of Miantonomi, gives certain testi- mony in her confirmation of Socho or Sosoa or Sassawwaw's title to the land of Misquamient, " Whereas my uncle Nine- gret sayeth that it is his land, I, Wawatoam, do utterly deny it before all men for it was conquered by my husband, Miantono- my, and my uncle, Canoniens, long before the English had any war with the Pequots, therefore 1, Wawatoam, do really con- firm it and affirm it to be Socho's land." Socho was a renegade Pequot who, as Roger Williams informed Governor Winthrop, had deserted his native tribe and become Miantonomi's "special darling and a kind of General of his forces." For his service in this successful campaign, which forced the Pequots to the westward of their river, Socho received a grant of the territory
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